MSI and ASUS Send VGA Review Samples With Higher Clocks Than Retail Cards

[HKZeroFive]

Quote

MSI and ASUS have been sending us review samples for their graphics cards with higher clock speeds out of the box, than what consumers get out of the box. The cards TechPowerUp has been receiving run at a higher software-defined clock speed profile than what consumers get out of the box. Consumers have access to the higher clock speed profile, too, but only if they install a custom app by the companies, and enable that profile. This, we feel, is not 100% representative of retail cards, and is questionable tactics by the two companies. This BIOS tweaking could also open the door to more elaborate changes like a quieter fan profile or different power management.

MSI's factory-overclocked GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X graphics card comes with three software-defined clock-speed profiles, beginning with the "Gaming Mode," which is what the card runs at, out of the box, the faster "OC mode," and the slower "Silent mode," which runs the card at reference clock speeds. To select between the modes, you're expected to install the MSI Gaming software from the driver DVD, and use that software to apply clock speeds of your desired mode. Turns out, that while the retail cards (the cards you find in the stores) run in "Gaming mode" out of the box, the review samples MSI has been sending out, run at "OC mode" out of the box.

 

In case of the GTX 1080 Gaming X, the "Gaming mode" runs the card at 1683 MHz core and 1822 MHz GPU Boost; and the "OC mode" runs it at 1708 MHz core and 1847 MHz GPU Boost. The cards consumers buy will run in the "Gaming mode" out of the box, which presumably is the default factory-overclock of these cards, since they're branded under the "Gaming series."

 

With the case of the GTX 1080 at hand, we started looking back at our previous reviews and were shocked to realize that this practice has been going on for years in MSI's case. It looks like ASUS has just started with it, probably because their competitor does it, too, so it must be ok.

 

Tsk, tsk, tsk... shame on you MSI and ASUS for not playing fair, even when I myself personally love MSI's cards. Obviously the difference isn't huge but the principle remains the same - misleading benchmarks can influence a consumer's decision on which card to buy, even if the FPS difference is marginal. Funnily, this 'scandal' was unravelled Damien Triolet, one of the guys who found out about the whole GTX 970 3.5GB. So what do you guys think? Is it that big of a deal or not?

 

Sources: TechPowerUp + Hardware.Fr (French)

[don_svetlio]

It's false advertising but eh

[Guuhan]

Yes, it's just the fact that they are misleading their customers. In life we have something that is called respect and trust. They start playing with fire there lol.

[Alexcalibur]

Naughty

[RNGesusHatesMe]

false advertising = bad but i aint even shocked gotta earn those dollariedoos some how 

[Misanthrope]

Meh only a tiny bit dubious: thanks to Luke and Jayz2cents I come to expect reviewers to always overclock the cards heavily. This means that since a bit of instability it's acceptable, they all top out at around the same clocks and thus the base clock they ship with hardly matters. 

[-BirdiE-]

Ehh.. It's not the MOST ethical thing... But it's not like it's performance that consumers don't have access to out of the box.. They just need to click the "OC Mode" button if I read this right..

[atrash]

In the end, people will still buy their products and casually dismiss this kind of behaviour/antic because it's nothing major and also brand loyalty is still a thing you know. 

[Ganz]

I honestly don't feel like it's that big of deal due to the fact that it's something every customer can obtain.  Now, if they were sending lottery winners with significant overclocks to the point not every one can achieve then I'd say bad.  But, considering you just have to get software to enable the feature I don't see it as bad.

[Megahurt]

25 MHz on a card that boosts to above 1,9 GHz, it's probably smaller than the margin of error, still wrong, but not something any consumer will notice. I think it's rather stupid to take the risk of bad publicity, for such a small gap.

[don_svetlio]

1 minute ago, Megahurt said:

25 MHz on a card that boosts to above 1,9 GHz, it's probably smaller than the margin of error, still wrong, but not something any consumer will notice. I think it's rather stupid to take the risk of bad publicity, for such a small gap.

Thing is - a LOT of uninformed non-techies just buy the highest clocked one cause "JIGAHERTZ!"

[Misanthrope]

3 minutes ago, -BirdiE- said:

Ehh.. It's not the MOST ethical thing... But it's not like it's performance that consumers don't have access to out of the box.. They just need to click the "OC Mode" button if I read this right..

(I agree but to play Devils advocate) How much you manage to overclock it's a bit of a crap shoot it,  might be barely anything past boost clocks. 

 

[Nacho Marco Segui]

At least you can get the full turbo boost with the touch of a button, I can't do that with my 970's Vram 

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, Nacho Marco Segui said:

At least you can get the full turbo boost with the touch of a button, I can't do that with my 970's Vram 

3.5GB master race

[ZestyJalapeno]

It's like less than 2% variation. That's more than acceptable for margin of error. Sure, I think they did handpick the results a little and that shit has to go out the window (who doesn't do it these days) but a <2% core clock sigma is not going to mean a thing when it's like 140 fps vs 141.22142341.

[Misanthrope]

11 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Thing is - a LOT of uninformed non-techies just buy the highest clocked one cause "JIGAHERTZ!"

Reminds me of people advertising the amd 8350 as a 32ghz processor ???

[Kunter]

31 minutes ago, -BirdiE- said:

Ehh.. It's not the MOST ethical thing... But it's not like it's performance that consumers don't have access to out of the box.. They just need to click the "OC Mode" button if I read this right..

Unless you are Linux user, those pieces of software never work on Linux.

I know that probably any linux who cares for the clock will be able to overclock it manually with nvidia-smi, but still, as linux user that seems like false advertisement.

[Centurius]

Couldn't care less, it'd be a lot more damning if they picked the best chips for the review samples while putting trash tier ones in the retail gpus.

[NumLock21]

39 minutes ago, -BirdiE- said:

Ehh.. It's not the MOST ethical thing... But it's not like it's performance that consumers don't have access to out of the box.. They just need to click the "OC Mode" button if I read this right..

It says the supplied software must be installed to access oc mode. But most don't install it. So out of the box, it runs at the default slower gaming mode, while the review samples, by default, runs at the faster oc mode. This misleads the consumers into thinking their cards will run at the faster oc mode without the need to install the supplied software that came with the card.

[lukart]

Shame they dont sell cars otherwise they would have to pay heavy fines!

From what I been told by editor friends, it seems MSI sent them samples with Bios that do not match retail cards in the fan settings, so they look better on the tests.

[suicidalfranco]

if it were AMD, this thread would have already been 10 pages long  

[Deletist_Jerk]

The review samples overclock like a beast too and I doubt it's just 1080. 

 

I've seen 2.1+ GHz on almost every single review of MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X. There was a LTT Forum member who canceled his 1080 order for 1070 Gaming X, because of the high clocks on 1070 review beating out stock 1080.  

[White Rabbit]

http://cdn.videocardz.com/1/2016/06/MSI-GTX-1080-review-vs-retail.jpg  
As you can see, the retail card's boost clock is at 1823MHz, whereas the review sample's boost clock is at 1848MHz. At first, it looks obvious that MSI has given a "modified" card to the reviewer. However, if you look at MSI's website, the card is advertised to have a 1847MHz boost clock: https://us.msi.com/Graphics-card/GeForce-GTX-1080-GAMING-X-8G.html#hero-specification TechpowerUp's card is 1MHz within MSI's own specifications. The card's "OC mode", which enables the higher frequencies, is a feature present on ALL MSI cards, from the 1080 all the way back to the 780: https://us.msi.com/Graphics-card/N780-TF-3GD5OC#hero-specification  
 
MSI and Asus aren't alone in this. As you can see, there is clearly a gaming and OC mode for Gigabyte's 980 Ti G1 and 1080 G1: http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5472#sp http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=5915#sp  
 
There is nothing "questionable" about these features. The cards are guaranteed to run within the OC mode frequencies, and any one that doesn't is probably defective. If you have an MSI 1080 Gaming X but don't want to use MSI's OC software, feel free to overclock the card manually in order to reach the OC mode clock frequencies. Your card will still run within specifications.

[patrickjp93]

3 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

if it were AMD, this thread would have already been 10 pages long  

No it wouldn't. Sapphire and Power Color did this with the 290X and no one even sneezed.

[TheRandomness]

I like the way the 1080 and the 290 have the same amount of stream processors (yes I know there's a huge difference in performance)