Asus and MSI caught sending reviewers higher clocked cards than retail

Kaotik

Kaotik

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(mods please move if there's already a thread for cases like this)

http://www.techpowerup.com/223440/m...-samples-with-higher-clocks-than-retail-cards

MSI has been doing it at least since GTX 7xx / R9 2xx -era, possibly even earlier, Asus started it with GTX 980 Ti and now continues with 1080.

Basically, they send reviewers cards which are by default set to "OC"-clock-profile, which runs faster than the standard "Gaming"-profile, which the retail cards ship with. The "OC"-profile is available for regular users too, but only if they install the manufacturers own app which lets you switch between silent/gaming/oc modes
 
This is not cool when the products that a consumer can buy aren't identical to the products that actually get reviewed.

I'm totally chill with factory-overclocked cards. I'm even ok with those Intel motherboards that run at like a 102MHz BLCK so they win benchmarks. I think it's ok because the consumer actually gets that benefit by default without having to mess around with anything.

But providing a reviewer with a product that performs differently than the product that a consumer can buy is not cool.
 
Kaotik said:
Basically, they send reviewers cards which are by default set to "OC"-clock-profile, which runs faster than the standard "Gaming"-profile, which the retail cards ship with. The "OC"-profile is available for regular users too, but only if they install the manufacturers own app which lets you switch between silent/gaming/oc modes
Click to expand...

I read the article, but a thing is not clear to me: ALL sold cards can reach that 'OC' profile, or it depends by binning and so some cards can, some other not?

I mean, is it a setting just for power use/noise, but it is guaranteed to work on ALL cards at the same way or... no?
 
pMax said:
I read the article, but a thing is not clear to me: ALL sold cards can reach that 'OC' profile, or it depends by binning and so some cards can, some other not?

I mean, is it a setting just for power use/noise, but it is guaranteed to work on ALL cards at the same way or... no?
Click to expand...
It is guaranteed to work on all cards, yes, but you can only access it via manufacturers own app. OC'ing "gaming profile" to said speeds isn't officially supported, just like any other OC'ing isn't.
 
pMax said:
I read the article, but a thing is not clear to me: ALL sold cards can reach that 'OC' profile, or it depends by binning and so some cards can, some other not?

I mean, is it a setting just for power use/noise, but it is guaranteed to work on ALL cards at the same way or... no?
Click to expand...

Its an "one button overclock" ( profile ). As you find on some motherboard bios with CPU you have a margin, so for peoples who dont know how to overclock, they give this solution as a " Boost" the performance easely. hence why the overclock is marginal in most case. ( 26mhz and some memory clock ).

This permit too to push the "gaming OC" performance marketing of the gpu.

Now for thoses "automatic OC" button.. Keep in mind that it increase the stock clock speed and minimal boost clock speed ( under normal condition ), the resulting boost clock speed, could still be way higher depending of the game and chip you have and this dont remove the throttling who can occurs if other limit are reached ( TDP, temp limitation etc ) .

So you can see, let say, 1709mmhz in the driver and GPU-z, but the real clock speed can still be different. I suspect that it increase too the power limit slighty (100% become 105%,as we have allready see it by the past with a certain Nvidia driver ( for 980TI,. Nivida have suddenly up the TDP limit by 5% ( but it was still shown 100% ), and temp limit was 87°C instead of 83°C )...

If the stock and boost stock speed are easy to check with GPU-z, other limit changed are way different.

Im pretty sure that it allow for more stable clockspeed under the same condition. I suspect that it was not much for few fps in can give, but more for have less variation across the games tested and keep more stable clockspeed ( less throttling ) across the test.. Ofc, for most games the difference is only a few %, but it is across all games tested... given more predictable result across reviews.
 
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lanek said:
Its an "one button overclock" ( profile ). As you find on some motherboard bios with CPU you have a margin, so for peoples who dont know how to overclock, they give this solution as a " Boost" the performance easely. hence why the overclock is marginal in most case. ( 26mhz and some memory clock ).
Click to expand...

yep, i was wondering if it was a -let's say- guaranteed minimal margin or not. With that, I have personally no problem - I do not see it. If it was dependent on GPU binning etc. in a way it is not available on all those cards - I would have called it 'cheating', from a personal POV.
 
pMax said:
yep, i was wondering if it was a -let's say- guaranteed minimal margin or not. With that, I have personally no problem - I do not see it. If it was dependent on GPU binning etc. in a way it is not available on all those cards - I would have called it 'cheating', from a personal POV.
Click to expand...

Well its exactly as if you create a profile witth your own clock OC, and set it under "MY OC setting 1 " .. The problem here is, it should not been set by default, under the default setting reported by the driver, but only when you select this profile. who was not the case with the card send by MSI and Asus, basically the profile was set by default to it in the bios, but overclocked profile was enabled . So reviewers think they test the gpu at default, normal setting, when in reality the OC profile was enabled. Completely hidden the fact that they use not the default profile.
 
From The Tech Report: "MSI responds to GeForce 10-series firmware doping fracas."

The Tech Report said:
MSI released a statement [which explains] that reviewers generally don't use software like the MSI Gaming app, and MSI feels that its products aren't being represented properly in independent reviews as a result. To make sure that potential customers are aware of the true performance available from the Gaming X cards, MSI says it sent cards to reviewers with a modified firmware that forces the card to run in OC mode full-time.
Click to expand...
 
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Don't reviewers use the partner software usually when testing the overclocking potential of the cards separately from the normal performance?
 
Malo said:
Don't reviewers use the partner software usually when testing the overclocking potential of the cards separately from the normal performance?
Click to expand...
I would assume it depends on the card, most often I've seen people using MSI Afterburner
 
I think some will use the software that's provided with the card. I've noticed Guru3D using Gigabyte's software when he reviewed the 980ti, but for the most part as mentioned above they use MSI Afterburner or Evga PrecisionX.
 
ASUS also has a response, which was actually from a while ago but it wasn't linked to in this thread.

ASUSTeK said:
To save media time and effort, OC mode is enabled by default as we are well aware our graphics cards will be reviewed primarily on maximum performance. And when in OC mode, we can showcase both the maximum performance and the effectiveness of our cooling solution.
Click to expand...

By the way, the above TechReport article has been edited with the addition of MSI's full statement.

MSI said:
As several reviewers have stated, software like the MSI Gaming App is often not used in reviews. This is why review samples of the MSI GeForce GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 GAMING X graphics cards are set to ‘OC Mode’ to ensure that reviews demonstrate the same performance available through the MSI Gaming App. The award winning TWIN FROZR VI cooling is designed to handle each performance profile flawlessly, giving you the lowest noise in the industry and consistent performance so gamers can focus on their gameplay.
Click to expand...
 
iMacmatician said:
ASUS also has a response, which was actually from a while ago but it wasn't linked to in this thread.



By the way, the above TechReport article has been edited with the addition of MSI's full statement.
Click to expand...

Full translation.

We want to make sure reviewers do their proper duty and show that our card is faster in OC mode than our competitor's cards in default mode! However, there's no need to confuse their readers, so we won't mention this when sending out review cards so that reviewers won't feel obligated to tell their readers that our cards are running in OC mode while our competitor's cards are running in default mode

It's all legit. Honest! You can trust us.

Regards,
SB
 
Silent_Buddha said:
Full translation.

We want to make sure reviewers do their proper duty and show that our card is faster in OC mode than our competitor's cards in default mode! However, there's no need to confuse their readers, so we won't mention this when sending out review cards so that reviewers won't feel obligated to tell their readers that our cards are running in OC mode while our competitor's cards are running in default mode

It's all legit. Honest! You can trust us.

Regards,
SB
Click to expand...

The most funny is the reviewers, who could have write: " If you want a small free increase of performance, you can too install the xxxx apps from xxxxx and apply the OC mode. " But it seems many reviewers was allready aware of this since a long long time, as they explain today, they was ask for the default bios, or was underclock the gpu themselves. Only readers was not aware of this it seems.
 
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Testing w/ and w/o would double the time spent on reviewing, not really that good, and I'm not sure that many people do overclock (I never do)...
 
Rodéric said:
Testing w/ and w/o would double the time spent on reviewing, not really that good, and I'm not sure that many people do overclock (I never do)...
Click to expand...
Sorry I've not read the initial report, but are they actually overclocking, or just running a profile that's called overclock(OC)?
I.e. uses more power, and is louder but within the rated capabilities of the card?
So OC is just a marketing term same way HYPER XTREAM mode would be.
 
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