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.
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.