EVGA puts an end to the silicon lottery for the first time ever with the GTX 980 Ti K|NGP|N

Grinners · July 23, 2015

An better solution would have been just two tiers; the top 1% of cards and "the rest".

This way those that want the bleeding edge will get it and those that want the lottery will get it without MUCH of an average decrease.

Further to this, I'm not sure that many people will be buying the middle tiers anyway.

alphaproject · July 23, 2015

This is such a terrible idea. Huge cash grab that will probably work with people looking to burn a hole in their pocket.

Like a few megahertz better..... come on man.... It's already so over priced because it's KingPin. Now you gotta pay for the Asic quality.

Good god.

Arty · July 23, 2015

My concern for this kind of business model is that it will encourage EVGA to specifically bin regular (non "pre-binned") cards as all the low end "under 72% ASIC" reject cards.

In other words, unless you pay more upfront for a guaranteed ASIC level, you're going to get screwed. Anyone who wants to take their chances with the silicon lottery will end up with all the cards that didn't make the higher cut.

At least, that's the risk. Hopefully they're only even checking a very small number of their GPU's.

Didn't think of this, but now its totally going to happen...im sure it was happening a little bit before obs, but now even more.

VSG · July 23, 2015

Don't be naive.

Those chips will be sold at some point; EVGA will not want money sitting idle in inventory.

The statement about not selling them immediately is their PR department attempting to protect their reputation and avoid a precipitous drop in sales when people realise the sheer enormity of the implications of EVGA's decision.

The part that went unnoticed here in my post was "for now". I imagine a "reference edition" popping in soon, or even a general KPE SKU once this ASIC business is done- this is temporary only, and a single SKU will launch soon for all retailers.