Nvidia reverses decision to disable overclocking on GTX 900M after gamer outrage
Last week Nvidia Corporation, producer of graphics cards for PCs and laptops, made a controversial decision to disable overclocking on its popular GTX 900M card for notebooks with a driver update. The reaction from customers to this decision was palpable and sudden and has led the manufacturer to rapidly reverse course on that decision.
The driver that disabled this function came with version 347.29 and affected a number of mobile GPU GeForce GTX 900M cards. Buyers of new notebooks with older drivers had the option to overclock the GTX 900M similar to their desktop counterparts, but the upgrade to GeForce 347.29 came with the unpleasant surprise of seeing the GPU return to standard frequency.
When angry users reported the alleged bug on the official GeForce forum, Nvidia engineers explained that it was not a bug (but a fix), as overclocking GTX 900M Series is not provided in order to avoid excessive heat generation.
In response to the gamer outrage that ensued, Nvidia spokesperson PeterS@NVIDIA posted this on the official GeForce forums:
As you know, we are constantly tuning and optimizing the performance of your GeForce PC.
We obsess over every possible optimization so that you can enjoy a perfectly stable machine that balances game, thermal, power, and acoustic performance.
Still, many of you enjoy pushing the system even further with overclocking.
Our recent driver update disabled overclocking on some GTX notebooks. We heard from many of you that you would like this feature enabled again. So, we will again be enabling overclocking in our upcoming driver release next month for those affected notebooks.
If you are eager to regain this capability right away, you can also revert back to 344.75.
Chances are good overclockers who wanted to retain their ability to boost performance already downgraded to the previous driver version. However, everyone else wants to retain the benefits conveyed in the most recent patch simply has the wait an extra month for the capability to return with the next patch.
Nvidia previously condemned overclocking and claimed that the capability had been “a bug introduced into our drivers” and that the recent updated had fixed that. Of course, overclocking can strain the components and cooling system of any computer not designed for it leading to overheating and serious damage.
Article contributors: Saroj Kar, Kyt Dotson
Image credit: Nvidia Corporation
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