ASUS caught modifying GeForce RTX 3080 TUF and ROG STRIX PCB designs

erek

[H]F Junkie
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"Now this story is based on something that we didn’t even notice ourselves. We received this information as a tip. As it turns out ASUS also had a different PCB design before the cards were seeded to reviewers and to distributors. The manufacturer first uploaded photographs showing full SP-CAP configuration, the full MLCC design was released later. That said, ASUS must have been one of the first manufacturers to change the design before the news first broke at ComputerBase (that was the first report on a possible problem).

This article is not about the reported issue itself, but about design modifications by the AIBs. Please remember, our job is to provide news and keep consumers updated with all developments on this topic. Whether the design change was dictated by the stability issues, we don’t know yet. Neither ASUS nor NVIDIA have made public statements, although multiple vendors have already issued theirs."


https://videocardz.com/newz/asus-al...eforce-rtx-3080-tuf-and-rog-strix-pcb-designs
 
They sent out marketing material before the boards were even done. The marketing material also shows the incorrect cuda core count per Nvidia new numbers. This is reaching at best. None of the TUF or Strix retail card shipped with sp-caps.
 
Ah, VideoCardz, your FUD-esque click bait titles will never cease existing, will they?
 
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Ah yes, using a catch phrase that feeds on the "Gotcha" emotion. Videocardz taking notes from the media.

What did they expect, the companies to continue to sell cards as is?
 
caught is the wrong word as it makes it seem like they were doing something wrong when in fact that they were doing something right.
It's still funny how many on here where like "this is why I buy Asus because all their boards used mlcc and they dont cut corners". Truth is, they do the same as everyone else, them and EVGA caught it early enough to fix prior to shipping. This means that no, Asus do not just build all their boards with "top quality", they built low quality/spec and it was failing so they fixed it. This isn't a bad thing, they tested and found/fixed the issue before releasing the cards. Just pointing out the point of the post/article that seems lost on so many. Sure, click bait title like every other outlet nowadays (and boy is it annoying), but good to know they weren't above using lower specs parts either ;).
 
It's still funny how many on here where like "this is why I buy Asus because all their boards used mlcc and they dont cut corners". Truth is, they do the same as everyone else, them and EVGA caught it early enough to fix prior to shipping. This means that no, Asus do not just build all their boards with "top quality", they built low quality/spec and it was failing so they fixed it. This isn't a bad thing, they tested and found/fixed the issue before releasing the cards. Just pointing out the point of the post/article that seems lost on so many. Sure, click bait title like every other outlet nowadays (and boy is it annoying), but good to know they weren't above using lower specs parts either ;).

Just remind them of the Asus TUF 5700 GPUs
 
Ah, VideoCardz, your FUD-esque click bait titles will never cease existing, will they?
I swear the entire click-o-sphere needs a Stalin-like purge.

Every tech Youtuber right now:

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It would be more accurate to say that Asus caught the problem.

It's still an interesting tidbit in this whole launch thing but it's not much of a story unless some of the early ones escape into retail.
 
It would be more accurate to say that Asus caught the problem.

It's still an interesting tidbit in this whole launch thing but it's not much of a story unless some of the early ones escape into retail.

I think it's interesting that I haven't seen anyone point out the fact that the cards with the problems are the ones following nVidia's specs. I don't remember where I read that so I can't post up the article/quote.
 
I think it's interesting that I haven't seen anyone point out the fact that the cards with the problems are the ones following nVidia's specs. I don't remember where I read that so I can't post up the article/quote.
From what I've read they all follow Nvidia's specs but they only specified how many caps the cards should have and certain configurations with the correct number are having more issues.
 
They have sold so few cards numerically it would be trivial to announce a recall for "early revision 1 boards"
 
This is clickbait if I've ever seen it. ASUS really wasn't caught modifying cards after release.

Most of the time publicity photos of products are taken before the product is finalized. There is nothing to see here. Only people that have received ASUS' TUF Gaming and STRIX cards can say for sure if ASUS' statement is accurate or not. I doubt ASUS is lying because people who received the cards would be shouting on social media as loud as they can saying that ASUS was using the inferior capacitor selection. Cards go through many revisions prior to release. I've seen hardware at various stages of development. Things like capacitor selections change during the development cycle. Even some of hardware reviewers get isn't necessarily the same version that went to retail.

That whole: "Specifications subject to change without notice." is legalease for "the pictured version may not be what you actually get." It's common practice as photos are often taken well ahead of release to feed the hype machines. Let's also not forget that NVIDIA altered the boost tables on these cards to keep them from spiking into territory that caused problems. Yet, performance remained the same and in some cases improved after the fact.

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I think it's interesting that I haven't seen anyone point out the fact that the cards with the problems are the ones following nVidia's specs. I don't remember where I read that so I can't post up the article/quote.
Not so much following as NVidia left some wiggle room in the specs and it just turns out that in this one area if you ride it too close to the minimums you may meet them on paper but in practice things just don't work out. But this still falls on NVidia for sure they moved things along at a pace that didn't really give the AIB's the same amount of time they would normally have to validate their in house interpretations of the reference cards. At least they are catching this early enough that things can be dealt with easily but it still looks pretty bad.
 
Not so much following as NVidia left some wiggle room in the specs and it just turns out that in this one area if you ride it too close to the minimums you may meet them on paper but in practice things just don't work out. But this still falls on NVidia for sure they moved things along at a pace that didn't really give the AIB's the same amount of time they would normally have to validate their in house interpretations of the reference cards. At least they are catching this early enough that things can be dealt with easily but it still looks pretty bad.

It really isn't bad. The issue has already been taken care of in the drivers without a loss in performance. This is further evidenced by testing done by Der8auer, where simply replacing the POSCAPS with MLCC's yielded a whopping 30MHz of increased clock speed. These cards are binned close to the edge of what the silicon can do within the confines of their current power limits. You would need a water block and a voltage mods to get much if anything out of these.
 
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