Why does ATI limit overclocks and Nvidia do not.

RavenXXX2 · 27 Aug 2010 at 09:31

To sum up, ATI withhold the maximum potential performance of their cards by setting limits in the bios to stop getting decent overclocks, may this be for financial reasons to make people buy a more expensive higher clocked card or safety reasons to stop the inexperience people out there that purchase £200+ GFX cards but can't be trusted to overclock, who knows. Nvidia do not limit any overclocking potential giving you free access to the cards potential max performance, simples.

k3vst3r · 27 Aug 2010 at 09:48

RavenXXX2 said:
To sum up, ATI withhold the maximum potential performance of their cards by setting limits in the bios to stop getting decent overclocks, may this be for financial reasons to make people buy a more expensive higher clocked card or safety reasons to stop the inexperience people out there that purchase £200+ GFX cards but can't be trusted to overclock, who knows. Nvidia do not limit any overclocking potential giving you free access to the cards potential max performance, simples.

More likely to limit RMA's due to people going nuts an breaking their gpu, then expecting them to replace it free of charge.

Stanners · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:02

k3vst3r said:
More likely to limit RMA's due to people going nuts an breaking their gpu, then expecting them to replace it free of charge.

I think that about sums it up, fair enough really.

Martini1991 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:07

Given it's down at BIOS level it's down to the vendor.
Raven's just trolling.

RavenXXX2 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:12

Wow you really have no clue, as explained earlier the initial bios clocks are set by ATI, please exit the thread.

k3vst3r said:
More likely to limit RMA's due to people going nuts an breaking their gpu, then expecting them to replace it free of charge.

Yeah top end GPU's have thermal protection as well as other features to protect the card, the card will just lock up and the driver will recover when clocked too far, it's not issue IMO and nvidia do not see as an issue either. Fair enough if a company is using cheap components that they don't trust then maybe yes.

Martini1991 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:13

RavenXXX2 said:
Wow you really have no clue, as explained earlier the initial bios clocks are set by ATI, please exit the thread.

And the AIB can't modify them just like we can? :rolleyes:

You're a full on troll raging with whatever card you've got at the time.

EDIT : You're a part of the Nvidia collective are you now Raven? "Nvidia don't feel the need to cap". Bla bla bla.

TNA · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:18

To me, this makes a lot more sense:

k3vst3r said:
More likely to limit RMA's due to people going nuts an breaking their gpu, then expecting them to replace it free of charge.

then this:

RavenXXX2 said:
To sum up, ATI withhold the maximum potential performance of their cards by setting limits in the bios to stop getting decent overclocks, may this be for financial reasons to make people buy a more expensive higher clocked card or safety reasons to stop the inexperience people out there that purchase £200+ GFX cards but can't be trusted to overclock, who knows. Nvidia do not limit any overclocking potential giving you free access to the cards potential max performance, simples.

ATI in my opinion are doing a favour for the noobs. The way I see it even a complete noob knows how to use Google or post and ask on a forum. I was a noob like nearly 10 years ago, quess what, I used Google!

Even if you were right, which you are not. Then I still find what Nvidia did with their prices a few years ago and constant re-branding of same cards to shaft noobs a million times worse then this.

So yeah, to sum it up, you now have an Nvidia card and for some reason you can't stop bashing ATI cards. To me you sound like silly fanboy.

Martini1991 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:20

I'm sure I said the reason in my first post, the comical 5570 at over 9000MHZ =/.

kylew · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:21

I still can't get my head around how it's a big problem. You're talking about changing a 0 to a 1 in a .cfg file...

Is it really that bad to simply do this?

RavenXXX2 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:21

@Martini1991 You're derailing the thread like others, please stop it, you offer no explanation on the thread subject matter so leave it. ATI set the clocks and send the cards out to the AIB's and they sell them on, yes we can flash the bios but that voids the warranty, as said nvidia cards ship with high clock limits, no need to flash a bios or modify any files.

@kylew, at last someone who has something valid to post, yes easy to change the value but as said it screws up powerplay and...

Added configuration file switch allowing power users to unlock unofficial overclocking codepath in AMD display drivers (similar to AMDGPUClockTool, ATITool and RivaTuner overclocking implementation on AMD graphics cards).
Unlike AMD's official ADL SDK overclocking ways, unofficial ones are not limited with CCC clock limit but have some alternate disadvantages (e.g. PowerPlay support limitation).
Please take a note that unofficial overclocking methods are not supported either by AMD or by MSI, so unlock and use it at your own risk.

Martini1991 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:22

RavenXXX2;17249837[B said:
]You're derailing the thread like others[/B], please stop it, you offer no explanation on the thread subject matter so leave it. ATI set the clocks and send the cards out to the AIB's and they sell them on, yes we can flash the bios but that voids the warranty, as said nvidia cards ship with high clock limits, no need to flash a bios or modify any files.

You what?.
Does the Nvidia control panel allow for voltage modification? Didn't think so.

bhavv · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:25

Martini1991 said:
You what?.
Does the Nvidia control panel allow for voltage modification? Didn't think so.

Now theres a good one.

Nvidia dont support overclocking at all, only the AIBs do.

BTW Afterburner is an MSI / Rivatuner overclcking tool. Whether it or any similar tool works or not is not indictive to the GPU manufacturer supporting overclocking.

ATI allow overclocking in their driver settings. Nvidia do not.

If you are capable of overclocking on an Nvidia card, then you are easilly capable of bypassing the overclock limit on an ATI card, its really not that hard to do.

Martini1991 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:26

He enjoys riling people up, nothing more, nothing less.
Negating the "Afterburner hack" one could just flash the BIOS, which is simple, "Void warranty you say?", I'm sure earlier you said an E-tailer wouldn't know the cards been OC'ed, and reverting the BIOS is simple.

RavenXXX2 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:27

Does the CCC? no, read thread title again, it's not about voltage adjustment.

bhavv said:
ATI allow overclocking in their driver settings. Nvidia do not.

Download Ntune by nvidia, it installs in to the control panel and allows overclocking.

Martini1991 said:
He enjoys riling people up, nothing more, nothing less.
Negating the "Afterburner hack" one could just flash the BIOS, which is simple, "Void warranty you say?", I'm sure earlier you said an E-tailer wouldn't know the cards been OC'ed, and reverting the BIOS is simple.

Good luck reversing the bios on a dead card, and if they do get it working that's your warranty bust.

Martini1991 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:28

RavenXXX2 said:
Does the CCC? no, read thread title again, it's not about voltage adjustment.

What's your point?
We're not fussed, you however, an Nvidia user, now seem to be annoyed at this annoyance, are you not annoyed your card doesn't support voltage modification from the Control panel?

k3vst3r · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:29

He's talking about losing powerplay

bhavv · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:30

RavenXXX2 said:
yes we can flash the bios but that voids the warranty

Overclocking on an Nvidia brand that does not support overclocking also voids the warranty, so your point is pointless.

You dont have to bios flash at all if you pick the right card in the first place. And the last I checked, MSI / Asus cards are hardly any more expensive than other brands.

Martini1991 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:31

k3vst3r said:
He's talking about losing powerplay

A while back we never used to lose powerplay.
I'm OC'ed and I idle 400/1300 at 46c on my card, I haven't got a problem with that.
If it's such an annoyance you can create a 2D profile, which is no harder than overclocking the card anyways... Get this, with the same software :rolleyes:

kylew · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:31

bhavv said:
Overclocking on an Nvidia brand that does not support overclocking also voids the warranty, so your point is pointless.

You dont have to bios flash at all if you pick the right card in the first place. And the last I checked, MSI / Asus cards are hardly any more expensive than other brands.

You don't have to flash the bios at all, I have a Powercolour 2GB 5870 which is a reference model, and I just have to enable unofficial overclocking in that Afterburner config file. Seems really simple to me, and I don't lose powerplay if I set a fan profile for 2D and 3D in afterburner either.

RavenXXX2 · 27 Aug 2010 at 10:32

I though it was common knowledge there is absolutely noway to know if a card has been clocked or not, a bios flash is a dead give away, so that excuse holds no water.

Regarding powerplay and unofficial overclocking, yes there are known issues with flash content and HD content, it's in the afterburner readme, see all the hoops you need to jump through to overclock your expensive ATI card.