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NVIDIA officially states they cut overclocking from mobile GPU's... :(


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I'm surprised this didn't show up here yet, but Nvidia, in their infinite wisdom, has officially stated their stance on mobile GPU overclocking. Basically it will no longer be supported in any way, shape, or form in their drivers or BIOS. See this post here:

https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/805791/geforce-drivers/gtx-900m-overclocking-with-347-09-347-25/post/4458903/#4458903

This discussion has also been taking place at NBR: No more overclocking on Nvidia mobile GPUs | NotebookReview

From ManuelG:

"Unfortunately GeForce notebooks were not designed to support overclocking. Overclocking is by no means a trivial feature, and depends on thoughtful design of thermal, electrical, and other considerations. By overclocking a notebook, a user risks serious damage to the system that could result in non-functional systems, reduced notebook life, or many other effects.

There was a bug introduced into our drivers which enabled some systems to overclock. This was fixed in a recent update. Our intent was not to remove features from GeForce notebooks, but rather to safeguard systems from operating outside design limits."

qUZ8ODu.jpg

I'd like to get Prema's and svl7's take on this and what this means down the road.

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This is a terrible move by NVidia, they're just shooting themselves in the foot (or face more to the point!) - they're messing with their reputation in a very negative way, their GPUs have always been good overclockers, and a lot of people choose NVidia for this reason - bad business decision NVidia, hope you do a 180 and re-enable overclocking!

Meanwhile, there's a petition to sign:

https://www.change.org/p/nvidia-re-enable-overclocking-on-geforce-equipped-notebooks?recruiter=20925400

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Doing this for the card's sake is bullshit. There is plenty of thermal and power monitoring to protect the card. The real reason they are doing this is so they can release "faster" cards that are just overclocked rebrands of existing cards.

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It's obviously a money grab from NVIDIA but I suspect their OEM partners like Dell also played a big role in this decision. Dell has been actively neutering their products the last decade, the only thing that has stopped them has been the very resourceful community. From programs like ThrottleStop from @unclewebb to bios mods made by @svl7 and @Prema If we didn't have those sorta developments out there, then most mobile enthusiasts would have taken it up the ass long ago. So now with AMD being a near complete failure in the desktop and mobile world and NVIDIA's AIB share having jumped to about 70-75%, it seems they know that inevitable day has arrived for a GPU monopoly.

Jen Hsun must be over the moon because NVIDIA just posted a healthy quarter and as usual AMD is in a very weak position. Financially AMD cannot keep up with NVIDIA any longer and that means they will become less and less competitive with every generation, they are simply spread too thin having to develop a CPU and GPU with razor thin margins. .I guess part of the blame is on the community (guys like me) who only buy NVIDIA but most of the blame is on AMD for not being competitive. This is just the market taking it's natural course.

Some have tried arguing that notebooks aren't designed for overclocking and perhaps this is something that was long overdue because it doesn't affect the majority of the market. If this were true, we wouldn't have companies like Lenovo releasing dual GPU machines or Clevo and MSI building thick well ventilated gaming systems - everyone would have taken the Apple approach by now. Unfortunately, I fear enthusiasts like @Mr. Fox worst nightmare is coming true faster than he thought. First Alienware thumbed their noses at their core enthusiast fanbase and now NVIDIA is following suite. I won't be shocked if we start seeing different levels of NVIDIA hardware for mobile after this if AMD does indeed fail to be competitive.

I'll re-post what I wrote over on [H]:

Hmm you may be on to something here....

980M Stock

980M OC Edition +$200 nets you 100 mhz

980M OMG Edition +$400 nets you 200 mhz

Oh Jen Hsun you sneaky bastard! :D

USD1_Jensen_675.jpg

I don't buy the "bug" b.s. either but hey this is what happens when the only game in town for mobile graphics is NVIDIA. AMD has been asleep at the wheel and I'm afraid they will never catch up again. BUT the silver lining is that you can still get modded mobile vbios from sites like Tech|Inferno to OC these things so all is not lost.

GPU vbios flashing should still be viable so you guys will have an avenue should the driver lockout not be easy enough to circumvent. Some are talking about this little experiment from NVIDIA extending to the desktop later on once AMD is done and that could be a possibility. Jen Hsun has aspired to be like Apple/Intel for a long long time, he's made it known in his speeches if you've followed him. If AMD folds, then expect to see locked and unlocked GPUs from NVIDIA (e.g. stock 980 for $550 and 980K for $750).

I'm ALMOST tempted to sell my G-sync display, 980s and go with a FreeSync + R300 Xfire, we'll see I just might.

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This is terrible news for us laptop gamers who loved to overclock..looks like all of us are going to be married to the driver 344.75 id rather switch to amd if NVIDIA doesnt re enable overclocking or switch to desktop this is retarded..

If only AMD did manufacture more potent cards... I`d sell my notebook today. That`s what happens when a company has to few competitors...

Best regards

phila

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While overclocking via bios flash will work, who knows for how long. Nvidia may start overriding the bios gpu clocks with the driver.

If only amd figured out how to make a faster card in the past 3 years after the 7970m

You think OC of the card will work despite the restrictive drivers?

Best regards

phila

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You think OC of the card will work despite the restrictive drivers?

Best regards

phila

I think it has to do something with modifying the inf files in the driver. But i completely agree with what you said phila_delphia. I am thinking about selling mine already and switch to desktop since like you said AMD didn't come out with anything better close to maxwell. Exactly, NVIDIA has no competition at this point..

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With Kepler the drivers are not successful in blocking overclocking, at least with a modded vBIOS. My 780M cards are still fully unlocked with the latest drivers. Maxwell is a different story. I am sticking with 344.75 drivers for my 980M setup. The latest drivers lock it down as tight as a drum. You can overclock by changing the vBIOS and re-flashing, but Precision X, Afterburner and NVIDIA Inspector no longer work on Maxwell mobile GPUs.

I gave these Satanic bastards a piece of my mind this morning.

post-119-14494999429728_thumb.jpg

post-119-14494999430053_thumb.jpg

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First of all - I don't think an online petition will change anything, at all. I'm absolutely convinced Nvidia gave this some thorough thoughts in advance.

As always, the "official" statement is very Nvidia-like. It's deceptive, twists the through and most likely is even an utter lie (for some parts).

"GeForce notebooks were not designed to support overclocking."

That statement is wrong in so many ways. E.g. Asus even provides software OC support for its G-series notebooks. MSI (until very recently) stated overclocking headroom as one of the features of their high-end mobile devices. Nvidia having the guts to say that all notebooks that have a green GPU inside aren't "designed" for overclocking is a pathetic effort to blame OEMs in general and distract from the fact that it indeed works incredibly well on many higher-end systems.

Of course there are many systems with on-board solutions that do not have the thermal headroom for higher clocks, more volts, etc., however that's not *all* systems and certainly not the ones that actually got overclocked. Due to the driver throttling as soon as the temp gets critical you can't even overclock a system with insufficient thermal headroom and get decent results.

The only systems that get overclocked by a lot of users are those which are very well capable of running the hardware a certain amount above stock clocks. And it works well. Maybe too well in the eyes of Nvidia, see post by @Brian.

Let's talk about pushing hardware to the limits and potentially endangering the hardware or shortening its life... well the GPUs can handle the additional load with no problem whatsoever. Same silicon is used on desktop cards which run on distinctly higher clocks as well as voltage. "Overclocking is by no means a trivial feature, and depends on thoughtful design of thermal, electrical and other considerations". Yeah, well, the GPU can handle increased current etc. very well, we don't even have to discuss this. Naturally mobile systems are limited by the power supply circuits and so on, but that only means that you can't even reach the max overclock before you run into issues, so even less harm done.

Assuming the average power users is not a bencher (and I think that assumption is reasonable), an overclock aims to maximize performance while maintaining stability, all within a thermal frame that allows the GPU to run without thermal throttling. If we assume this to the be regular aim of someone who overclocks his notebook, all the issues that Nvidia points out are invalid. Cause the GPU itself is very well capable of handling additional load, and you can't push a mobile system so far that you'd get to limits where you're above speeds, power draw levels etc. that you see in desktop parts, cause by this time (assuming the power supply circuits could hold up, which they don't) you would have run into heat issues a long time ago, resulting in a throttling GPU.

That's why this point is completely invalid as well.

I don't say you can't damage your GPU with overclocking. Most people actually that manage do damage their systems with overclocking don't damage the GPU itself, but the vram (e.g. those certain users that seem to have a fetish for high memory overclock to compensate for their lack benching skills...). Yet I don't think this point is that important at all. There are easier ways to damage a system, and people always manage to do it. So far I haven't killed a single GPU with overclocking, and I seriously abused some of them.

"There was a bug introduced into our drivers which enabled some systems to overclock"

It's not like I can proof it, but this really, really stinks. If this hasn't LIE written all over it then I don't know what a lie is. And Nvidias current track record certainly isn't helping their credibility *cough* 3.5GB *cough*. At least ALL mobile Nvidia parts ever since Fermi, heck even the G92 generation, definitely allowed to be overclocked. Every single Nvidia MXM part had the ability to overclock. Same goes for the GM104 Maxwell series as well as GM204.

I can't say for sure why Nvidia decided to kill overclocking for mobile parts, but some strong points have been raised in this thread already. First of all it certainly has to do with money. Not enough competition helps, you can do whatever you want basically. (Move you ass AMD and release some new MXM shit...!!).

Recently the Nvidia rebadges have been basically worthless thanks to certain vbios mods :P. Did you ever notice that +135MHz limit on Kepler mobile (yeah, desktop parts don't have this...). That's definitely related with making rebadged cards with higher clocks more of an option.

Disabling overclocking makes the point a lot more clear. You want more speed? Buy a new card. It's the same one, but it runs faster. A bit. Cause we want you to sell another one in a couple of months.

Yeah, fuck you guys.

Which brings me to an important point (which unfortunately won't be followed by most users):

Don't buy Nvidia if you don't approve of what they're doing. That would be the only way to actually change anything. I know it won't happen, people will still go and buy, upgrade... and Nvidia will never change. It needs to hurt them before they consider changing anything. That's also why we need AMD around. See G-Sync, the whole GK110 fraud with Titan, then 780 and then 780Ti. Not to mention the 970...

Nvidia is clever enough to increase the pain level in small steps, +135Mhz limit... right, we got a workaround for that, all fine. No more vbios flashing... right, we got rid of that as well, all fine. No more overclocking by software... whoopsie. We might find a workaround. Or we flash the vbios. But what's NEXT? No more working drivers with unsigned vbios? Well, that'd be my bet.

That's the way hardware seems to take these days.

For most guys it didn't start to become noticeable until secure flash was introduced. All in the name of security. Certainly not because a manufacturer doesn't want you to use a modified firmware that allows for much refined control of your hardware, nooo... it's about security. To keep away those nasty firmware rootkits that everyone suffers from, because they're so easy to code and work on any mobo with ease. (Hint for the thick ones: look up 'sarcasm').

Secure flash... making it virtually impossible to flash unsigned firmware by means of using software. Who profits? Microsoft. Big style. No more Windows activating per bios mod. Locking out Linux distros. All in the name of security. Cause that works so damn well. By the way, same reason nvidia is locking down on vbios flashing. No more overclocking, but also locking out nouveau, the open source nvidia driver that is mainly based on tons of reversing of the nvidia blob. All in the name of security.

What's next? Intel boot guard. No, wait, that's already here. Good bye Coreboot.

Ah right, Intel PFAT... good bye bios mods in general. And ME mods.

Locked out hardware can be exciting, if there's a lock. Cause I can still afford lock picking tools and teach me some skills. It's actually a challenge, it's fun. However, if there isn't a lock but instead a bloody atomic shelter that's been concreted over... the fun ends.

The heck, if it was just for money making... I'd even pay $100 for an overclocking warranty.

The only OEM that ever went with this is Intel. And it was distinctly cheaper.

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We're on a slippery slope that leads to a sheer cliff.

I'm sure desktop will be next on the hit list. Then the trolls that mock the laptop overclockers will understand that they should have been angry about it. Poop flows in the direction that gravity takes it.

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Hey guys, I know NBR is a four-letter word around these parts, but could you please take a look at my post over there and do whatever you can to make some noise about this issue? At the very least send emails to the 3 Nvidia employees @Brian mentioned and sign the petition, although a mass Twitter campaign is probably going to be the best bet.

No more overclocking on Nvidia mobile GPUs | NotebookReview

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First of all - I don't think an online petition will change anything, at all. I'm absolutely convinced Nvidia gave this some thorough thoughts in advance.

As always, the "official" statement is very Nvidia-like. It's deceptive, twists the through and most likely is even an utter lie (for some parts).

"GeForce notebooks were not designed to support overclocking."

That statement is wrong in so many ways. E.g. Asus even provides software OC support for its G-series notebooks. MSI (until very recently) stated overclocking headroom as one of the features of their high-end mobile devices. Nvidia having the guts to say that all notebooks that have a green GPU inside aren't "designed" for overclocking is a pathetic effort to blame OEMs in general and distract from the fact that it indeed works incredibly well on many higher-end systems.

Of course there are many systems with on-board solutions that do not have the thermal headroom for higher clocks, more volts, etc., however that's not *all* systems and certainly not the ones that actually got overclocked. Due to the driver throttling as soon as the temp gets critical you can't even overclock a system with insufficient thermal headroom and get decent results.

The only systems that get overclocked by a lot of users are those which are very well capable of running the hardware a certain amount above stock clocks. And it works well. Maybe too well in the eyes of Nvidia, see post by @Brian.

Let's talk about pushing hardware to the limits and potentially endangering the hardware or shortening its life... well the GPUs can handle the additional load with no problem whatsoever. Same silicon is used on desktop cards which run on distinctly higher clocks as well as voltage. "Overclocking is by no means a trivial feature, and depends on thoughtful design of thermal, electrical and other considerations". Yeah, well, the GPU can handle increased current etc. very well, we don't even have to discuss this. Naturally mobile systems are limited by the power supply circuits and so on, but that only means that you can't even reach the max overclock before you run into issues, so even less harm done.

Assuming the average power users is not a bencher (and I think that assumption is reasonable), an overclock aims to maximize performance while maintaining stability, all within a thermal frame that allows the GPU to run without thermal throttling. If we assume this to the be regular aim of someone who overclocks his notebook, all the issues that Nvidia points out are invalid. Cause the GPU itself is very well capable of handling additional load, and you can't push a mobile system so far that you'd get to limits where you're above speeds, power draw levels etc. that you see in desktop parts, cause by this time (assuming the power supply circuits could hold up, which they don't) you would have run into heat issues a long time ago, resulting in a throttling GPU.

That's why this point is completely invalid as well.

I don't say you can't damage your GPU with overclocking. Most people actually that manage do damage their systems with overclocking don't damage the GPU itself, but the vram (e.g. those certain users that seem to have a fetish for high memory overclock to compensate for their lack benching skills...). Yet I don't think this point is that important at all. There are easier ways to damage a system, and people always manage to do it. So far I haven't killed a single GPU with overclocking, and I seriously abused some of them.

"There was a bug introduced into our drivers which enabled some systems to overclock"

It's not like I can proof it, but this really, really stinks. If this hasn't LIE written all over it then I don't know what a lie is. And Nvidias current track record certainly isn't helping their credibility *cough* 3.5GB *cough*. At least ALL mobile Nvidia parts ever since Fermi, heck even the G92 generation, definitely allowed to be overclocked. Every single Nvidia MXM part had the ability to overclock. Same goes for the GM104 Maxwell series as well as GM204.

I can't say for sure why Nvidia decided to kill overclocking for mobile parts, but some strong points have been raised in this thread already. First of all it certainly has to do with money. Not enough competition helps, you can do whatever you want basically. (Move you ass AMD and release some new MXM shit...!!).

Recently the Nvidia rebadges have been basically worthless thanks to certain vbios mods :P. Did you ever notice that +135MHz limit on Kepler mobile (yeah, desktop parts don't have this...). That's definitely related with making rebadged cards with higher clocks more of an option.

Disabling overclocking makes the point a lot more clear. You want more speed? Buy a new card. It's the same one, but it runs faster. A bit. Cause we want you to sell another one in a couple of months.

Yeah, fuck you guys.

Which brings me to an important point (which unfortunately won't be followed by most users):

Don't buy Nvidia if you don't approve of what they're doing. That would be the only way to actually change anything. I know it won't happen, people will still go and buy, upgrade... and Nvidia will never change. It needs to hurt them before they consider changing anything. That's also why we need AMD around. See G-Sync, the whole GK110 fraud with Titan, then 780 and then 780Ti. Not to mention the 970...

Nvidia is clever enough to increase the pain level in small steps, +135Mhz limit... right, we got a workaround for that, all fine. No more vbios flashing... right, we got rid of that as well, all fine. No more overclocking by software... whoopsie. We might find a workaround. Or we flash the vbios. But what's NEXT? No more working drivers with unsigned vbios? Well, that'd be my bet.

That's the way hardware seems to take these days.

For most guys it didn't start to become noticeable until secure flash was introduced. All in the name of security. Certainly not because a manufacturer doesn't want you to use a modified firmware that allows for much refined control of your hardware, nooo... it's about security. To keep away those nasty firmware rootkits that everyone suffers from, because they're so easy to code and work on any mobo with ease. (Hint for the thick ones: look up 'sarcasm').

Secure flash... making it virtually impossible to flash unsigned firmware by means of using software. Who profits? Microsoft. Big style. No more Windows activating per bios mod. Locking out Linux distros. All in the name of security. Cause that works so damn well. By the way, same reason nvidia is locking down on vbios flashing. No more overclocking, but also locking out nouveau, the open source nvidia driver that is mainly based on tons of reversing of the nvidia blob. All in the name of security.

What's next? Intel boot guard. No, wait, that's already here. Good bye Coreboot.

Ah right, Intel PFAT... good bye bios mods in general. And ME mods.

Locked out hardware can be exciting, if there's a lock. Cause I can still afford lock picking tools and teach me some skills. It's actually a challenge, it's fun. However, if there isn't a lock but instead a bloody atomic shelter that's been concreted over... the fun ends.

The heck, if it was just for money making... I'd even pay $100 for an overclocking warranty.

The only OEM that ever went with this is Intel. And it was distinctly cheaper.

For my part: The most elaborate post on the topic! Thx!

Best regards

phila

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I was always a great fan of Nvidia despite a few fiascos... But their latest move? Not allow me to do what I want with my hardware? If I bought a $1500 over a $1000 because of a colling system, why do you think I did that?

Of course, they say it is for our protection, pfft...What a load of crap, clearly holding people from overclocking will create a greater need to buy new hardware for better performance.

It's my laptop, my video card, I BOUGHT IT! If I wish to dress up as a mermaid and jump into a pool of koolAid while holding my laptop, that is my bussiness... or will NVIDIA tie me up next time I update my drivers?

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My boring 2 Cents:

NVIDIA simply decided to "cover their tracks" with the 374 driver...

Reason OC is disabled for Mobile Maxwell is that the cards throttled about 20% right out of the box in about one third of systems even when the systems where running very cool. Since this is a sue-able defect in markets like Europe (i.e. not as advertised) they had to tackle it before it became a public topic.

So the only way to fix this issue (since they can not expect the casual user to have a mass vBIOS/BIOS flashing) was raising the TDP limits right on driver level.

The problem, by raising the bar for all Mobile Maxwell was that systems that never had this problem in the first place now the upper TDP bar had also risen by about 20%.

Since all their "lab-tested" numbers (which OEMs build their entire system designs on) are based on the old TDP, they decided to simply remove the core and memory OC option and that way chop of the "same" amount from the top. (Since OC isn't an advertised feature it isn't sue-able).

It is debatable if this raise may have caused actual technical problems, and while it certainly does on heavily PSU and/or cooling limited systems, our tests show that it won't for most of them, especially more powerful ones like the Clevos.

This also brings us to the second and more obvious reason why they approved this solution and pushed it into a public driver. Business!

Why would a mainstream user, who can gain 50% through OC right NOW (through one of our Mods), upgrade to a future "GTX980MX" that gives him only 30% (stock) over his current setup?!

And here they thought they could beat two birds with one stone...Well it looks like they forgot about their end-user!

This is what happens if the management first decides to save money during development and then panics and puts the advice of their legal team over that of their public-relations office...and guess who has to deal with it now. ;)

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I guess part of the blame is on the community (guys like me) who only buy NVIDIA but most of the blame is on AMD for not being competitive.

Actually it is the other way around. R&D takes a crap load of money and those people have families to feed as well. So take what, less than half of what nVIDIA has as a market share, then take the lower prices AND then take in mind that the wafers cost THE SAME for everyone (actually nVIDIA could get better discount, because you know, bigger orders). Can you do the math? Again, they can't reinvest everything, they have to warrant their living as well. AMD for not being competitive - how comes? Really?! It was at least twice in the past 5 years (clear advantage), but everyone and their mothers were still buying nVIDIA (OK, there are always exceptions, but for most part), or waiting nVIDIA's response. AMD always has released whatever they had best on tap, and I can point you at least two examples of recent years that nVIDIA was/is holding off - 680m and 980m. You are the ones that are happy to be milked, so here comes this:

This is just the market taking it's natural course.

Of course it is, and it would get "better". You are letting them in, tell'em to feel at home and they do just that. They can do whatever they want, you have showed them this multiple times. They screw-up, you are still there with your money, ready to take the next hit. I can't see why you are moaning about it, embrace the market's natural course, the one you created. That's why I'll buy AMD till they are around, because I don't like monopoly and especially arrogant bastards (Intel is right next in-line, gnusmas tops them all). That's how I proceed, I'm not buying anything or that has chips that came from gnusmas for quite some time now, wont be getting 980m even if it happens to be the last MXM 3.0 B, would build an AMD desktop. Yeah, I'm shooting myself in the leg, but you shot both of yours.

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Actually it is the other way around. R&D takes a crap load of money and those people have families to feed as well. So take what, less than half of what nVIDIA has as a market share, then take the lower prices AND then take in mind that the wafers cost THE SAME for everyone (actually nVIDIA could get better discount, because you know, bigger orders). Can you do the math? Again, they can't reinvest everything, they have to warrant their living as well. AMD for not being competitive - how comes? Really?! It was at least twice in the past 5 years (clear advantage), but everyone and their mothers were still buying nVIDIA (OK, there are always exceptions, but for most part), or waiting nVIDIA's response. AMD always has released whatever they had best on tap, and I can point you at least two examples of recent years that nVIDIA was/is holding off - 680m and 980m. You are the ones that are happy to be milked, so here comes this:

Of course it is, and it would get "better". You are letting them in, tell'em to feel at home and they do just that. They can do whatever they want, you have showed them this multiple times. They screw-up, you are still there with your money, ready to take the next hit. I can't see why you are moaning about it, embrace the market's natural course, the one you created. That's why I'll buy AMD till they are around, because I don't like monopoly and especially arrogant bastards (Intel is right next in-line, gnusmas tops them all). That's how I proceed, I'm not buying anything or that has chips that came from gnusmas for quite some time now, wont be getting 980m even if it happens to be the last MXM 3.0 B, would build an AMD desktop. Yeah, I'm shooting myself in the leg, but you shot both of yours.

Really, of all the points I made in that post, that's what you took from it?? But sure, those of us that stick with NVIDIA hardware may be part of the problem but that doesn't absolve AMD for not being competitive. IF AMD had been competitive like you assert, they would have done the following:

1. Had mobile parts that had the same perf/watt as NVIDIA - they did not for the last three years!

2. Created niche features like G-Sync first. Yes they followed with FreeSync but that's still not on the market yet and we don't know how well it works. On the other hand G-Sync is here and I use it everyday.

3. Created cool power efficient GPUs: Fact is 290/290x reference versions were a fucking joke. If AMD wanted to really steal the limelight from NVIDIA, they should have put more thought into the reference cooler for the 290/290x upon release so that more of us would have purchased it. When I saw that they tried to market 95C as some sort of normal operating temperature, I wrote them off immediately. Then AIB's not delivering better cooling solutions for more than 1.5 months didn't help matters did it?

4. Cards like the GTX Titan came out more than 6 months before 290/290X were created by AMD to respond.. SIX MONTHS! In the GPU world, that is an entire product cycle so of course some of us bought GTX Titans, we weren't going to wait around for AMD to catch up.

So while they may have employees to feed, it's not our responsibility to keep them fed - they should have done a better job on every front. AMD as a company has had some of the worst leadership in the industry, so why reward failure? Take for example them selling their mobile patents to Qualcomm who is now making a killing with the Adreno (anagram of radeon, bet qualcom laughed their asses off at that one). If AMD had foresight, they would have gone into the mobile space and developed adreno on their own and been MUCH larger than NVIDIA could ever dream of being. Secondly, instead of rewarding their hard working engineers, they gave golden parachutes to their joke CEOs, why reward a company like that? Honestly, fuck them.

NVIDIA does a lot of crooked things but they also have business acumen that has enabled them to survive a shrinking PC business. They employ clever marketing, invent new proprietary technology to gain an edge (e.g. PhysX, G-Sync, GameWorks) all the while AMD plays catch up. When AMD/ATi merged, they had the upper hand vs NVIDIA but they pissed it away, I don't feel sorry for them. Their last chance of redemption will be this upcoming R300 release, if they screw that up then it may very well be their last. For the first time ever I'm considering going AMD again based on principle but only if they offer something compelling, money doesn't grow on trees for me or any other consumer.

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Everything that is wrong with AMD is their own fault. They offer nothing compelling and their products have been extremely unreliable for me. NVIDIA has offered a better option for several years running. Overpriced? Yup, of course. They know the alternative for us is crap, so it's understandable that their prices are ridiculous. From the Bumpgate Scandal until this new debacle that have had a pretty decent track record. They stumbled with the 880M pile of feces, and now their massive lies to cover up something they don't want us to discover is troubling.

I will stay on 344.75 as long as I need to. I'm an overclocker/bencher first, gamer second. I don't need drivers ideally optimized for the latest games. I'm not installing their clock-locking malware drivers. If that means not buying any new games or living with a less than optimal game experience, que sera sera.

I would absolutely love to see AMD open a can of whoop-ass on NVIDIA, but I have absolutely zero confidence that they have technical competence or financial resources to do so. I would love to be able to show my support for them out of principle to help destroy NVIDIA's undesirable monopoly, but I do not have sufficient disposable income to waste on second-rate computer hardware that will end up collecting dust on a shelf because it is a piece of crap. We can call NVIDIA evil all we want to, and while they may be evil, they did not create the monopoly they enjoy. They have it because AMD sucks so bad.

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