Mar 15, 2011 07:58 GMT  ·  By

The news that AMD won't cover the warranty of the Radeon HD 6990 when the BIOS switch is placed in the OC position came as a shock for most end-users, but XFX seems determined to support its customers even if AMD won't, as all the company's HD 6990 solutions will come with a full warranty that also covers the OC mode.

“XFX will warranty the 880MHz OC usage as per our usual RMA terms, as long as there is no consumer induced damage etc, as per our usual terms and process for RMA’s,” said an XFX representative cited by KitGuru.

“XFX strongly believe that if you add a performance enhancing switch which allows the end user to enhance the cards performance, we believe it is only right to warranty this benefit.”

The AMD Radeon HD 6990 was launched just the other week, and, unlike other AMD graphics cards, it featured a dual BIOS switch that allows users to improve the card's performance by increasing the operating frequencies of the dual Cayman XT GPUs.

Unlike the stock mode, in the OC position, the card's cores run at 880MHz (compared to the standard 830MHz) and their operating voltage is increased from 1.12V to 1.175V.

As a result, the TDP of the HD 6990 raises from the regular 375W up to 450W.

However, the cooling system employed by AMD was specially designed in order to cope with the increased amounts of heat generated by the card working in its mode, so this shouldn't be a problem.

Nevertheless, AMD has decided that if an HD 6990 is damaged while the BIOS switch is placed in the OC mode, the card won't be covered by the company's warranty.

The reason behind this decision has to do with the fact that, working in this mode, the card may require more electrical current than some power supplies are designed to deliver, which could potentially damage the HD 6990.

Until now, XFX is the only company to announce that it warranties the HD 6990 in OC mode, but this announcement could determine other manufacturers to go this route.