Something wrong with Ati cards?

Should we be worry that there might be something wrong with the 6990m as compare to Nvidia card? What happen with the 6970 that is making Kobalt Computer rethink of having an Ati card in their laptop?

Why are the same consideration not yet been heard by other resellers?

 

what you have to think about is as a company it must have been a very hard decission for them to decide that they would remove the 6970 from their range due to a high % of failures. especially as as far as i know they were the first in the world to do so and then other much larger companys world wide followed.
of course this is causing delays which have been voiced on here lately but as a customer what would everyone rather they do? just continue sending out inferior cards until they all start failing and then everyone starts slagging them off for sending out inferior products. dont get me wrong, not every card is failing and some could have many years of perfect use but for a company to stop using them is a massive decission to make.

As the backlog gets sorted the last thing they wanted was the same situation 3-6 months down the line with the 6990 so as far as I know and until they are fully tested they have decided not to stock these cards as well.

 

Well we have dell, we have apple. Those 2 larger OEMs still maintained the 6970m until the 6990m arrived (for apple I still think they sell the 6970m)

No other resellers said anything about it, Sager simply stopped sending the cards, the guys who had it in stock were not afraid of sending you one, actually they warned several times that the stocks were low and to get one fast (off course marketing).

For me the 6970m was simply discontinued when the 6990m came out.

 

Kobalt is the only company that stated the high failure rate of the 6970m. They stated there was a (I believe) 40% failure rate.

TBH, if the failure rate is that HIGH, you would be hearing every single reseller stating the same thing. The thing is, no other resellers have mentioned that the 6970m has a high failure rate.

Like Mr MM said, it was most likely just discontinued as the 6990m came out.

 

^^indeed, stands to reason that an outcry would be heard.

A high failure rate for much larger oems like those 2 (dell and apple), would be heard in the news, if there is no news, doubts regarding the stated fact are, well, strange to say the least

 

Smaller resellers are far more likely to have bad batches of single cards sent out to them than larger international corporations, I see no reason to not believe their stance on the matter.

A lot of resellers have simply stopped stocking the 6970m simply because the more powerful 6990m is literally weeks ago or is already available for configuration (Alienware). It would be nearly the exact same situation on the nvidia side as fewer 485m cards are made available for configuration.

 

I dont understand the logic, larger resellers due to their higher buys would likely receive more bad parts.

 

Thanks, but that not what I'm asking? What I'm asking is what is wrong with the 6970m and should I be worry about receiving a 6990m in my notebook?

Like to be more specific, why did the 6970 have high failure rate, did it overheat, etc...?

 

i have no idea Cheesy as i dont work for kobalt, im only a moderator on their forum. a few days after they took the decision to pull them so did sager in america.
for the people on here who are saying the reason is because they are in short supply and this was just an excuse tbh they just dont know and are guessing. but if this was the case then kobalt would have said that.
i dont know if all companys do the same stress testing but i know kobalt stress them to the limit and if theres any sign of a flaw they stop and replace the part and then start the testing again.

 

I ask cause I worry if I might just be safer with Nvidia card since it wattage and total power consumption is less than Ati. Is Kobalt the biggest company in Europe? It seem odd that America would follow suit unless Kobalt is very well trusted.

 

kobalt are a small family run company that have been going for 7 years and
they are well trusted in the industry.

this is a quote from one of their team:

me personally i would always buy nvidia but there are many people out there who will only buy ati so its swings and roundabouts really.

 

But the 6990m is $400 cheaper and better MrDJ.

I'm a Nvidia guy myself but I can't justify that cost. I could get a driving wheel, joystick, gaming mic, and even a swiss backpack.

 

totally understand Cheesy. they certainly are a lot cheaper for ati.
whoever you buy from it will be covered by warranty and hopefully have no problems at all.

 

ding ding ding

 

Personally after obtaining this 2nd ATi card I'm opting to go for nvidia for further future purchases unless something amazing occurs within ati. Overclocking, and cooling I seem to find (in notebooks atleast) more easier and more cooler and with nvidia cards thats what your ultimately paying more for. Or who knows maybe I've just recieved some bad cards and hopefully this replacement 6970 will change my mind... hopefully.

 

no one said anything about short supply.

Only kobalt made the statement that they are having bad cards, its really hard to believe that it should affect more a small family business company, than the other major resellers that I said.

As I said and several others before, on this forum, there is no hard proof that the 6970m is by any means a bad card, nor that it was faulty. Something so large would have already caught the press attention, specially after the nvidia fiasco on the 8000 series.

There is no solid proof, nor reasoning.

And Im not saying that you should get either cards, only that there is no solid proof nor that it makes sense to say that sager discountinued something based on a faulty card. It was only last week that AW stopped offering the 6970m, and apple still sells them.

And btw getting a faulty gpu happens on both companies, so if you get yourself a bad gpu, just return the laptop and proceed as you see fit.

 

Running cooler doesn't mean that the system isn't producing more heat. I can bet that even though the 485M runs cooler, it's still producing more heat than a 6970M.

Same principle applies in the desktop side, especially with the desktop GTX 590 with its nuclear meltdowns even though the temp sensors read cooler than its ATi counterpart.

 

If they don't stress test it the same way the smaller companies do, they won't even know until the buyer's have had it for a while. Then the buyer gets to go throught the wait of the RMA process.

It is not a matter of how many anyone gets, it is just a matter of those that test will know before those that don't can sell them. If I sell 100 units a month, but test all of them, I will better serve my customers by pulling something than someone that sells 10,000 a month but doesn't test the same way and just keeps shipping units. I will find out problems faster and can stop selling, rather than sell a bunch, and then worry about fixing it later. Fixing it later means my buyers will have faulty units, have to wait for repair/replacement. However, if I do the latter, I will make a lot more money, earn a lot more interest, keep my shareholders happy for that quarter, and then replace the faulty part with whatever I have on the next go around. I will also probably get a nice bonus.

 

And to prove it is too late, I can't even quote. Nite.

 

It's not, it's how you look at it. Since the ATi dies are smaller than the nVidia dies, the ATi cards would be giving off less heat than the nVidia dies if they were the same temperature. If the nVidia temps were lower, it may still give off more heat because there is more die space to dissipate off that heat. Since the 485M draws more power on load than the 6970M, that is the most likely case.

A similar scenario exists in the desktop side of things. the GTX 590 records lower temps than the HD 6990, but they quickly found out that the 590 produces a good amount more heat than the 6990 in the same case/enclosure.

 

you do know that there are standards for testing product, production, distribution and so forth, dell and apple are abide by those. thus 10% is what you get when you need to test, thus your logic dont make sense.

not to mention that you also dont know what kind of stress testing that kobalt do or dont. and I dont see any of them posting here about it after that post, I never saw them posting about it anymore.

 

However is Nvidia still more future proof for gaming than Ati card is that correct?

My Ati card when I try playing bad company 2, little things like it freezing the moment I bring up the score chart is very annoying, whereas the Nvidia card that I tested in my desktop did not have that minor glitch bug that is still annoying.

 

ATI cards are fine.....Some people argue that Nvidia cards have better drivers, while some argue the other way around. Its preference. It seems you are looking to find problems in the ATI cards. If you got the cash to throw away, just get the Nvidia. If not, get the ATI.