Safe to buy eVGA 1070's?

Snappshoota

[H]ard|Gawd
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Currently in the process of piecing together a new rig, and the eVGA 1070 FTW is my choice for a gfx card. Well started doing some research, and see that back in November, they have had issues with vram chips overheating..

Now Im kinda figuring, that by the end of this month when i do buy, im sure evga has updated the bios, and hopefully installed thermal pads on the vram.. Has anyone recently bought one, and having any issues?
 
it seems like even now , there is still old stock out there that doesn't have the updates for the
evga cards.. , just reading across the web.

If you buy it from evga company itself , the card will have current updates though.
 
As long as you're not a filthy casual, you should have no problem applying the thermal pad fix even if you get one of the bad (old) cards.
I heard EVGA was taking their sweet time mailing out the kits, though.

If you're not the kind of person who wants to take their card apart to fix a factory issue, then avoid EVGA. Just get MSI or ASUS, superior products overall.
 
Hmm Id have no problem tearing it apart, but at the same time, Im an impatient SOB.. Hopefully Microcenter has went through enough stock since then.

So it was basically just the thermal pad (or lack there of it i should say), that caused the Vram to get a wee bit hotter than it liked?
 
Hmm Id have no problem tearing it apart, but at the same time, Im an impatient SOB.. Hopefully Microcenter has went through enough stock since then.

So it was basically just the thermal pad (or lack there of it i should say), that caused the Vram to get a wee bit hotter than it liked?

Also they didn't use the current pads on the VRAM so the memory wasn't connected to the cold plate.

And if you get a real old card you may have black screen dropouts due to an initial design defect.
 
Just go MSI and have piece of mind, I like evga but not worth the risk IMO. Why buy something new that you know has questionable manufacturing and would require effort to fix?
 
Why go for the FTW anyways? These 10 series cards overclock like a raped ape even without extra power phases.

Hell, my 1080 ACX 3.0 base model OCs to 2202/5557MHz (yes, I finally won the silicon lottery). No it won't stay there under graphics intense 4K games, but it stays right around 2164 even under those conditions - which is where I keep it at usually unless benching. Modsrigs in sig.

And EVGA offers 5 and 10 year extended warranties, step up, advanced RMA, 24/7 tech support, etc. But other companies are cool too! Their cards have those optional extra pieces of flair on the card! (yes, that was an Office Space pun)
 
As long as you're not a filthy casual, you should have no problem applying the thermal pad fix even if you get one of the bad (old) cards.
I heard EVGA was taking their sweet time mailing out the kits, though.

Nothing wrong with getting a properly configured piece of hardware that you're paying 400+ dollars for. Nobody should have to do their job for them. EVGA totally dropped the ball on applying a 5 dollar part and lost a lot of customer piece of mind in the process. My last two cards have been EVGA & I probably wont be getting a third from them due to this mistake they made.

Also, Arestavo makes a good point. Don't worry about buying a "FTW" branded card. There is nothing extra added to the card. All you are paying a premium for is a factory overclock, which you can do yourself and probably go well beyond their "FTW" overclock.

Learned that lesson when I got my GTX 670 FTW, it wouldn't clock much higher than non FTW cards. My 980 however clocks well beyond FTW factory overclocks of (1.38ghz range) into the 1.5ghz range & its just a ACX 2.0.


Finally, if I were you I would get the MSI GTX 1070 Gaming X or Z. They're one of the best ones on the market, if not the best for cooling and overclocking. I've seen many reviews of people getting them to 2.1ghz at good temps and noise levels. Also, Zotac AMP! Extreme cards are good too.
 
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Yeah only reason I was looking at the eVGA was for the lights, (I know tacky, but planning on trying to make a Purty system) Didnt realize that most of them had them. So for now Im planning on grabbing the Asus Strix.
 
Just go MSI and have piece of mind, I like evga but not worth the risk IMO. Why buy something new that you know has questionable manufacturing and would require effort to fix?

I just want to know what MSI has done over the past 5 years that makes people think they are a solid brand to be considered in the same sentence as ASUS or Gigabyte even? Is it because they launched reasonably priced products marketed to gamers? That's the only thing I can think of. I've never personally purchased any of their garbage but I sure have spent a lot of time fixing and/or replacing their motherboards for people who have. If you want peace of mind buy Gigabyte or ASUS ONLY! Can't say I've ever had a bad product by eVGA either but I'm not a fan of how they handled that most recent fiasco with the thermal tape.
 
I just want to know what MSI has done over the past 5 years that makes people think they are a solid brand to be considered in the same sentence as ASUS or Gigabyte even? Is it because they launched reasonably priced products marketed to gamers? That's the only thing I can think of. I've never personally purchased any of their garbage but I sure have spent a lot of time fixing and/or replacing their motherboards for people who have. If you want peace of mind buy Gigabyte or ASUS ONLY! Can't say I've ever had a bad product by eVGA either but I'm not a fan of how they handled that most recent fiasco with the thermal tape.

MSI has offered numbers of products that are equal to or superior to Gigabyte/ASUS. That is why people like them. And the recent GPU coolers have been rather good. ASUS also has atrocious customer service, which is enough to make me avoid them. I like having a warranty. My MSI motherboard has been working perfectly and all my MSI GPUs have worked nicely to. ASUS motherboards also cost more. Why pay more for the same thing and have a company who will do everything they can to avoid honoring their warranty? Gigabyte seems decent for GPUs, but they seemed to have been louder than their MSI counterparts doing off of reviews.

Only reason I went MSI this round is because EVGA was $40 cheaper.
 
o_O

No trouble with the two MSI mobos I have.
Gigabyte mobos have given me trouble.

.
 
Yeah Im not to fond of Gigabyte anymore.. My Last MSI mobo was rock solid, and that was a leap of faith for me as i strictly always ran ASRock. So I guess this go around, Im going to grab an Asus GFX and mobo, fingers crossed.
 
Wait a week, there may be a price drop based on CES announcements
 
I figure about end of January till my funds are where they need to be. Im in no rush, but at the same time, I found a pre built rig with exactly what I have in my cart, Plus windows 10, and cheap keyboard and mouse for cheaper than my the rig in my cart is (no OS, no mouse no keyboard).. So.. If its at the same price, when time to buy comes, Im kinda planning on grabbing that.
 
o_O

No trouble with the two MSI mobos I have.
Gigabyte mobos have given me trouble.

.

Interesting, I haven't had a single Gigabyte product go bad. I was an ASUS only buyer until they started soldering BIOS chips to the board without a backup. My brother had a bad flash and bricked the board, ASUS wanted him to pay for all shipping and labor because it was considered user damage. On a whim I tried Gigabyte for my next board considering the DualBIOS feature as protection from that type of situation happening to me. I've been Gigabyte only since then. I even started buying their graphics cards. I don't consider a little extra noise while gaming to be an issue since I've got the sound turned up or headphones while gaming. I still hold ASUS in high esteem since I've had maybe one or two minor issues with every product I've ever bought from them. I've dealt with their support / RMA department and had startlingly good results for the most part. Maybe it's time to give MSI a second chance. I had a rash of their products that were total garbage about 15 years ago and considered them trash from that point on. When I say rash I mean compatability issues with other hardware, stability issues, DOAs, products that went bad within 30 days with replacements that were garbage too. I think every product that I dealt with from MIS had one issue or another at that time.
 
I just want to know what MSI has done over the past 5 years that makes people think they are a solid brand to be considered in the same sentence as ASUS or Gigabyte even? Is it because they launched reasonably priced products marketed to gamers? That's the only thing I can think of. I've never personally purchased any of their garbage but I sure have spent a lot of time fixing and/or replacing their motherboards for people who have. If you want peace of mind buy Gigabyte or ASUS ONLY! Can't say I've ever had a bad product by eVGA either but I'm not a fan of how they handled that most recent fiasco with the thermal tape.
I can't speak to your experiences but I've been using MSI motherboards dating back to the MS-6309 board I built a Celeron system around and I've never had any real issues. When I did eventually have a problem with my XPOWER board I was running on my i7 930 system - which I should mention was in 2014, 4 years after that product was sold and several years after it was EOL - their BIOS engineers still made me a custom one-off beta BIOS to try and address the issue I had. I don't know what their RMA experience is like, but the engineering behind their products is top notch and their support seems good to me. I just installed an MSI Gaming RX480 in my brothers PC and it was great.

That all being said, I've bought many EVGA cards as well including two 580s, two 680s, and a 980Ti and never had a problem. With the 1070 being an "unknown" here though I'd probably skip EVGA for this round.
 
Goddam but I'm sick of the /r/PCMasterRace and /r/BuildaPC circle jerk about the supposed EVGA thermal issues.

The facts are in - none of the components were running beyond spec, the actual failure rate is comparable to previous generations and EVGA has stepped the fuck up... at least if you're in the US. Issues with international customers, shipping and customs are a bitch; and not just for EVGA.

In speaking with EVGA, it sounds like they're at about a 200 DPPM (Defective Products Per Million) rate for their cards. This means that, for every one million cards shipped, about 200 are defects. We're told that this number is fairly consistent with previous generations, it's just that the defects are more noticeable this time because of the way the internet works.

From: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2691-final-evga-vrm-thermal-torture-test-and-analysis

Did EVGA fuck up by not cooling the VRMs? Probably. Is it the drastic end of the world, lose trust in the brand forever, disaster that the internet has been spewing? No, not really. We're talking about components rated for over 125°C.

You live in the US or close to EVGA Europe and like their support? Cool, buy an EVGA card. You want to try another brand? That's cool too. I don't care. I'm just sick of the internet echo chamber and it's bullshit.
 
Goddam but I'm sick of the /r/PCMasterRace and /r/BuildaPC circle jerk about the supposed EVGA thermal issues.

The facts are in - none of the components were running beyond spec, the actual failure rate is comparable to previous generations and EVGA has stepped the fuck up... at least if you're in the US. Issues with international customers, shipping and customs are a bitch; and not just for EVGA.



From: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/2691-final-evga-vrm-thermal-torture-test-and-analysis

Did EVGA fuck up by not cooling the VRMs? Probably. Is it the drastic end of the world, lose trust in the brand forever, disaster that the internet has been spewing? No, not really. We're talking about components rated for over 125°C.

You live in the US or close to EVGA Europe and like their support? Cool, buy an EVGA card. You want to try another brand? That's cool too. I don't care. I'm just sick of the internet echo chamber and it's bullshit.

Possibly true, but who wants to buy the WORST engineered Pascal cards that weren't even built correctly by EVGA? Between not cooling components correctly, using the wrong parts on the VRAM pads, and the out of spec ICs that led to black screens, they fucked up. Which is sort of funny because the super hot VRMs weren't even causing the black screens, it was just a different defect (lol?). EVGA made shit cards compared to the competition. They are a low end volume manufacturer focusing on marketing, not making the best cards.
 
I mean thats kinda like when toyota had the recalls on the accelerator malfunctioning and sticking wide open. Would you drop $18k on a car that has known defects?
Sure its only a 400 dollar card, but to me, time is money in this day and age. I dont want to have to make multiple drives 45 mins one way to MC, because a card I know has known defects, but i still took the risk.
 
And furthermore, lets take a look here...
http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/asus-geforce-gtx-1070-strix-gaming-review,10.html

index.php


The highest temp anywhere on the card is 66C.

Now look at the EVGA card...
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/evga_geforce_gtx_1070_sc_superclocked_gaming_review,10.html

index.php


Highest recorded temp is 95C, which is a huge difference compared to the Asus card and a clear sign that the cooling was not great.

Now even though the EVGA 1070 card clearly had a shit cooler at the time compared to the competition, both cards got the same "Guru 3D Recommended" review score. These results are repeated on some other sites, and unfortunately review sites try to suck on the balls of every company they can. So the EVGA cards keep slamming out good reviews even though better cards were available. No one calls out EVGA on their bullshit design even when it was obvious.
 
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Interesting, I haven't had a single Gigabyte product go bad. I was an ASUS only buyer until they started soldering BIOS chips to the board without a backup. My brother had a bad flash and bricked the board, ASUS wanted him to pay for all shipping and labor because it was considered user damage. On a whim I tried Gigabyte for my next board considering the DualBIOS feature as protection from that type of situation happening to me. I've been Gigabyte only since then. I even started buying their graphics cards. I don't consider a little extra noise while gaming to be an issue since I've got the sound turned up or headphones while gaming. I still hold ASUS in high esteem since I've had maybe one or two minor issues with every product I've ever bought from them. I've dealt with their support / RMA department and had startlingly good results for the most part. Maybe it's time to give MSI a second chance. I had a rash of their products that were total garbage about 15 years ago and considered them trash from that point on. When I say rash I mean compatability issues with other hardware, stability issues, DOAs, products that went bad within 30 days with replacements that were garbage too. I think every product that I dealt with from MIS had one issue or another at that time.

My trouble with Gigabyte was also a long time ago.

The first or second mobo of that brand I had would intermittently not POST or power up with lost BIOS config.
RMA'ed it and got back a replacement that was worse.

Replaced it with either a DFI or EPOX at the time and then everything was fine.

.
 
Possibly true, but who wants to buy the WORST engineered Pascal cards that weren't even built correctly by EVGA? Between not cooling components correctly, using the wrong parts on the VRAM pads, and the out of spec ICs that led to black screens, they fucked up. Which is sort of funny because the super hot VRMs weren't even causing the black screens, it was just a different defect (lol?). EVGA made shit cards compared to the competition. They are a low end volume manufacturer focusing on marketing, not making the best cards.

You of course are only referring to the FTW models, which were the only models (1070/1080) reported to get hot.

Because the other models don't have that issue. Fuck man, my 1080 ACX 3.0 base model OCs to 2202/5557. And while true it's under an AIO cooler and Kraken G10, the VRMs are only reading about 60C without any heatsinks and just that fairly small G10 fan blowing over them.
 
You of course are only referring to the FTW models, which were the only models (1070/1080) reported to get hot.

Because the other models don't have that issue. Fuck man, my 1080 ACX 3.0 base model OCs to 2202/5557. And while true it's under an AIO cooler and Kraken G10, the VRMs are only reading about 60C without any heatsinks and just that fairly small G10 fan blowing over them.

The EVGA card I linked to was the slower clocked SC model and it was already showing the deficiencies of the ACX 3.0 cooler and EVGA's choices. FTW cards took a bit of time to reach the market so they were often missed in initial reviews.
 
I like EVGA, and all my cards are EVGA... But you can definitely get better cooling from the other brands this go around. As said above there's absolutely nothing wrong with them operationally, but they're certainly not top tier. That said, their customer service still is, so it's all about what you value the most.
 
Highest recorded temp is 95C...

TCase of that chip is 125°C. I agree they should have cooled it better, but it is technically still within spec.

I never saw the resolution to the black screen issue other than a bunch of free advanced RMAs. Is there an article or official EVGA Reddit post that breaks down what actually happened?

I mean thats kinda like when toyota had the recalls on the accelerator malfunctioning and sticking wide open. Would you drop $18k on a car that has known defects?

You mean the recall that turned into user error and shorter gas pedals?

“Pedal misapplication” was the DOT’s delicate terminology  for this phenomenon.

http://www.caranddriver.com/feature...toyotas-unintended-acceleration-scare-feature

Toyota was fined $1.2billion for how they handled an issue that the DOT determined to be user error. The car will stop when the brakes are applied, even with the gas pedal on the floor; and EDRs show the brakes untouched.

I think this current VRM issue is similar, there is a lot of smoke, but when you check the numbers (again 200 PDDM, 125° TCase) there really isn't any fire.

Again, I'm not saying that EVGA is saintly, or the best brand, but, I'm OK with them... or an MSI, or a Gigabyte, or an XFX, or an Asus. Probably not a PNY though...

And if you ever find yourself in a car accelerating out of your control, firmly apply the brakes and push the shift lever forward - neutral, reverse, park, it doesn't matter; a modern automatic will shift to neutral in any case. If you drive stick, why are you asking? You know which pedal is which.
 
TCase of that chip is 125°C. I agree they should have cooled it better, but it is technically still within spec.

I never saw the resolution to the black screen issue other than a bunch of free advanced RMAs. Is there an article or official EVGA Reddit post that breaks down what actually happened?



You mean the recall that turned into user error and shorter gas pedals?



http://www.caranddriver.com/feature...toyotas-unintended-acceleration-scare-feature

Toyota was fined $1.2billion for how they handled an issue that the DOT determined to be user error. The car will stop when the brakes are applied, even with the gas pedal on the floor; and EDRs show the brakes untouched.

I think this current VRM issue is similar, there is a lot of smoke, but when you check the numbers (again 200 PDDM, 125° TCase) there really isn't any fire.

Again, I'm not saying that EVGA is saintly, or the best brand, but, I'm OK with them... or an MSI, or a Gigabyte, or an XFX, or an Asus. Probably not a PNY though...

And if you ever find yourself in a car accelerating out of your control, firmly apply the brakes and push the shift lever forward - neutral, reverse, park, it doesn't matter; a modern automatic will shift to neutral in any case. If you drive stick, why are you asking? You know which pedal is which.

The fuck you say! It's everyone else's fault but mine! Society taught me so!

/endsarcasm
 
Cards are good. It's easy to apply thermal pads if you have to. People love to complain left and right. There's a guy at overclock.net who exchanged 20 Asus monitors and still keeps bitching about Asus and blb. You can't fix stupid.
 
I guess my house should have burnt down a long time ago, still haven't bothered to get those pads.
 
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