EVGA strikes a blow for honest practice with test copies of graphics cards

It’s storming around component makers MSI and Asus, both of which have been caught sending graphics cards with manipulated BIOS versions to media. The criticism has not been long in coming and culminated in attempts by Asus to tone down the accusations that they are only out to “save time” for reviewers.

EVGA was one of the first graphics card companies to offer overclocked graphics cards, and since day one EVGA always delivered the exact same products to reviewers as well as customers. EVGA does not “fake” reviews or send out products with “tweaked” clockspeeds to reviewers. With EVGA Superclocked, FTW and Classified graphics cards, what you see is what you get.

Now the Nvidia-exclusive partner EVGA is taking the opportunity to indirectly criticize its competitors for dishonest marketing. On the landing page “What You See Is What You Get”, EVGA strikes a blow because the test copies sent to the media are the same as those that are finally sold in the trade.

What the controversy is based on is that Asus and MSI systematically choose to send out graphics cards with BIOS where each company OC Mode, which is activated by a software, is standard directly from cardboard instead of Gaming Mode. The procedure gives a seemingly negligible performance boost, which, however, is enough to make a difference once the figures are presented in easy-to-understand diagrams.