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Earlier this week, a fairly interesting article hit the web accusing both Asus and MSI of sending out modified GTX 1080s to the press, which would perform around 1% better than a typical retail card. The post came from a GPU reviewer by the name of Damien Triolet, who claimed that the GTX 1080 samples he received had an ‘optimised' BIOS. However, there are two sides to every story and today, we heard back from Asus, who explained their side.
In a statement sent out today, Asus explained that its ROG Strix GTX 1080 and GTX 1070 samples have been shipping out to members of the press with ‘OC Mode' switched on by default, which has a boost clock 38MHz higher than ‘Gaming Mode' which is the default for retail boards. Both of these modes are accessible by the media and customers using GPU Tweak II:
“The press samples for the ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 OC and ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1070 OC cards are set to “OC Mode” by default. 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.”
“Retail products are in “Gaming Mode” by default, which allows gamers to experience the optimal balance between performance and silent operation. For both the press samples and retail cards, all these modes can be selected through the GPU Tweak II software. There are no differences between the samples we sent out to media and the retail channels in terms of hardware and performance.”
So it would seem that there is no real advantage to having a press sample over a retail one, meaning most reviewers can confidently stand by their ROG Strix reviews. However, we do need to address the elephant in the room- should Asus be defaulting press samples to OC Mode? On the one hand, press samples don't really have an advantage over a retail card but on the other, consumers and reviewers alike probably would've appreciated a heads up beforehand.
MSI is also involved in this situation and we have reached out to them for comment too. We will update you when we hear back.
KitGuru Says: This story has blown up quite a bit this week but I don't personally think it's as controversial as first thought. These cards aren't binned to drastically outperform what's available at retail. That said, if Asus had just let reviewers know about the OC Mode default beforehand, it could have been listed on any benchmark results and this whole thing probably would have been negated. How do you guys feel about all of this?
I can understand they want to picture their product in the best light possible. BUT, the fact that the press samples are DIFFERENT than the consumer shows there is intentional action there. And the fact that the reviewers were NOT informed about the OC mode being “default” on their cards creates the issue – when comparing the cards with the other AIBs, the MSI/ASUS ones will show better results. And when the buyer looks at the reviews any advantage is enough to tip the scales.
That is the bottom line.
I find this funny, considering Every card I’ve seen so far has outperformed ASUS’, including INNO3D’s which retails at £570. Of course only by a few FPS but still.
In any case there’s no point. Fucking nothing can break around 2050MHz. NVidia must’ve put some hardware level constraints on overclockability. Which would make sense because it’s a new fabrication process so the overclocking potential could nullify nvidias next generation of GPU’s. But still, 2050MHz is pretty low compared to overclockability of previous generations. There’s no competition on the AIB’s since they all hit the cap and perform the same, meaning unless you’re for some reason sticking to a certain brand you may as well just look at the cheapest options
Actually all cards I’ve had in my hands till now could go above and beyond 2050MHz fairly easy.
The brands I’ve tested so far are Asus, MSI, Inno3D and Gainward, with the latter being able to overclock stable to 2164MHz, with a steady clock.
They arent different in anyway. All the user has to do is going into GPU Tweek 2 and Click “OC Mode” and boom its done, Reviewers were doing this by default so MSI and ASUS Just saved them time. stop bitching abot something that you can enable and doesn’t change the reviews at all. IF it was the case that OC Mode was only for review samples then yes y ou have something to be angry about.
tbh they did nothing wrong it takes all of 5 mins to change the bios settings on the video card they simply changed the default one for the review cards its simple logic and they have done nothing wrong
It’s a slippery slope they’re on, and there’s no excuse for any differences at all, lest it calls into question the whole process. Timing of these reviews means that yes they may come in a brown box and the like, but otherwise, it should only involve default bios, default settings, public drivers, etc…
How is this different that what Volkswagen did (in terms of practice, not results which admittedly are minor)?
Sneaky Sneaky Asus
If every single card is capable of running the OC mode out of the box why isn’t it just activated by default? I can’t get my head around knowingly shipping a product that performs less than 100%.
I’d say this was born out of frustration on the AIB’s part due to reviewers not switching to the top performance mode for top performance benchmarks. This created an advantage of sorts for those AIB cards that did not have a higher performance mode available and so were being tested at their highest capacity (ignoring extra user overclocking here). I think these cards should be tested in OC mode, and all that is required is for AIB’s to have a nice BIG sticker or paper in the packaging explaining gaming vs. OC mode and how to switch it.
Save power and keep the heat down if your games aren’t demanding it.
It’s the same exact thing with a different option turned on… you can turn it on if you want. Sorry if you don’t understand software click boxes.
Also a lot of people want the card to be quiet. I am not one of them, I want maximum performance.
Asus has the highest no-tinkering clock speeds of any of the AIB boards sold so far, so it should be outperforming all the other cards out of the box (enabling OC mode is easy for even the least knowledgeable users).
That said, how are you saying that the ASUS was the worst performing and that they are all performing exactly the same both in the same post?
I’ve been giving this some thought after my earlier post……………………….how many of us use the software that comes with our graphics card? I’ve been building pc’s for the best part of 30 years and the disk that comes in the hardware box doesn’t even get took out of the wrapper. Hell we all know that the drivers and software is out of date before its even burned to the disk, most manufacturers stopped including a disk a long time ago and just include a slip of paper with a web link. The point im making is most customers will read a review on here, see a chart comparing 5 models of GTX1080’s with ASUS and MSI at the top, order the same card and download the latest Nvidia drivers as they have done for the last 10 years and assume they are getting the same top of the chart performance. That just doesn’t sit right with me and other card manufacturers should feel similarly aggrieved if they lost out on a sale even if it was by 1%
“To save media time and effort”
Called it.
More like reached around than reached out.
I THINK THE BIGER CRIME IS THE PRICES BEING CHARGED FOR THE GPUS, 400-430 POUNDS FOR THE MID RANGED 1070 IS A BIGER JOKE THAN THE 550-600 POUNDS FOR THE FLAGSHIP 1080. Nvidia and their partners should be very ashamed of this.
If you buy a video card based on stats that include “OC mode” anyone with brains is going to make sure they do whatever is required to turn it on. Yeah I throw away the discs too without a second thought but you bet your ass I’m going to download the software required to get those OC mode speeds.
Volkswagen lied about the emissions to sell more and avoid taxes. They did not actually publish numbers that any consumer could ever achieve. Asus just sets on a switch that gives performance that is not different from what fconsumer can actually get from te card. Simply put: Volkswagen did not test realistically; Asus did.
Lying about performance is different from not saying how performance was achieved.
Poor people keep whining, stay on an integrated gpu if it’s that big of a deal for you.
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