Friday, October 24th 2008
AMD Responds to TechPowerUp Investigation, Issues Remedy
Earlier this week, when evaluating samples of the new Radeon HD 4830 GPU-based graphics card, W1zzard, who also authors the GPU-Z diagnostic utility, had found an anomaly with the stream processor (SP) counts on samples sent by AMD. The GPU could access only 560 out of its 640 SPs available. This affected the card's performance significantly, and TechPowerUp's findings were validated by several other reviewers with similar samples.
AMD on its part quickly followed up the issue with its engineering department, and released a video BIOS update that fixes the issue and makes available all the 640 SPs. AMD will be circulating this BIOS to all its press contacts and add-in-board (AIB) partners, to make sure the issue is isolated and fixed. The updated BIOS file can be downloaded from here. AMD also asserts that the issue isn't hardware related, and that updating the BIOS resolves the issue completely.
AMD on its part quickly followed up the issue with its engineering department, and released a video BIOS update that fixes the issue and makes available all the 640 SPs. AMD will be circulating this BIOS to all its press contacts and add-in-board (AIB) partners, to make sure the issue is isolated and fixed. The updated BIOS file can be downloaded from here. AMD also asserts that the issue isn't hardware related, and that updating the BIOS resolves the issue completely.
45 Comments on AMD Responds to TechPowerUp Investigation, Issues Remedy
It may be that they were using a variety of BIOS's to ensure that the shaders on the review cards were working correctly and accidentally sent the cards out in the final test configuration (minus one shader).
I really doubt it was any kind of deceipt on AMD's part as it simply does not make any logical sense for them to do that. Their quick response also points to a mistake, not a purposeful act.
I've never bashed nVidia and have owned nVidia cards in the past and was pleased with them. It's true that at the moment I prefer ATI cards, but that is due to what I feel are more stable drivers and I also prefer their "once a month" driver releases (it's much less confusing than nVidia's method).
If nVidia release review samples with a similar issue, I would give them the benefit of the doubt until it was proved otherwise. I, personally, believe in "innocent until proven guilty".
Just my 2 cents.
I am thankful that there is an nVidia (and ATI) so that we as consumers have a choice, and the competition is good for us all.
We have seen what happens when there is no competition and a company justs sits back and does nothing new (no, I'm not naming any names ;) )
ATI made a mistake, not overpromising hardware and underdelivering, but with a faulty BIOS, perhaps the man in charge of it placed a wrong character in the BIOS. What this does tell us is that a BIOS hack could be possible.
comprehend
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