Obviously the high end AIB cards will be better, they're almost always vastly superior.
Doesn't mean the ref PCB isn't well engineered.
That's not true. NVIDIA claimed top engineering from the FE.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=38242302&postcount=87
Watch it yourself.
Clearly, the AIB vendors will be the ones to offer that once the FE reference run is over.
Overclocking doesn't matter anymore either. Oh and heat doesn't matter too.
If the FE1070/FE1080 ain't your jam, why not buy a card that better suits your needs from one of the AIB vendors?
I can't honestly believe that somebody who goes to such great lengths to try to educate people on how to get the best value for their $ on these boards would purposely buy an inferior product at a worse price just to send a message to a corporation that will not be received .
What makes it worse is that Computerbase used a low air flow case - Fractal Design R5 - exactly the "optimal" case which calls for a blower. Under these conditions, the card failed to reach 1733mhz boost after 20 minutes of gaming in every game other than the AofS. This proves the card fails exactly under the conditions it was designed to excel in over an open air cooled card. That's an engineering failure then because in a case with good to great airflow, the open air cooled card will destroy it. If the blower cannot even deliver promised spec performance in a case with poor airflow, then it has no purpose other than for those who water cool and/or intend to use miniATX boards in SLI. I bet NV loves that it will now shove $449/699 FE cards down BestBuy and OEM markets where most consumers aren't tech savvy to know how much of a blunder the FE cooler is.
Notice Computerbase has Max results in their chart that prevents throttling? To get there took 48 dBA in the same case/test bed where Sapphire Fury Nitro is 36 dBA and Fury X is 37 dBA:
http://www.computerbase.de/2016-05/geforce-gtx-1080-test/9/
I guess now noise levels and temperatures and GPU Boost throttling don't matter either, just performance. Goal posts moved again.
It means less crazy overclock ability and more responsible amounts of performance. It also means AIB premium versions will eat this premium reference card for breakfast.
That sexy shroud though... makes you wanna reference everything
1080 is simply repeating 290x fiasco.
only way to fix this is to jack up the reference blower to a custom fan profile or go aftermarket cooling or go water cooling.
want to go out on a limb and say that all the benchmarks are wrong due to the fact that those benchmarks are cold starts.
fact. a 290x reference with a custom fan profile is rock solid. even in an 80 degree room.
VRM Phases are like tiny power filters which clean up variances in the power delivery to the GPU. Basically, the GPU board is fed 12v of power but the GPU needs far less than that (usually between 1-1.3v). What the VRMs do is phase the power down from 12v to the required 1.xv. Each phase step cleans the power to a larger degree and ensures less vDroop. VDroop happens when the supplied voltage drops unexpectedly. Such drops cause stability issues in the operation of the GPU which are more apparent when overclocking.
This means that NVIDIA have decided to omit one phase which results in a higher chance of vDroop on a card which has a high operating GPU frequency. This inhibits overclocking on a board being sold based on marketing fluff claiming that it is well engineered. Basically the marketing is false.
NVIDIA are cutting corners in order to improve their profit margins whilst also charging a premium tax on early adopters.
1080 is simply repeating 290x fiasco.
only way to fix this is to jack up the reference blower to a custom fan profile or go aftermarket cooling or go water cooling.
want to go out on a limb and say that all the benchmarks are wrong due to the fact that those benchmarks are cold starts.
fact. a 290x reference with a custom fan profile is rock solid. even in an 80 degree room.
There are two reasons explaining this:I like how suddenly people are comparing the R290 reference to the GTX1080. The reference coolers on the R290 was terrible especially the noise profile. And those were cooling almost 300W GPUs in the real world.
I dont seem to recall a negative reception over the Titan reference titan cooler used to cool a 250W GPU? I do however recall people liking the reference design, the noise profile etc.
Now all of a sudden, we have the GTX1080 (TDP of 180W) that uses a similar cooler but people are complaining that its a POS, loud and hot etc etc. Im literally lost on this one.
They're also reaping the rewards of average buyers and enthusiasts that don't care buying every single card they produce within minutes of availability.It should be obvious why. Nvidia has posited that this same old tired reference cooler and PCB is suddenly deserving of a $100 premium now. So it's being put to the scrutiny of that price hike and failing to meet that premium miserably.
If not for the founders blunder, the card would have been much better received. They really screwed up the whole marketing,out of character for nvidia and they are reaping the bad PR of the mistake.
I like how suddenly people are comparing the R290 reference to the GTX1080. The reference coolers on the R290 was terrible especially the noise profile. And those were cooling almost 300W GPUs in the real world.
I dont seem to recall a negative reception over the Titan reference titan cooler used to cool a 250W GPU? I do however recall people liking the reference design, the noise profile etc.
Now all of a sudden, we have the GTX1080 (TDP of 180W) that uses a similar cooler but people are complaining that its a POS, loud and hot etc etc. Im literally lost on this one.
I like how suddenly people are comparing the R290 reference to the GTX1080. The reference coolers on the R290 was terrible especially the noise profile. And those were cooling almost 300W GPUs in the real world.
I dont seem to recall a negative reception over the Titan reference titan cooler used to cool a 250W GPU? I do however recall people liking the reference design, the noise profile etc.
Now all of a sudden, we have the GTX1080 (TDP of 180W) that uses a similar cooler but people are complaining that its a POS, loud and hot etc etc. Im literally lost on this one.
Amazing.
Not a single retail card has been seen yet, and many have pronounced the card dead.
this is actually a very frustrating point about the forum rules. especially when this is suppose to be a top, serious hardware forum.Overclocking doesn't matter anymore either. Oh and heat doesn't matter too.
I swear, you can't make this up. I'd like to create a collage of folks who make changing claims as generations of GPUs release in an effort to back their favorite side. No doubt I'd get banned though.
Um no. Clearly you dont have a good understanding in this field neither do most of the posters which is ok because I can explain it.
The VRM is basically a buck converter. So that one can step down (otherwise known as "bucking down" i.e buck) the 12V to what ever the voltage the GPU requires. This could be between 1~1.3V as you have said.
Now normally, having 1 buck converter is enough for most applications. But because the GPU requires alot of current (100~300A full load), you need duplicates of the same buck converter to satisfy the power requirement. Or else you'll end up with very very large components especially the DC inductor otherwise known as chokes (the large square things you see on the board - they come in all sorts of sizes/shapes/materials btw).
The converters are synchronized to share the load, and the number of buck converters you have are often referred as "the number of phases". E.g. 3 would mean 3 buck converters.
Now performance of these are normally judged on the following (alright there is ALOT more than this but lets keep it simple):
1) Output power capability
2) Output ripple voltage (also output noise)
3) Cost (for obvious reasons)
Output power capability is often dependent on the number of phases and how beefy the components are. More phases means more output power can be delivered to the load. More beefy the components are (they can handle more current with good electrical parameters like low on resistance) the more output power one phase can deliver.
Output ripple voltage really depends on how well the circuit has been designed (even if they are all doing the same thing). Using expensive components can help but best performance comes from the design equations themselves. I remember from that video presentation they had showed how they reduced the output ripple noise by half which means they really did their homework.
You talk about vdroop, but it essentially means how the buck converter copes with load steps. You'll see these spikes and dips when the load is constantly changing (150W to 50W, 20W to 200W etc). The number of phases has NOTHING to do with this. This is purely dependent on how well the feedback loop is designed of that converter i.e. how well it reacts to the sudden change of output load.
The conclusion I'd like to make is that, more phases =/= robustness or better. Your idle power consumption could actually be worse. The only primary benefits you'd get is that the heat is more spread out and you have the ability to supply more power to the GPU if it requires. Some of the downsides would be that having more phases could result in more output noise which of course isn't desirable (this one is arguable). The overall efficiency might be worse off too but that too depends on how well its designed.
However the primary point I want to make is that "Phases" aren't reflective of the actual performance of the VRM in terms of how clean the output voltage is, or how well responds to step loads.
So claiming that they've gimped something because you see that not all components are soldered on is quite a rookie thing to say if not ignorant (actually its quite funny). There is much more to it than what the un-trained eye is telling you. If their slides showing the oscilloscope wave capture + the efficiency curve is true, they've done an excellent job without having to use all that fancy components that the AIBs like to flaunt (its literally meaningless, well in my view anyway).
Um no. Clearly you dont have a good understanding in this field neither do most of the posters which is ok because I can explain it.
The converters are synchronized to share the load, and the number of buck converters you have are often referred as "the number of phases". E.g. 3 would mean 3 buck converters.
As if the 290x is capable of overclocking at all. 15% under air or 16% under water according to hwbot which seem way higher than actual OCs.Excellent post.
I would add one more thing that makes reference 290 >> 1080FE.
Both coolers are trash and can't handle the card, but at least r9 290 have a quality PCB that can supply immense amount of power:
290x:
1080FE missing one phase on VRM - quality premium design D: :
I guess you would have to pay $200 premium to get fully populated reference board! What a failure.
So here it is, for 290 you could get $40 -$70 aftermarket cooling:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/r9-290-accelero-xtreme-290,3671-4.html
Or put it under water and OC it to the moon. Something you can't do with 1080Fe because the premium design is missing VRM phase!
They are asking $100 premium, yet they skipped a VRM components for a total of $1.5 savings. Give me a break!