Success! XFX R9 290 flashed to Asus R9 290X!

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ontariotl

Limp Gawd
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Oct 2, 2008
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Reposting this again as I will paste the post I have in the other forum. Sorry Kyle.

Ok, I'll probably get trolled by this thread as BS, but I read a few posts on other forums and someone posted they flashed their XFX R9 290 card to an Asus 290X bios and unlocked all their shaders. Well since I own two XFX 290 cards which I have already installed waterblocks and tested against my old TriSli on another forum. and with the bios switch on reference card, I thought what the hell! I'll try it myself.

Here's what I got.

Screenshot of the 290 pre flash



Screenshot of the 290 post flash



Now I did have to flash the second card again as GPU-Z was showing an anomaly but after successful second flash it reported just like the first card. I have rebooted and restarted gpu-z many times and so far it has reported the same amount over and over again. I could be dreaming but this could very well be a reality that I now have a 290X in xfire!

So of course the next step is to do some testing.....here are my results so far. Both pre flash and post flash are clocked the same (1100Mhz/1300Mhz mem so far) What I have noticed though is under the Asus bios I had to up the voltage to 1.3 for it to run successfully at this speed under heaven benchmark, yet there was no voltage bump needed with the 290 bios.

Valley Benchmark

Xfx R9 290 bios


Asus R9 290X bios



Heaven Benchmark (again, had to up the voltage to 1.3v for the Asus flash)

Xfx R9 290 bios


Asus R9 290X flash


Tomb Raider Max settings incl. Tress FX hair (no AA) 5760x1200

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 3.0 Max.fps 80 Avg. fps 66.3

Asus 290X bios flash xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 4.9 Max.fps 84 Avg. fps 69.7

Battlefield 4 Ultra settings Single Player(no AA) 5760x1200

Xfx R9 290 xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 49 Max.fps 103 Avg. fps 71.15

Asus 290X bios flash xfire (overclocked 1.1Ghz/5.4Ghz) Min.fps 44 Max.fps 117 Avg. fps 82.94


Looks like the 6950 to 6970 days could be back. However I take no responsibility for anyone screwing up their cards if they attempt this. I have also read that a few with Sapphire and other cards it didn't work, so who knows if all cards will be able to convert.
 
FRZ said:
Wow that's insane, for $400 you can have a beast of a card. Congrats :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, however I am risking a $400 paperweight. I wanted to try it, but not sure I will keep it. I see the improvement and its nice, but since this may not have passed quality for use as a R9 290X I could potentially kill it. I've never done this before (well except 9500pro to 9700) and I've had a few mention to me that earlier cards have died in the past from flashing.

Even one mentioned they tried it on a review card and it died in a weeks time.

So as I said before, try at your own risk!
 
what brand 290's, not sure if it matter or not since they are all reference.

flashing them isnt something i need to worry about doing right now, but it might be nice to do it later on if i feel im in a position to want more perf out of my 290's but also have the means to replace them to something better if i do paperweight them
 
Wildace said:
what brand 290's, not sure if it matter or not since they are all reference.

flashing them isnt something i need to worry about doing right now, but it might be nice to do it later on if i feel im in a position to want more perf out of my 290's but also have the means to replace them to something better if i do paperweight them
Click to expand...

So far XFX and Powercolour seemed to be good for flashing over, one Sapphire owner tried and failed so its a lottery from the looks of it.
 
That's amazing news. :eek:
Report back after a couple of weeks to tell us if all is well :).
 
I'm just waiting for a Sapphire Vapor-X, Flex, or other custom version with the dual-bios that they always seem to sneak in there on their first run of cards.
 
Gah, custom versions of these cards just can't come out soon enough lol. If I had a water cooled system then two R9 290's wold be a no brainer with this flash unlocking.
 
Depends on how amd dished out their chips. If they only made 290x's and sent those out for oems to create their own standard for what can be a 290x and a 290.

This has happened in the past many times. I think the only time amd (ati) specifically sent altered cores was the x800pro.

By that I mean where they sent the tier under flag ship core altered from the original.
 
i cant check what memory is on my power color, already thermal used thermal adhesive on the memory modules.

i can check the sapphire one later this week tho.
 
will be keeping an eye on this thread and others like it for sure

I have an MSI 290 in my box already, and an XFX 290 on the way. If people have stable long term use of these would be bitching sweet to give myself a free upgrade to xfire 290X's for free.
 
is there a way to make memory info check gpu 2 or do i have to move the gpu's around to check the other one, the sapphire one i have is elpidia but i cant check the power color one
 
There's a whole thread and db of this on overclockers. Suffice to say, I got my Powercolor R9 290 unlocked as well. Very reminiscent of the 6950's ---> 6970's which I have two of as well. Right now it's Powercolor and XFX with the most success. Get em while you can!
 
wondering if AMD let this little gem slip by "accidentally on purpose" to further rub nvidia's face in it.

Yes they are risking cannibalized sales - but they have really had their eye on the big picture the past few months, and I'd wager they are interested in market penetration for Mantle vs getting everyone to buy top tier cards.

Will be uber tempted to try this to my XFX 290 that's coming tuesday -- only problem is my other 290 is an MSI. No point in unlocking one if I can't unlock both.

Big question is -- if you flash and it's not a successful unlock, can you flash back or does the card become a brick?
 
you can flash back by switching to the 2nd bios to boot, and then before flashing switch back to the broken bios.
 
Just tried it with my ASUS R9 290 and wasn't able to unlock it. :(

Oh well, no real loss. I wasn't expecting it to happen and I'm satisfied with the performance I get from this card. :)
 
On ocn they talk about 2000 and 2020 gpus. How can you tell if you have a 2000 or a 2020?
 
trick0502 said:
On ocn they talk about 2000 and 2020 gpus. How can you tell if you have a 2000 or a 2020?
Click to expand...

Essentially you need to remove the cooler to look at the GPU directly for the laser etching.

The easiest way to find out is flash your card, if it unlocks the extra shaders you more than likely have the 2000 chip. If it doesn't unlock, you likely have the 2020 chip.:mad:
 
Wow, cant wait to see if after market coolers will keep this kind of mod a permanent thing
 
I hope this doesn't spill over into people trying to sell a up-flashed card for big $$$ on eBay. :mad:
 
I have a 5850 flashed to a 5870 that has been running for over two years, with heavy gaming.
But it is your $$ at risk. Maybe wait until custom cooling is available?
 
ir0nw0lf said:
I hope this doesn't spill over into people trying to sell a up-flashed card for big $$$ on eBay. :mad:
Click to expand...

Seems like there is only a minor amount of these cards out there, at least ones that have come forward so I doubt any of them will end up on eBay.
 
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