A Christmas tale about my RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra

[TurboKen 221]

On 1/9/2021 at 11:43 AM, martin-w said:

 

PSU is  EVGA 1000 watt G+ Awesome 10 years warranty and again, reliable. Great customer support. 

 

I have the same PS. You will like it. It has a quality sounding click from the relay when powering on. Sometimes its the small things that bring joy 🙂

Just a heads up- This wont be a problem for you as its a new build but if anyone reading this is doing a modular power supply swap make sure and use the new cables especially if going from say Corsair to EVGA as the pin outs at the PS end are different and you will fry your motherboard. 

[martin-w 3,256]

10 hours ago, TurboKen said:

I have the same PS. You will like it. It has a quality sounding click from the relay when powering on. Sometimes its the small things that bring joy 🙂

Just a heads up- This wont be a problem for you as its a new build but if anyone reading this is doing a modular power supply swap make sure and use the new cables especially if going from say Corsair to EVGA as the pin outs at the PS end are different and you will fry your motherboard. 

 

Oh yes... 

 I've had many EVGA power supplies. Quality units and great support.

As for PSU cables, you are correct. The pin outs are specific to a particular PSU. I always make sure I keep all spare cables in the relevant PSU box. That way I can't mix them up.

Same if you order custom cables as I often do. You can't order any set of cables, they are specific to a make and model. I recall a Jayz2Cents video where he mixed a cable up and destroyed an SSD. 

[martin-w 3,256]

16 hours ago, CaptKornDog said:

Sounds like it may not be worth it for me to use EVGA's step-up to go from my 3080 XC to a 3090 FTW (basically for an additional $1000 premium).  I have 28 days to decide, and without a 3080 Ti announcement at NVIDIA's CES Key Note today, I'm going to be torn.

 

I would say no. The price to performance ratio isn't worth it. I went for a 3090 because I have spare cash at present.

[RichieFly 737]

Final (I hope) update:

It has been as long as the first card lasted and it is still working. Woopee.

The replacement card was Chinese made, as opposed to Taiwan made. The new card runs a little cooler and has a more consistent temperature spread across all the temperature measuring places (as seen in Precision X1). If I recall correctly, the PWR1 location ran about 4C hotter than the other spots on the old card.

My PSU makes significantly more noise than the card does, as a measure of noise level. I guess that's good.

Finally, I hand it to EVGA. They were helpful and generous throughout.

[martin-w 3,256]

15 hours ago, RichieFly said:

Final (I hope) update:

It has been as long as the first card lasted and it is still working. Woopee.

The replacement card was Chinese made, as opposed to Taiwan made. The new card runs a little cooler and has a more consistent temperature spread across all the temperature measuring places (as seen in Precision X1). If I recall correctly, the PWR1 location ran about 4C hotter than the other spots on the old card.

My PSU makes significantly more noise than the card does, as a measure of noise level. I guess that's good.

Finally, I hand it to EVGA. They were helpful and generous throughout.

 

Mine was from Taiwan, so hoping for the best when I eventually build the rig. 😃

[Steve Dra 7,605]

On 12/26/2020 at 10:18 AM, Greggy_D said:

You can buy the Nvidia version of the 3060ti for $400.

"You can buy the Nvidia version of the 3060ti for $400."  

Sadly, only Bots got them for that price the first 1.26 seconds they were on the market.  Good news though!   Us humans can easily go to ebay or craigs list and pay 40-200% more than that. 🙄

Such is the new world of buying high-end GPUs until big Green and big Red can figure out how to flood the market with enough stock that everyone has a 10% chance of getting them at retail before the bots/ scalpers do.  

Some actual humans that are not scalpers managed to get a hold of some, usually by camping out in front of a soon-to open store to rush in and grab one, but my desire to have a new card is not such that I'd ever try that.  Anyway, hope those who would like a card at retail can get one in the future....sad it has to be this way. 

[RichieFly 737]

Yeah. The lack of stock is not good. A combination of purposeful low numbers at release, bitcoin miners and scalpers. I think the release of the 20 series cards was somewhat similar.

The way I got mine, as I'd never, ever pay a scalper, was to add myself to the notify list. Then, on one magical day, you get a notification and bob's your uncle.

[martin-w 3,256]

On 1/16/2021 at 8:38 PM, RichieFly said:

 

The way I got mine, as I'd never, ever pay a scalper, was to add myself to the notify list. Then, on one magical day, you get a notification and bob's your uncle.

 

I didn't even do that. I just kept checking each day and then magically Scan UK had 3090 FTW3 I wanted in stock. As quick as a flash I ordered one. I guess they had a bunch in, dealt with the pre-orders and then had a small surplus. I was very lucky to get one. 

[dave belsey 54]

Update:

It's about 2 months since I got the new PC and yesterday the EVGA RTX3090 FTW3 Ultra card died whilst playing Forza 4.

One minute I was playing and then it went to a blank screen, no warning.

On investigation, there was no signal on the second monitor either so had to power the machine off.  

Removed the card and re-seated but still no output so the card is now on its' way back to Scan.

Dave.

 

 

 

[martin-w 3,256]

1 hour ago, dave belsey said:

Update:

It's about 2 months since I got the new PC and yesterday the EVGA RTX3090 FTW3 Ultra card died whilst playing Forza 4.

One minute I was playing and then it went to a blank screen, no warning.

On investigation, there was no signal on the second monitor either so had to power the machine off.  

Removed the card and re-seated but still no output so the card is now on its' way back to Scan.

Dave.

 

 

 

 

 

Good grief, how many more FTW3 cards are going to fail. Seems quite common now. 😧

Doesn't bode well for my FTW3 when I build my rig. 

I recall you have an 850 Watt PSU. It has been suggested that the failures may be related to the cards tendency for transient spikes. Not sure if that would be a valid hypothesis technically, but that's what some are suggesting.

Most likely scenario is indeed a batch of faulty cards.

Are you using the standard cables that came with the PSU, or custom cables?

Are you powering each of the three 8 pin connectors with individual PCIe cables?

Is it the original version with red lip detail on the end of the card, or the revised version with black lips?

Lets me know what EVGA say, I'd love to know if they have an explanation for all these failures. 

 

Edit: I'm reading this morning about people whop have had THREE cards in a row fail. All the same, black screen crash, fans go to 100% and then card dead. I think EVGA need to make a statement about this. 

 

Edited February 12, 2021 by martin-w

[dave belsey 54]

Martin,

Scan built the machine and as far as I can tell it has 3 separate cables.

I doubt that the card has suffered from power spikes as the pc is attached to a Powercool Smart UPS.

The fans on mine did not go to 100%, in fact they weren't turning at all but that would be because of the temperature settings in the fan profile.  The RGB lighting was still working though.

It has red lips, but I don't feel like kissing them right now.

I will let you know the outcome when I hear back from Scan.

Dave.

 

 

 

Edited February 12, 2021 by dave belsey

[martin-w 3,256]

2 hours ago, dave belsey said:

Martin,

 

I doubt that the card has suffered from power spikes as the pc is attached to a Powercool Smart UPS.

 

Dave.

 

 

Its what the 390 does though. Transient spikes from the card are common. Its the card that spikes, so nothing to do with your mains power supply or if you are using a UPS. The UPS protects your system from mains blackouts, brownouts, surges etc, not characteristics of the card.

Having said that, I mentioned it because its a hypothesis floating around the internet, but as said, I'm not sure the hypothesis is valid. I'm not sure how the card spiking could damage it, it could trip the PSU's OCP of course, but again, not sure how that could impact the card itself. 

I actually emailed EVGA myself this morning, asking for more information on this issue and if they know the cause, as it seems now to be common. Be interesting what they have to say, they will probably make out they don't know about any issues. 🙂

Edited February 12, 2021 by martin-w

[martin-w 3,256]

Had an email this morning from EVGA. 

EVGA confirmed that they are aware of the issues some are having with the RTX3090 FTW3 Gaming Ultra. In terms of black screen crashes, followed by dead card and red LED illuminated.

They advised that they don't currently know what's causing the issue and that owners of the card should carry on using the cards and if they experience a failure it will be replaced under the RMA.

So basically, install and monitor for issues.

Edited February 15, 2021 by martin-w

[ivng 57]

On 12/02/2021 at 5:26 AM, martin-w said:

Good grief, how many more FTW3 cards are going to fail. Seems quite common now. 😧

.....

Edit: I'm reading this morning about people whop have had THREE cards in a row fail. All the same, black screen crash, fans go to 100% and then card dead. I think EVGA need to make a statement about this. 

 

Mine died yesterday after 3 months of regular use. Everything described below happened in one day.

Started with screen going blank and fans revved up to 100%.  Sound from MSFS kept going - ie. computer carried on, just no visuals.  Rebooting worked, only to word not allowed out again with load applied to the card.  When going dark the card would start off pretty hot to the touch but became cold in under a minute.  Even once cold, it kept going without any sign of wanting to slow the fans.  After a few cycles it got harder to reboot, had to cut power at PSU.  At one restart there was a message about "VGA card not suported by UEFI".  There was an option to "continue".  Windows loaded up, MSFS loaded up, load to card applied (sim menu still does a great job taxing GPU), and now the card is dead.  There is no video output at all.  No red LEDs above power plugs like others are reporting.  The eyecandy LEDs do still work.  I'm not a fan of LED decorations, but switched them back on to indicate temperature for when the screen goes black.  Not much luck with this test as it simply died before I had any use of the LED temperature indicators.

Got myself a GT710 today just so I can use the PC for other things until RMA process completes.  Hope it doesn't take too long.  I have to ship it international fom Ontario to California.

I hope EVGA isn't slapping a band-aid fix to broken cards and sending them out to people.  "I get yours, you get mine kind of thing".

 

Edited March 5, 2021 by ivng

[ivng 57]

On 06/01/2021 at 2:55 PM, ivng said:

Hope not to come back to this thread to report a dead GPU.  So far, so good.

Ahaha. Just going over the thread again...  and this is what I said a while ago.  Here I am!

Edited March 5, 2021 by ivng