NVIDIA RTX 3080 Performance Controversy
Shortly after the launch of the RTX 30 series there were reports of cards failing. Not so much going up in smoke but rather crashing when playing certain games and benchmarks. Crashing video cards is not an uncommon thing for an overclocker, in fact that is part of the process. You run a benchmark to test an overclock, if the benchmark passes you test another frequency. The same process happens when NVIDIA applies their boost algorithm to increase the core clock. Basically, If the card is below temperature and not drawing too much power the driver will increase the core clock for better performance. When the math is wrong the driver will boost the card too much and things will crash.
This is where the hardware steps in. NVIDIA sent out the first batch of GPUs with a reference board design and the board partners take that design to apply to their card designs. Assuming that the board partner follows the spec the reference driver should work just fine however that is where things can change. If you swap out some parts to change the manufacturing cost or increase performance and that changes the carefully calculated test conditions and problems can manifest.
Basically the issue that was identified is with cards using six Poscaps on the back of the GPU, this was causing a timing issue and when the card would boost it was simply too high and the card would crash. Cards that more closely followed the reference design worked fine. Sadly, this is the cost of early adoption and seems to make good fodder for the influencers looking to throw anyone under the bus.
Of course, this was fixed with a driver update and all is good.
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Hosting a LAN Party
While large gatherings have been canceled or postponed due to the “Situation” that doesn’t mean you should completely shut yourself away from the world. Gamers have flocked to the Internet to play the latest games and one of the most popular is “Among US” Dennis recently hosted a impromptu LAN party for a few close friends and got to play this new game.
