GeForce 7900 Inferno – Burn Baby Burn @ [H]

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
Staff member
Joined
May 18, 1997
Messages
55,532
GeForce 7900 Inferno – Burn Baby Burn / It seems that the demon art of vendor overclocking is pushing many GeForce 7900 video cards beyond their abilities and into an early grave. It's one thing when you OC the card, and another when it comes out of the box OCed with a warranty.

"There are some “bad” 7900 video cards out there right now if you are going to shop for the highly overclocked variety. Again, it seems to me BFGTech is catching less flack than EVGA and XFX, but that is not a scientific observation. If I were buying an overclocked 7900 card right now, I would be leaning towards BFGTech or EVGA simply because they have a much better reputation when it comes to warranty, support, and service."

DIGG HERE if you would like to share.
 
I got a bad 7900GT KO, that died after a couple of weeks of Oblivion and CoH. Evga stepped up and emailed me that a tech would be calling me, and I was then sent the Cross ship RMA form the next day. Later that night I got the RMA confirmation along with notes that shipping charges have been waived.

I am an owner of 5 Evga cards, and will continue to purchase from Evga. I have not seen this level of support from any other company to an end user.

Nice to see [H] on the case!
 
This article seems to say that the problems are with the OC cards only, and I know from first hand experience that this is not the case. I received a Step-Up 7900 GTX EGS card from evga that, from the minute I "turned it on", had issues with almost every (newer) game. It displayed artifacts, speckles, etc. in everything from FEAR to Serious Sam 2. I never tried 3DM 06, so I can't speak of issues regarding that, and I never OC'd the card. From reading tons of other threads regarding these 7900 cards, I know I'm not alone in having a messed up stock card.

Why is it that the stock card issues are not being addressed?
For the conspiracy theorists: /cue jaws theme music/ Is there something more sisister at work here?
 
When buying any "overclocked" product I think the customer / consumer should be made to know what "overclocked" means. Around here we define it as increasing the performance and/or settings of a product or piece of equipment to perform faster or differently then the manufacture recommended specs. But most of us put in VERY SMALL TEXT, At a cost of possible stability.

Yes I do blame the companies marketing the cards, I called XFX once and swore that was the last time I would ever do that. But my problems were fixed and XFX did provide the help I needed even if it was slow to come.

I agree most with EVGA, stepping up quality control is the best way to do it. And the RMA process. If more of the companies XFX, BFG, PNY, ASUS would follow this example from the start, we would not be having this conversation.

But that's just my 2 cents.
 
My experience with eVGA sofar:

Little more than 3 weeks ago I purchased an eVGA 7900 GT CO SuperClock from www.newegg.com. The price was $349.99 and the box proudly proclaimed that the card ran at 'SuperClocked' speeds of 550mhz core and 1580mhz memory (790mhz DDR).

The card arrived and worked awesome right out of the box. Stellar performance in Oblivion, F.E.A.R., Doom 3, Quake 4, and Half-Life 2. A definate noticable improvement over my already awesome previous eVGA 7800GT. But late last week I was doing some benchmarking with 3DMark 03, 05, and 06 as well as various games. On my third run of 3DMark 06 things started to get dodgy. Towards the end of the "Deep Freeze" test polygons started shooting out of the objects being rendered on the screen, the screen started showing wild colors and flashing 'orbs' of color, and a few seconds later 3DMark 06 crashed to a severely corrupt and flashing windows desktop. Rut roh... To be clear, I don't think that 3DMark 06's Deep Freeze test 'causes' these cards to break down. I'm sure it would happen eventually no matter what, but I think that Deep Freeze is so intense it definately exploits whatever the weak point is and therefore accelerates the problem.

Upon rebooting and subequent runs of 3DMark 06's deep freeze test the problem appeared to worsen, and shortly thereafter most of the other games started experiencing artifacting and distorted polygons/gemetry. The problem definately got worse over the next day or so. No amount of rebooting, driver reinstallation, etc would make it better. About the only thing I found to help was to use coolbits to lover the card's core and memory clocks to reference 7900GT speeds.

Saturday morning I initiated an RMA using eVGA's online RMA submission system and upon submitting the RMA information I was redirected to a cross-shipping credit card authorization form in PDF format. The website said to download it, print it out, and fax it to eVGA's offices (a phone number is given on the form itself). I printed and completed the form and proceeded to fax it to eVGA. I also was advised by a support member on their forums to scan the completed and signed form and send it via email to [email protected]. Since then I haven't heard a thing from eVGA which has me worried a bit. I would think that I would have recieved some sort of acknowledgement on recieving my credit card form. I think I'll try and give them a call today to see what's up.

I did recieve a mass email yesterday from Jacob at eVGA saying that they would be sending out pre-tested and slightly modified cards this Friday. Since I recieved this email I must assume that my information is in their system somewhere. I am hoping for the best. :)

I must say that everyone at the eVGA forums have been pretty friendly and there are plenty of helpful suggestions to be had there. I'm glad that eVGA didn't make the decision to shut down their support forum like a couple of other AIB partners did.

Kyle's opinion of the XFX RMA procedure makes me glad I bought eVGA, waiting weeks for a new card would suck bigtime. Hopefully XFX will take notice and see this as cause to improve their RMA policy/procedure a bit.

I also think it's awesome that [H]ardOCP is finally jumping in here to get the dirt on these issues. Until now many of us that spent $300 - $500 on these cards have felt sort of alone on these issues. It's nice to know that the OCP has got out backs. :)
 
I think that it absolutely rocks that [H] is going to manufactures and finding out what the hell is going on for consumers. Also, I'm loving the articles that you're writing Kyle - you bring a certain kind of charm and honesty that is so hard to find in online articles. As a note, however, when on page two you wrote "I did call their tech support line and had about a 15 wait for a tech, so they do at least answer their phones during business hours" I think you forgot to add "minute" after "15." As always, keep up the good work!

 
legrand said:
This article seems to say that the problems are with the OC cards only, and I know from first hand experience that this is not the case. Why is it that the stock card issues are not being addressed? For the conspiracy theorists: /cue jaws theme music/ Is there something more sisister at work here?

To put it simply, one video card failure does not a problem make. There are acceptable levels of RMA on all video cards. NVIDIA tells me that on a world wide level they are not seeing an unusual rate of return on non-overclocked cards. This of course does not mean that a bad card does not exist.
 
DamienThorn said:
I think that it absolutely rocks that [H] is going to manufactures and finding out what the hell is going on for consumers. Also, I'm loving the articles that you're writing Kyle - you bring a certain kind of charm and honesty that is so hard to find in online articles. As a note, however, when on page two you wrote "I did call their tech support line and had about a 15 wait for a tech, so they do at least answer their phones during business hours" I think you forgot to add "minute" after "15." As always, keep up the good work!


Thanks for the kind words. And thanks for pointing out my error, fixed. :)
 
Can you guys compile a list of cards that have issues? My XFX Extreme runs perfectly fine......even after I oc'ed it past the already oc'ed stock clocks :)
 
Great & much needed article.

I was one of the early adopters of the OCed 7900GTXs and bought 2 BFG cards. I had several issues most of which came down to user error coupled with a move to a new & highly tweakable mobo (A8N32) at the same time I had upgraded. I called BFG twice regarding issues I was runing into and the first time the techs had not even had the 7900GTX info added to their binders. Even without the relevant info the techs were really helpful even though they were flying a little blind. I called back a few days later and they were ready to authorize a full RMA of both cards. Since it was the weekend I decided to wait until the following monday to see if I couldnt remedy the problems and used a method one of the techs suggested to see if the problems were related to one or the other card. This methodolgy led me to my solution which has given me stablility ever since with the slight exception of Oblivion which is problematic for everyone to a certain degree.

My experience with BFG has added to my loyalty and this article has cemented my next upgrade purchase from them. They appear to be OCing a little more responsibly that their 2 main competitors...well done to BFG.
 
This is getting pretty frustrating listening to all this overclocking crap and manufactured overclocked cards.

I have a non overclocked version of the evga 7900 gtx. NEVER overclocked it one time. My buddy across my cube from me at work, has the exact same non overclocked card and it also is not functioning properly!! Looking at forums aroun the net too, there are plenty of non overclocked versions experiencing the exact same problem with the overclocked versions. I have RMA'd mine and while speaking with Tech Support of eVGA (3 times), they are having issues with these cards as well.

I hate all this blame going around on overclocking. It's impacting non overclocked versions too!
 
Drepd said:
This is getting pretty frustrating listening to all this overclocking crap and manufactured overclocked cards.

I hate all this blame going around on overclocking. It's impacting non overclocked versions too!
yes it is and the fact that Nvidia wants to blame others is really not sitting well with me. there are way too many people have trouble with their cards. from my experience even the 7600 cards are having issues. i had the same problems with my BFG 7600GT that many are having with the 7900 cards. lets please put more pressure on Nvidia.
 
I recently built an entirely new system which included a BFG 7900GT.

The vid card failed after a couple weeks of use while I was playing Oblivion. The display turned into a horrible artifacting slideshow then nothing. This was a late Wednesday night in very early April.

I called up BFG that evening & was almost instantly connected to a very professional tech support person. He went though his checklist of possible problems & solutions, in very short order decided that it indeed was the vid card & gave me an RMA number.

I next day shipped the card to them on Thursday. I received a new card bright & early the following Monday. I popped the card in and I was back in business.

The new card seems to run a bit cooler, though I am unsure if that has to do with new drivers or a change in the card bios. The new one never heats up above 58C, even after multiple hours on Oblivion, the old one got up to 63-64C.

While it truly sucked that the card failed, the fact that BFG stood behind their product mitigated my disgruntledness. I have been using BFG cards since I bought a 5900XT (still going strong) from them a few years back and this is the first time that I have had to do an RMA with them. Unless this standard of customer support changes I will stick to buying BFG cards.
 
I haven't had problems with my 2 month old XFX 7900GT Extreme, but it's good to hear that people with problems are finally being addressed out in the open.

Hopefully the companies with QC problems will have that fixed soon.
 
Well, i feel sorry for the people who got a bum 79, but i am thankful my 78s dont have the same problem....

I would definetly not buy a 79 now due to what i am hearing/reading.

I hope everyone who has a bum card, gets it fixed sharpish.......
 
Kyle, I think you strayed from the original purpose of your editorial/article. At first you were talking about the manufacturers and thay they weren't following Nvidia's strict guidelines for clock speeds. Then you start talking about your calls to each manufacturer with RMA questions.

What I want to know is:
1. Why the OC'ed cards weren't tested more before the launches.
2. Why Nvidia didn't just lay down the law to the manufacturers and tell them specifically not to OC the 79xx chips because of the tight specs.
3. How manufacturers are going to completely squelch the fire such as: offering RMA'ed cards at slower clock values, or - perish the thought - stock Nvidia values; possibly offer small rebates to the consumer to coincide with the slower clock offer; stop production of OC'ed cards.

All the manufacturers are doing is putting bandaids on the wound by RMA'ing cards. I've already had to RMA both of my 7800GTXs to BFG after less than a year of owning them. One went completely belly up out of the blue which fried not only the SLI bridge, but the circuitry to control SLI on the other card.

At least Intel had the decency to pull the 1.13Ghz P3 chips back because of defects. Why can't the manufacturers call back their products and offer replacements?

-MacG467
 
MacGyver467 said:
1. Why the OC'ed cards weren't tested more before the launches.

Beating the dead horse one more time then im done...It's NOT just the OC'd cards! :)
 
I would like to reinforce the fact that from my understanding it is not only the overclocked 7900 cards having problems.

I have just RMA'd my third 7900 GTX.

My first was a stock card from EVGA bought at Newegg. There was no video signal from the card when I first built my current system up. The motherboard appeared to be doing everything it should (Corsair pro memory would do it's led dance, drive lights coming on appropriately, etc.). I RMA'd directly back to Newegg and decided to try a 7900 GTX from a different manufacturer so I changed it for a BFG Tech 7900GTX OC

My second card (the BFG Tech card) would boot at stock speeds and not the 20 Mhz oc for core and memory that it should start up at. It would also lock up during 3DMark 2001 SE and would artifact badly in BF2 at stock speeds.

I RMA'd that card directly to BFG Tech the next time.

I received my current card (until tonight) which would start up at the correct clock speeds and initially appeared to be running correctly. It would run 3DMark 2001 SE no problem.

Then I tried 3DMark05 and 06. Both would end up crashing the system with the flashing desktop for both and would eventually lock up in 06. After a while the artifacts in BF2 started up again.

BFG Tech was always very nice and their RMA process is rock solid. I think they are a great company but they would not budge on admitting that there were any problems with the 7900 cards (at least when I talked to them) unlike EVGA who seems to be very forthcoming regarding this issue.

I'm going to be putting a new X1900XTX in my box tonight and selling my new replacement 7900 GTX OC in the unbroken anti-static bag to try to recoup as much of my money as possible.
 
Thanks for your coverage of this issue on page 1, Kyle. Hopefully this will expedite fixes amongst all parties. I own two 7900 gtx cards that I'm not running for fear of breaking them. I don't feel OK with RAM since no one has identified a root cause and remedy. It's good to know that vendors have acknowledged the problem, now I would like it if they communicated the problem(s) to the customer.
 
MacGyver467 said:
What I want to know is:
1. Why the OC'ed cards weren't tested more before the launches.
2. Why Nvidia didn't just lay down the law to the manufacturers and tell them specifically not to OC the 79xx chips because of the tight specs.
3. How manufacturers are going to completely squelch the fire such as: offering RMA'ed cards at slower clock values, or - perish the thought - stock Nvidia values; possibly offer small rebates to the consumer to coincide with the slower clock offer; stop production of OC'ed cards.

First off, remember I am simply reporting what is going on and I felt as though our readers had the right to know.

1. As laid out, only EVGA has seen need to change their standard of testing. The problems that BFG is seeing are not related to "bad" GPUs overall, or that is what I was told.

2. NVIDIA does give standard specs. It is up to the seller to follow them.

3. I don't know.

There is still a lot of cards being shipped by to flextronics now for testing. They will determine if the GPUs are bad or if the cards are bad. The answers to that still have yet to be seen.
 
I've been having the exact same problems with Oblivion and F.E.A.R. with my BFG 7800GTX OC card. I never had artifacting issues until I started to play those two games. Card is running at the factory OC speeds and has never been OC'd beyond the factory OC. I need to call them and talk to them about this.

I can understand the need for these companies to want to grab our gamer $$$ by offering a card that is super-pimp-clocked higher than the competition, but they seem to have let this get out of control and they are suffering some negative PR shots because of it. I've read about a lot of people bailing on Nvidia and going over to ATI for this very reason. I'm not a !!!!!! of any nature anymore, I usually go where the best bang-for-the-$$$ takes me.
 
MacGyver467 said:
Kyle, I think you strayed from the original purpose of your editorial/article. At first you were talking about the manufacturers and thay they weren't following Nvidia's strict guidelines for clock speeds. Then you start talking about your calls to each manufacturer with RMA questions.

At least Intel had the decency to pull the 1.13Ghz P3 chips back because of defects. Why can't the manufacturers call back their products and offer replacements?

First off, let me say this. Don't make me the bad guy for paying attention to the troubles our readers are having. I do not run these companies, I do not make changes in their policies.

No, I did not stray from the purpose of my editorial. I am not saying whether OCing these cards is good or bad. NVIDIA says stock it good and then do with it what you want. The card builders do not have enough reason yet to change their card clocks. Obviously while it may seem like a big deal to us, it is apparently not something that needs to be reacted to yet, except for EVGA that has changed their testing policy. Those are the facts, and that is what I wanted to tell our readers. If that is important to you, I would suggest you buy an EVGA card.

Comparing Intel to this is a very twisted comparison. ALL the 1.13GHz CPUs were bad, I know, I was in the middle of that issue. That is hardly the case here.
 
Drepd said:
Beating the dead horse one more time then im done...It's NOT just the OC'd cards! :)

From the article:

"To be exact, the companies that sell overclocked NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series graphics cards seem to be having the problems, namely BFGTech, EVGA, and XFX."

"NVIDIA have specifically pointed a finger to the cause of the issues being associated with the overclocking settings that BFGTech, EVGA, and XFX use. NVIDIA firmly stands behind their stock core and memory clock specifications for the 7900 series and tell us that they are not seeing any unusual problems with 7900 series video cards that are not overclocked."

And the statement from EVGA shows no evidence they're concerned about the stock clocked 7900GTX EGS.

-MacG467
 
I and another buddy have both bought a 7900gt from newegg.com and both oc'ed to 550/1800 without no problem and we both don't see any problem with our cards even after 3 months of use. We got them the same week they came to the market though, dont know if that makes a difference.

Anyway, just wanted to say BFG makes great video cards!!
 
I have an XFX 7900GTX (665/815), which I've kept at stock mostly . This is getting scarry, my card better not die.

I already had a couple of pauses during a gaming session, so I hope it was somethign else.

I'll have to look 3dmark for a while and see whats up. :mad:
 
Well, i sent my XFX 7900 GT Extreme back as it was artifacting in Tomb Raider and whenever i left the game and went back to the desktop the screen would flash and go black!! It was a real pain!!

Nice write up there mate. Good info.
 
I've been hearing about the faulty 7900 GT issues for a little while now. I purchased a EVGA 256-P2-N564 GeForce 7900GT KO on 4/28/2006 and I've been keeping an keen eye on this apparently faulty series. Also I was coming from BFG to I was a little hesitant on clicking that Buy button on Mwave.com to purchase this eVGA card. But as I heard about these problems I started to check the eVGA Forums only to find that they have been excellent in supporting their products. That made me feel much better :) I have to give kudo's to eVGA for that.

So far I have not been playing much Oblivion other than a quick game when I first setup my new system, and that was just to see the improvement over my old BFG 6600 GT OC AGP. I have been playing quite a lot of G.R.A.W., BF2 and the typical HL2 Mods and have yet to have one single problem with this Card. In fact so far it's just a great experience. It's been almost a month now, and hopefully things will stay the way they are, as I will be purchasing another 7900GT KO in the near future to jump onto the SLI bandwagon.

Anyway, I'm very happy with my eVGA 7900 GT KO right now and just wanted to put that out there.
 
Excellent article. I like the fact that you guys went through all that trouble and then wrote a article about it, and what you were told by the manufactors.

From what I could tell, the problems are from the OC's. I think the new EVGA revision of cards, ups the voltages. I remember like 2 or 3 weeks back someone posted a article saying the cards do not get enough voltage with the OC's and that is what is causing the problem. I dont know how true this is, but for the most part, anyone who volt modded there cards seems to be not having any problems from what I saw at least.

My BFG card been running good since day one. Got it like a week after launch, right before the temporary shortage that was on the 7900's. I can say this though, I tried OC'ing it, and I cant even push it 5mhz from the factory OC's with out it failing and just giving weird color screens when I go to play games. If BFG does release a new revision though, that claims to fix these problems, im most likely going to jump on that. I payed 330 for this card, I want to get the most out of it. I dont want to worry about it breaking down on me, in the next weeks or couple of months.

BTW did BFG say anything about a broken capicator problem? I know at least at launch, people were getting BFG 7900GT's with some of the caps broken off.
 
Lazy_Moron said:
BTW did BFG say anything about a broken capicator problem? I know at least at launch, people were getting BFG 7900GT's with some of the caps broken off.

I remember having a conversation about this with someone at BFG and being told that the issue was with the packaging and had been fixed. Honestly though, I don't remember who told me that but I don't think I just dreamed that....
 
Thank you Kyle for puting the issue on the forefront. I can attest to EVGA's willingness to make good. In my case, after recieveing an RMA card that lasted just 3 days, EVGA techs pretested a replacement and it has been working perfectly. Unfortunately , my SLI card number two is now failing and so I am requesting a pretested one to replace that one. I am conifident that EVGA will accomodate me , especially after what you took the time to do.

Thanks again to the [H] :cool:
 
Props to Evga.

Now when I do buy a nVidia product again I know who to buy it from. Companies that try to ignore problems or sweep them under the carpet do not impress me one bit.

Again, good job guys, trying to find a solution and showing that you care more about your customers than creating some BS illusion while they suffer.

Oh yeah and /salute to [H]ard for sounding off on the issue.
 
I have a BFG Tech 7900GT (have had it for about 10 days), and the only problem I have had was with Need for Speed Most Wanted Black Edition. After about 2 hours of racing, I started to get artifacts. However, when I checked, my CPU and GPU temperatures were elevated, causing me to look to my fans. Turns out that my exhaust fan had silently stopped spinning. I replaced it, and I have had no problems since; not with Need For Speed, and not with Oblivion, Battlefield 2, or anything else. I have never played F.E.A.R., so I wouldn't know if I have problems with that.

I'm very happy with my card, and if I do have problems, I am confident that BFG Tech will work with me and get it fixed.

-HaMMerHeD.
 
First off my problems:

Everquest 2 - screen starts to tear, picture starts flashing, system becomes totally unstable, crashing.

BF2 - Artifacts all over the (usually) top of the screen.

Workarounds - for EQ2 turn off shaders, stops all probs listed above. For BF2 tab out of the game and back in and the artifacts are gone for a while.

I tried underclocking to prevent these problems. Even underclocked well below NVidia specs. Did not help one bit. IMO this is a software issue, but EVGA is sending me 2 new cards to try. They are the experts what can I do but go along? At least they are not keeping me in the dark, and feeding me a little shit like they do a mushroom. Cant say enough good things about evga.
 
jacuzz1 said:
Thank you Kyle for puting the issue on the forefront. I can attest to EVGA's willingness to make good. In my case, after recieveing an RMA card that lasted just 3 days, EVGA techs pretested a replacement and it has been working perfectly. Unfortunately , my SLI card number two is now failing and so I am requesting a pretested one to replace that one. I am conifident that EVGA will accomodate me , especially after what you took the time to do.

Thanks again to the [H] :cool:

Well I would say that the press is a lot to blame on this issue. We constantly hand out awards based on nothing but framerates and so these card builders are forced into the corner of having to be a bit faster than the other guy so that the e-Penis shows a "winner." These three companies get the exact same cards to sell that are made in one plant for the most part (at least on this 7900 series) and they are forced to differentiate themselves from the competition. That is a tough order to fill.

The sad thing is that you have to deal with the fallout from all of this - the same consumer that we are supposed to be on the side of. I just hope this is not the first round of an ugly vicious cycle that stays in the industry.

I am happy that most of you guys are getting taken care of buy companies that care about your experience with their product. This same thing happening 4 years ago would have already come to lawyers blows. I don't think any of these companies are "out to get you" in any way shape or form. Hopefully they will take this time to really reach out and bond to their customers and form some loyalty. That is what I would do anyway....

Thanks to all you guys that are patient and getting through this without going nuts. I take some responsibility in telling you guys to go buy these cards and I wish I could have seen this one coming.
 
DamienThorn said:
I think that it absolutely rocks that [H] is going to manufactures and finding out what the hell is going on for consumers. Also, I'm loving the articles that you're writing Kyle - you bring a certain kind of charm and honesty that is so hard to find in online articles. [snip]

werd! :)
 
There so much rubbish and what not surrounding the 7 series these days...I wonder if it would not be better to simply get an ATi card :rolleyes: I haven't heard of a single complaint coming from an ATi owner.

Just wondering: if eVGA, BFG, & XFX are dishing out nonsense cards due to their OCing them, where does this place other makers like PNY? Are their cards even worse or what? I've heard PNY makes some pretty bad video cards.
 
FrizzleFried said:
I've heard PNY makes some pretty bad video cards.
I've owned a single PNY card...a 6800GT...and still...to this day...that sucker is running strong. Even in the extreme heat of my garage....runnin' strong.

Don't believe all you hear.


PNY has a bad rep for unknown reasons.. imo. maybe because they are less popular and peeps just assume they are not good..?.. or because you can buy them at CompUSA? ;) heh.. anyways, for the record, I have owned two (6800GT and 6600GT) and they're both still running strong.. and OC very well.
 
eVGA replaced the first card i recieved from newegg in no time flat with a cross-ship. So far. the new card has proformed flawlessly in HL2 and all of the variants and 3dmark05 reports a score of 9700 or so with default settings in 3dmark and all driver opts. off and clock speeds of 560/860. I have not run 3dmark 06 on this card yet.. The first card I had began to experiance problems during the deep freeze scene of 3dmark06 around the seccond day I had it. that scares me because I have not run 3dmark06 on the new card yet. Infact, I removed it from my computer. So.. now I'm off to DL 06 again and really put the screws to this thing... :eek:
 
revenant said:
PNY has a bad rep for unknown reasons.. imo. maybe because they are less popular and peeps just assume they are not good..?.. or because you can buy them at CompUSA? ;) heh.. anyways, for the record, I have owned two (6800GT and 6600GT) and they're both still running strong.. and OC very well.

I think they got a really bad rap from pimping warranties and service that were both basically non-existent.
 
Back
Top