News MSI defends GTX 1080, 1070 review sample BIOS hack

Any idea if it voids warranty?

 

I know Asus has form with this sort of thing (albeit with motherboards), so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that MSI are willing to fiddle their way up the benchmark tables too.

 

Would it even be noticeable in benchmarks? Don't get me wrong things like this are morally and ethical wrong (IMO) but technically does it make much difference.

 

If all the BIOS "hack" does is default the card to "OC mode" without the need to run the supplied app or whatever, then I don't see a problem.

 

Haha Asus and MSI are basically the VW of the computer world. But this time, their decision doesn't make sense. Their heatsinks are clearly capable of dissipating the heat with the better BIOS, so why not just leave it there?

 

They're not making the cards do anything untoward though. According to the article, all the BIOS "hack" does is default the card to the aggressive "OC mode", something that anyone can do with the supplied MSI app anyway, regardless of which BIOS their card has.

 

Regardless of their intention, this is the wrong way to go about it. If you want reviewers to be aware that your app can enable a different profile, you put a little note in the box of the card so they see it when they go to open it, not sneak it past them. Yes, it's only a minuscule 25mhz extra, but if they want to test OC, they can do it on their own terms and indicate as such instead of writing the review as if it was a stock card because they don't know you enabled oc mode on them.

Or if you think that mode is oh so important, make it default for retail units too instead of leaving it up to the user to maybe install the app (which I certainly wouldn't do)

 

At most, all they need is to add a caveat: "Review cards tested in OC mode". No need to mention the special BIOS if that's all it does.

 

Basically this. If they were totally innocent then they would have told the reviewer about the OC mode and indicated that it was a stable and representative option for testing if the end use installs the management software.

Instead they created a modified BIOS that gave the superficial impression that under default settings without any software tweaks the card is faster than the ones they are actually selling.

It may be a marginal difference and companies have been caught doing far worse, but it's not a totally excusable and fair thing to do either just because the OC mode is easily accessible to everyone.

Also, presumably there is a reason it's not default, otherwise it would be, you know, default.

 

Yeah, which the reviewers could have added if they had been told that their cards were switched to OC mode.

 

Exactly. To be honest, reading through the article I was disappointed when I learnt exactly what the "hack" was. I was expecting something more sinister than just defaulting to a different user-selectable mode.

 

except that to make their cards seem even better than the rest they cheated.

 

According to the article, Asus did this too. I assume Asus cards don't ship with the MSi App, so do all manufacturers have similar apps that ship with their cards, and do they all have the same "OC mode" available to users?

 

Asus has GPU Tweak, and yes it has OC mode available.

 

Does it though, does a 25Mhz odd OC really effect benchmarks?

Again I'm not saying what they done isn't morally or ethically wrong, it is, i just wonder how much difference it actual makes when it comes to reviews.

 

Just check the load clock speeds. It's probably good practice now regardless of this issue, with varying boost speeds and throttling and what-not.

 

Move on not a problem, 90% of reviewers will get a card photograph it, put it in a test bed and run tests, not read a manual or document stating download software for test. I mean If they read every document going there heads would explode