hidden value cards - unlocks and overclocks

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malicious

Supreme [H]ardness
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Apr 8, 2005
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back in the day i bought a 6600 vanilla and was able to unlock the other pipes and make it a 6600gt ... are there any cards like that today in the 8800 8600 9600 range?

thanks

mal
 
you can flash the bois on some the 4870 to allow higher overclocks. but most hardware like the GTX260 are supposed to be "hard locked" to prevent that sort of thing. Not sure how true that is but I haven't heard of people doing that lately.
 
Yes, ever since the software/BIOS unlocking spree with the NV 6000 series and the ATi X800 series, both companies have resorted to disabling the defective or non-price-point compatible features on the GPU by laser-cutting the traces on the die of the GPU. Can't do any pencil tricks or conductive paint, either--we're talking about microscopic stuff that is sealed inside the packaging of the chip.
 
You can still do the pencil trick with the 4850 from what I hear... just not with the 4870. There have been people on here posting about mad oc's with the 4850 with the pencil mod.
 
I hear you can turn an 8800gt into a 9800gt. Oh wait, they are the samething. 8800gt's with different stickers... Nvidia had a lot of 8800gt's left and needed to get rid of them.
 
BravO))) said:
I hear you can turn an 8800gt into a 9800gt. Oh wait, they are the samething. 8800gt's with different stickers... Nvidia had a lot of 8800gt's left and needed to get rid of them.
Click to expand...
And by investing a little more money and a little bit more time into the advertising and marketing of the 9800GT combined with a steeper price tag, I'm sure they were able to convince quite a few suckers to buy one.
 
It's impossible to mod one GPU into another when they have different numbers of shaders, because they are actually physically modified irreversibly.
 
PlzFixMyComputer said:
It's impossible to mod one GPU into another when they have different numbers of shaders, because they are actually physically modified irreversibly.
Click to expand...

Sure you can. Put (mod) a 9800gt sticker on an 8800gt and bam... You have a 9800gt.
 
I gave away an EVGA Geforce 6800GS 256MB AGP card some time ago which had fully functional (disabled) pipes which, when triggered in Rivatuner, could go toe to toe with any GT.
 
^bump^
first post here. long time lurker.

i hear some of the new 9800GT units are on the 55nm die, thereby making them quite similar in specs to the 9800gtx+ cards. bjon3d managed to OC a 9800GT to 750mhz core and it pretty much murdered the 9800gtx+ and starting closing in on 4870's territory.
proof: http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1332&pageID=5272
the important bit is that bjon3d's 9800gt is infact on the 65nm die, so if you can end up finding a 55nm 9800GT, it might be able to clock even higher.
in theory this sounds like pretty decent value, because a 9800GT can be had for ~$100. the money saved could be spent on an adequate cooling solution.

of course this is just speculation until we actually see some one test out a 55nm 9800gt at its full potential.

thoughts?
 
Valset said:
LOL, nvidia is pretty desperate these days
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Ya, same with the 8800GS, wait I mean 9600GSO.

Or when nvidia was selling multiple 8800GTS with different specs. I am sure they found a few suckers that way too.

Or even now, with the new vs old GTX260s.
 
Best bang for your buck right now is the 4850, as already stated. The core is the same as the 4870 and honestly the gddr5 isn't that much of an improvement (especially at lower resolutions). Also, for some reason (voltage regulators?) I haven't seen a 4870 reach the core speeds of what people are getting with the 4850 (900+). Of course, this takes great cooling (preferably water) to safely bump up the voltage to the ~1.4v needed. My personal experience with my 4850 on water is 845/1200 @~1.35v (625/993 stock), which boosted my up to 34 fps from 25 fps in Crysis @very high 1280x1024. Unfortunately, that's the limit of my monitor so even though its faster then a stock gtx280 at that res (according to toms hardware), I don't know how it would scale at higher resolutions.
 
adrift02 said:
Best bang for your buck right now is the 4850, as already stated. The core is the same as the 4870 and honestly the gddr5 isn't that much of an improvement (especially at lower resolutions). Also, for some reason (voltage regulators?) I haven't seen a 4870 reach the core speeds of what people are getting with the 4850 (900+). Of course, this takes great cooling (preferably water) to safely bump up the voltage to the ~1.4v needed. My personal experience with my 4850 on water is 845/1200 @~1.35v (625/993 stock), which boosted my up to 34 fps from 25 fps in Crysis @very high 1280x1024. Unfortunately, that's the limit of my monitor so even though its faster then a stock gtx280 at that res (according to toms hardware), I don't know how it would scale at higher resolutions.
Click to expand...

I think all that's overkill for my 1280x1024 19incher

edit: since i'll be playing legions mostly
 
malicious said:
I think all that's overkill for my 1280x1024 19incher

edit: since i'll be playing legions mostly
Click to expand...

depends on what your playing, though at resolution a 9600GT is a pretty good option. to be honest I got my 8800GTX when I still had my 19 inch and did not regret it. Max eye candy if your into it. but I was also coming from a 6800 (the 4 pipeline version)
 
FWIW, the 4850 is the same as a 4870, just lower clocked. Hence if you do a quick pencil volt mod, you can clock it past 4870 speeds and get yourself 4870 performance for <$150. I don't think there's any other card that has that kind of loophole.
 
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