NVIDIA Catches Flack For ‘Removing’ Overclocking Capabilities On Mobile GPUs

It hasn’t even been a month since NVIDIA’s had to deal with some backlash regarding its GeForce GTX 970, and already we’re dealing with another controversy. This time, it involves NVIDIA’s mobile GPUs, and the fact that a recent driver disabled the ability to overclock them.

I was out-of-town when this news broke late last week, but I didn’t want to avoid it. I admit that the news surprised me, but not because the overclocking capabilities were removed. Instead, it was because the drivers had overclocking capabilities to begin with, something I consider extremely odd for mobile chips.

Nonetheless, the deal is this: NVIDIA claims to have accidentally enabled overclocking on some models in the mobile driver without realizing it, and that feature was allowed to remain for some time. Once the company caught onto it, it issued a new driver that disabled the feature. Note, it wasn’t NVIDIA’s control panel itself that allowed the overclocking; it’s the driver that would allow third-party overclocking applications to work.

I have two minds about this. On one hand, I can understand where NVIDIA’s coming from. Mobile GPUs shouldn’t be overclocked – it’s that simple. On the other hand, if people still want to do it, I think they should be allowed to, as long as they understand the risks and are forced to agree to the terms (eg: voided warranty).

The latest GeForce driver disables overclocking capabilities

About ten years ago, I had an NVIDIA-equipped notebook, and for whatever reason, I decided to overclock the GPU (GeForce Go 5200). To say I ended up regretting it would be an understatement. After time, I ended up having to get the GPU replaced (thankfully, I had bought into the good warranty), and Dell even replaced the LCD panel because it thought that the GPU could have somehow affected it.

That’s a weird case, but it’s a little proof that GPUs confined in tight areas shouldn’t be overclocked.

Similar to the GTX 970 debacle, many users are swearing off NVIDIA for good. Some have claimed that they just purchased a high-end GeForce notebook and now regret it. I have to call bullocks on that. Let’s be real: No one purchases a notebook based on its overclocking capabilities. Why anyone would even want to overclock and risk damage to their new notebook is beyond me. All for what? A gain of about 5 FPS at best?

Ideally, I think NVIDIA should still let people overclock their mobile GPUs if they want to, but again, that would imply that they understand the risks. Since it’d be difficult for NVIDIA to deem whether or not a notebook has been effectively maimed because of an overclocked GPU, the company could implement a new feature into a future driver that automatically submits the notebook’s serial number to its database if someone agreed to use the overclocking feature.

For whatever party’s involved, there’s certainly no true “winning” here.