Speculation: 7800gt==>7800gtx

[lavaheadache]

I'm the kind of guy who gets his rocks off of fiddling with his stuff(pun intended). I flashed my 9800Pro to xt, X800 pro to an xtpe, and now overclocked my 6800 GT to 425/1.13. After Reading much about the 7800Gt It seems as though it is nearly identical to big brother GTX (minus 4 pipelines which appear to be there only disabled). I want to know you peoples thoughts on this matter. Do you think its only a matter of time till someone discovers a Holy trail to 24 pipelines? Modifying $400 video cards is a kind of a hobby to me and if a "flash" became possible I would definately try it. What do you think is disabling the remaining pipe quad? Lets hear some ideas.

 

[mdchesne]

my kind of guy

 

[sparklemotion]

I was wondering this same thing. It would be huge if this was possible. Rivatuner apparently unlocks them but then when you restart, they are once again locked. I am sure it's only a matter of time. Right now, I am having a hard time choosing between buying the somewhat vanilla MSI 7800GTX or a BFG 7800 GT OC......

 

[imported_Kensai]

Tell me what happens.

 

[mwmorph]

yup. all a matter of time until a 3rd party bios and some rivatuner love will turn 7800gts to 7800gtxs.

 

[touchmyichi]

Haha, I feel you man. I bet this will be 6800NU/9500 all over again . I'm debating whether I should jump on one of these or give my 6800NU a bit more time.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

(Rumor alert) I read somewhere (don't remember where) that a "source" within nvidia said that the GT's were simply GTX's which failed QA with a bad quad. And this same source said they unlocked the extra quad with RivaTuner, and upon running benchmarks got exactly the same performance. [/rumor]

So for any of the shipping GT's, I wouldn't bank on unlocking the extra 4 pipes. Maybe down the road, when yields get better, they may start shipping higher-quality parts with not only 24 good pipes but also better OC'ing....

 

[Pocatello]

Originally posted by: OvErHeAtInG
(Rumor alert) I read somewhere (don't remember where) that a "source" within nvidia said that the GT's were simply GTX's which failed QA with a bad quad. And this same source said they unlocked the extra quad with RivaTuner, and upon running benchmarks got exactly the same performance. [/rumor]

So for any of the shipping GT's, I wouldn't bank on unlocking the extra 4 pipes. Maybe down the road, when yields get better, they may start shipping higher-quality parts with not only 24 good pipes but also better OC'ing....

It might be true, but after a few months, I would think that the demand for the 7800GT would be too high to just be relied on the supply of failed 7800GTX . Also the cost would come down to make the 7800GTX and the failure rate would go down too, so it would be more economically reasonable for nVidia to just disable the 7800GTX some how.

 

[Ackbar]

NOTE:
These cards cannot be unlocked to 7800 GTX!!!
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/video/g70-4.html

"You can see well that the chips look absolutely identical. No bridges or substrate differences can be seen on the GPU. Thus, the four pixel pipelines and one vertex pipeline are locked either inside the die or with the help of programmable registers, or in BIOS. The last two options provide a chance to unlock them. In case of the first option you may kiss goodbye the chance to update GT into GTX. To the pity of overclockers, NVIDIA designers used the first option."

This puts a damper on things...

 

[coomar]

well looks like this thread is over

 

[Ackbar]

Originally posted by: coomar
well looks like this thread is over

Sorry, don't mean to be the bearer of bad news.

 

[hans030390]

ouch...

are they positive on this?

 

[Avalon]

Well, let's not give up just yet. There was a point when some of us didn't think the 6800s could be cracked into unlocking either. If Nvidia is truly doing it within the die, we'll just have to wait and see if any trick pops up.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Oh well... There may be some tricks later.

 

[lavaheadache]

say it ain't so!

 

[Ackbar]

Originally posted by: lavaheadache
say it ain't so!

It ain't so...

(It probably is though).

In any case, these early 7800GTs probably have defective pipes anyways. nVidia will probably be using the ones that weren't so good first, then move towards good ones that are just locked later once yields improve.

 

[DidlySquat]

/thread

 

[stnicralisk]

Originally posted by: Ackbar

Originally posted by: coomar
well looks like this thread is over

Sorry, don't mean to be the bearer of bad news.

Its a trap!!!

 

[Ackbar]

Originally posted by: stnicralisk
Its a trap!!!

No no no... I'm supposed to say that!

 

[lavaheadache]

Originally posted by: Ackbar

Originally posted by: stnicralisk
Its a trap!!!

No no no... I'm supposed to say that!

star wars junkies

 

[UltraWide]

It sounds sad, but how does the reviewer know what method nVidia used? I am guessing someone at nVidia told him? Otherwise it's just that, another speculation based on bad observations. With the little I know about semiconductor manufacturing, it doesn't make sense to modify the die at all when it can just be done in the BIOS or on the PCB.

Besides people that buy these cards are not all looking to modify them, I just ordered a 7800GT and I don't plan on modifying it at all.

 

[Banzai042]

Originally posted by: UltraWide
It sounds sad, but how does the reviewer know what method nVidia used? I am guessing someone at nVidia told him? Otherwise it's just that, another speculation based on bad observations. With the little I know about semiconductor manufacturing, it doesn't make sense to modify the die at all when it can just be done in the BIOS or on the PCB.

Besides people that buy these cards are not all looking to modify them, I just ordered a 7800GT and I don't plan on modifying it at all.

Well if nvidia told him then they would probably tell him that they did it on-die either way, it's not like they want to go around confirming rumors that you dont need to buy their most expensive GPU to get that performance..

 

[Bender316]

I'd just like to point out a problem with what the reviewer was saying. Basically if these are binned 7800GTX cores, then I imagine they employ someone with a microscope and a lazer to modify the cores at the end of the line, to permanently disable the 4 pipes?? Give me a break...

It must be hardware related then, up to the board designers. I'm surprised more people haven't tried, and I think it's because of threads like this that they don't. I had a GT where Rivatuner would keep the settings, but it was a review sample, so I had to give it back the day after I tried it out, couldn't really verify. Also as it was a review sample, I don't know if it was a true indication of the real thing.

 

[TraumaRN]

Pity that no one mentioned that an overclocked 7800GT is basically as fast a stock GTX, mine as seen in my sig scores 8103 in 3DMark 05 which I know isnt an end all standard but if game anywhere around 16x12 this thing will do basically what a GTX will do, so my advice to the OP, buy it, OC it, enjoy it!

 

[Matthias99]

Originally posted by: Bender316
I'd just like to point out a problem with what the reviewer was saying. Basically if these are binned 7800GTX cores, then I imagine they employ someone with a microscope and a lazer to modify the cores at the end of the line, to permanently disable the 4 pipes?? Give me a break...

There are ways to permanently disable parts of a chip electronically, if you build it to be done like that.

AMD uses something similar for the CPU frequency locks; there is no bridge cut or pin-jump you can use on an A64 to change the maximum CPU multiplier. The A64 chips at different speed grades are all the same core; they do something to modify them once they are made. One suggestion I've read is that they connect fuses to certain unused pins, then blow them to disable some features, but I don't know if that was ever verified.

It must be hardware related then, up to the board designers. I'm surprised more people haven't tried, and I think it's because of threads like this that they don't. I had a GT where Rivatuner would keep the settings, but it was a review sample, so I had to give it back the day after I tried it out, couldn't really verify. Also as it was a review sample, I don't know if it was a true indication of the real thing.

It wouldn't surprise me if some of the earlier review/engineering samples were just GTXes with 4 pipes disabled via the BIOS. But it seems very unlikely that you can unlock the 7800GT at this point.