50% chance to activate all 512 cores on GTX480?

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Sunin

[H]ard|DCer of the Month - August 2008
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Supposedly yield of the original spec are around 50%. So does that mean in rova tuner we might be able to enable the extra 32 cores? Taking it from 480 to the full 512?
 
As I posted in another GTX 480 thread:

GoldenTiger said:
Fresh off the rumor mills (very much a rumor) from Czech forum by a poster "OBR" who has often posted reliable rumors in the past (part posted here: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=249263 part on the czech forum which I can't read due to language barrier) is that the GTX 480 may be BIOS unlockable to 512 cores as they didn't have time to fuse the shaders off physically due to the last-minute spec change, and that they overclock well. He claims per someone on XS that he has a BIOS in-hand that does so.

That would be extremely interesting... :eek: .
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Seems you're not the only one who had the idea that they may not be hardlocked.
 
Makes it interesting. Another 32 could put a nice gap. 5%+ boost above ati.
 
Probably only on a limited number seeing as how they are probably starting to produce fuse locked cards by now...or will be shortly.
 
Not being able to use 3 monitors with a single card is a huge dealbreaker for me... anyone know if SoftTH comes with a huge performance hit?
 
softth only operates in dx9 and with power of one card. I've been able to max out all the games I play on a single GTX 280 on three monitors--but then again, @ dx9 so if you're okay with that scenario, Fermi wills suffice u really well. Then again, so will a 280.
 
It would have been really dumb for them to lower the spec to 480 cores when half of those could have been run at 512 cores.
 
People are speculating that they lowered the core count to eke out a chunk higher clock rate than most of the cards could run: it was more like 480 cores @ 700mhz or 512 @ 615mhz, so they chose the higher clocks for better performance and room for an "Ultra" eventually. It also, clearly, resulted in a much lower TDP as well.
 
IMO - if nVidia did not laser off the traces - and actually did allow for this (the same way AMD X2/X3's can be unlocked to 4 cores) they'd get better sales - and probably recoup some image in the enthusiast sector.

But I don't expect it.
 
It would make sense for nvidia to allow you to unlock cores on their high end products, but not their low end products. Nvidia isn't going to have anything better than a 480 for a while, and reactivating 1/16 of the card means it is only going to re-enable 6% of the card. But if nvidia allowed you to do this on the 470 then 470 sales would eat up into 480 sales like phenom II x2 eat up into phenom II x4 sales.

Nvidia has very little to lose, and main gain some enthusiast support with allowing you to unlock.
 
and what if the another block causes instability, has anyone thought of that yet. May be they disabled it for a reason to increase yield, meaning at 512 cores the yield is low meaning the chips are not stable, I was able able to unlock a triple core to quad core but it was blue screening on me every 5-10 mins or so, even if you could unlock the other cores I am sure stability won't be there on over 50% of them. There is a reason for everything, nvidia would rather have 512core card right now because they are 6 months late if they could, rather than cutting out cores. I am sure it was a tough choice for them to make as everyone was expecting them to wipe the floor with this thing.
 
NKD said:
and what if the another block causes instability, has anyone thought of that yet. May be they disabled it for a reason to increase yield, meaning at 512 cores the yield is low meaning the chips are not stable, I was able able to unlock a triple core to quad core but it was blue screening on me every 5-10 mins or so, even if you could unlock the other cores I am sure stability won't be there on over 50% of them. There is a reason for everything, nvidia would rather have 512core card right now because they are 6 months late if they could, rather than cutting out cores. I am sure it was a tough choice for them to make as everyone was expecting them to wipe the floor with this thing.
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Then you BIOS flash back and call it a day?
 
NKD said:
and what if the another block causes instability, has anyone thought of that yet. May be they disabled it for a reason to increase yield, meaning at 512 cores the yield is low meaning the chips are not stable, I was able able to unlock a triple core to quad core but it was blue screening on me every 5-10 mins or so, even if you could unlock the other cores I am sure stability won't be there on over 50% of them. There is a reason for everything, nvidia would rather have 512core card right now because they are 6 months late if they could, rather than cutting out cores. I am sure it was a tough choice for them to make as everyone was expecting them to wipe the floor with this thing.
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GoldenTiger said:
Then you BIOS flash back and call it a day?
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As much as I hate to give goldntiger credit for anything, he's spot on here.
 
vengence said:
It would have been really dumb for them to lower the spec to 480 cores when half of those could have been run at 512 cores.
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It probably just came down to plain-old supply-demand curve. If they could sell twice as many cards for the same price or slightly less, thats a no brainer. Otherwise they have to downgrade the under-performing chips to the next price tier which is $150 lower.
 
Can they disable a cluster with just a BIOS? Wouldn't you at least need a different BIOS depending on which cluster is bad? I'm not sure I understand all of this.
 
well here's what i think, they made it 480 maybe for power and heat, too much of both possibly but now they have another card they can release if they make it 512. later when they revise this unhealthy looking gpu, making a smaller die, less volts, they unlock it, and have another card to sell. Look for it by sept-dec...
 
Wouldn't they just use the chips with all 512 functioning for the Quadro though? Ones that are defective go to the GeForce line and fully functional ones sell for 6 to 10 times the price in the Quadro line.
 
ND40oz said:
Wouldn't they just use the chips with all 512 functioning for the Quadro though? Ones that are defective go to the GeForce line and fully functional ones sell for 6 to 10 times the price in the Quadro line.
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I think that would be very dependent on demand, right?
 
GoldenTiger said:
Then you BIOS flash back and call it a day?
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LOL< your right, but I was just making a case for the reasoning behind the disabled cores, if I had a gtx 480 and i could flash it for extra juice, ofcourse I would, lol, and if it didn't work I would do the same thing u suggested. :D
 
I'm really curious to see how this turns out, I wonder if they disabled the cores due to power consumption or yield defects.
 
If this were possible, why woulnd't the AIBs bin the chips/cards they get and make their own special editions if they ended up with 50% being unlockable to 512?

Like the XFX XXX edition, EVGA Superclocked, etc. 480s that actually had 512 SPs. Couldn't the AIBs do that to make a lot more money?
 
Spare-Flair said:
If this were possible, why woulnd't the AIBs bin the chips/cards they get and make their own special editions if they ended up with 50% being unlockable to 512?

Like the XFX XXX edition, EVGA Superclocked, etc. 480s that actually had 512 SPs. Couldn't the AIBs do that to make a lot more money?
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Who says they won't?
 
Spare-Flair said:
If this were possible, why woulnd't the AIBs bin the chips/cards they get and make their own special editions if they ended up with 50% being unlockable to 512?

Like the XFX XXX edition, EVGA Superclocked, etc. 480s that actually had 512 SPs. Couldn't the AIBs do that to make a lot more money?
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some one give this man a cookie.. lol most likely we will see that.. but the way the chip is now its pretty doubtful.. odds are nvidia will pull another GTX 260 192 sp/216 sp fiasco so you cant figure out which card is which or they will pull the gtx 280/285 fiasco with a gtx 485 512sp..
 
Hmm buy who wants to take the risk of their 480 not being stable with an unlock? I don't think alone is enough to save the card IF they flop for other reasons.
 
PrincessFrosty said:
Hmm buy who wants to take the risk of their 480 not being stable with an unlock? I don't think alone is enough to save the card IF they flop for other reasons.
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what risk? if it works, it works. If it doesn't work, reflash to normal. No harm can really be done.

some guy is going to flash and then volt mod to get them working then. Nvidia probably cut the power and were forced to scale back their SPs.
 
the last time i unlocked anything on my cards was when i had a 6800gt :D.. good times

Isn't the main reason they dropped the core count to 480 is due to heat and power issues?
 
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