14 DAY TRIAL // Soon after AMD said that the Radeon HD 6990 warranty wouldn't cover the cards that were damaged when the special OC switch was activated, XFX has announced that it will offer its customers full support no matter what mode the cards were run in. Now, just two days after this news was made public, PowerColor has issued a similar announcement.
The AMD Radeon HD 6990 was launched just the other week, and, unlike other AMD graphics cards, it features a dual BIOS switch that allows users to improve the card's performance by increasing the operating frequencies of the dual Cayman XT GPUs.
When activated, the card will enter into a special AUSUM mode that raises the clock speed of the two cores to 880MHz, from the standard 830MHz, while also increasing their operating voltage from 1.12V to 1.175V.
This theoretically accounts for a 7% increase in performance and enables the HD 6990 to work at the same clock speeds as the single-GPU Radeon HD 6970.
Tempting as it may sound, AMD has decided to cover the switch with a label that clearly states its removal will void the warranty of the video card.
According to AMD, this decision was taken so that the card won't be damaged by using an inappropriate power supply unit, as its power draw in the AUSUM mode exceeds the PCI Express regulations and could require much more juice than the system's PSU can supply.
However, many enthusiasts were enraged by this decision and felt that AMD shouldn't impose such a limit considering that the switch is part of the reference design.
To address these complaints, XFX, and now PowerColor, have announced that they will offer an extended warranty service that will cover damaged cards no matter of the position the AUSUM switch is set in, and other video card manufacturers are expected to follow soon. (via Donanim Haber)