Introduction

W1zzard · 10-22-2008, 08:25 PM

Introduction

Today AMD released their Radeon HD 4830 card which is based on the RV770 GPU which is also used on the HD 4850 and HD 4870. In order to properly position the HD 4830, AMD reduced the number of shaders in the RV770 GPU core from 800 to 640.

The locking mechanism relies on fuses inside the GPU, or on the substrate - a mechanism similar to Intel's multiplier locking. It is not reversible as far as I know. It is however possible to temporarily disable _additional_ fuses to reduce the shader count even further.

The Problem

When I added shader count reading support to GPU-Z yesterday, I noticed some contradicting numbers. I have two HD 4830 samples here: one card from AMD, and one card from PowerColor. Both cards are reference spec HD 4830s, both are supposed to have a shader count of 640 - just like all other HD 4830 cards.

The GPU-Z readings however showed that the AMD card had 560 shaders and the PowerColor card had 640. How is that possible? If 80 shading units were missing, then this could mean a performance hit of up to 10%.

In order to go from 800 shaders to 640 shaders, AMD disables two SIMD units.
The original RV770 has 10 SIMDs (10 [SIMDs] * 16 [Pipes] * 5 [ALUs] = 800 Shaders). With just eight SIMDs you will get 640 shaders (= 8 [SIMDs] * 16 [Pipes] * 5 [ALUs]). The information which SIMDs are disabled is stored inside a GPU register that can be read back, and is basically a bit mask of the disabled SIMDs.

For example, on the PowerColor HD 4830 that bit mask is 10 0000 0001. Ten bits, with two bits being 1 (=disabled). This leaves us eight SIMDs, resulting in 640 shaders. On the HD 4830 from AMD the bit mask is 00 0100 0011. But hey, that's only seven SIMDs which gives us 560 shaders. Truly strange.

So let's try to confirm that the two cards really have different shader counts, which should be visible in the performance of these cards.

Testing

I first tested if this is some kind of power management feature which disables shaders when the card is idle. This is not the case. The shader count is constant under idle and load using Catalyst 8.10.
Using 3DMark06 Perlin Noise (SM 3.0) I got the following results:
AMD 4830 (560 SP) = 219.8 FPS
PowerColor 4830 (640 SP) = 250.5 FPS
HD 4850 @ 4830 clocks (800 SP) = 309.8 FPS

It is clearly visible that there is some huge difference between all three cards, while there should only be a difference between the HD 4850 and the two HD 4830s.

In some further testing I took the reference design HD 4850 and gradually reduced the number of SIMDs while running 3DMark06 Perlin.

As you can see, the FPS changes linearly with the number of shaders in the GPU. Please note that this is data from some real empiric testing. All those ten tests were performed with a real running HD 4850 (running at HD 4830 clocks for better comparability), without reboot in between, shader count was changed on the fly.

If you look back up at the first graph, you can easily see that the AMD 4830 result matches the result I got with 560 shaders and the PowerColor 4830 matches 640 shaders.

This test confirms that 3DMark06 Perlin is a valid test to determine the relative shader performance of a RV770 card. It also confirms that the register contents reflect the active number of shaders and that AMD's sample has the shading power of a HD 4850 with 560 shaders and that the PowerColor card is equally as fast as a HD 4850 with 640 shaders.

Concluding, we can see that AMD's sample card does not feature the intended shader count of 640, but comes merely with 560 shaders.

What it means for you?

So what does that mean for you, the end user?

It is unknown how many of these cards AMD sent out to reviewers, so the reviews on other sites could be affected. I only talked to one other reviewer with a HD 4830 and he had also received a 560 shader card from AMD.

Should those cards make it into retail channels you could potentially end up with a card that is quite a bit slower than intended (up to 10%). It is also unknown if only AMD's sampling is affected or if AMD board partners also sent out cards with 560 shaders.

That's why I ask all reviewers who tested the HD 4830 to download this build of GPU-Z and verify if their card really runs with 640 shaders. Until a statement is made by AMD (I notified them of course), buyers should also test their cards to verify they bought what was promised to them.

I am also 100% certain that shipping cards with 560 shaders was not intended by AMD at any time. Why should they make their own product slower?

Feel free to post the results of your own cards in the comments of this article so we can get an impression of how widespread this problem is.

Code:

Manufacturer      Cards Tested        640 SP       560 SP
AMD                     8                0            8
Sapphire                2                2            0
PowerColor              2                2            0

How to Fix

Added: Oct 23, 2008

Grab this BIOS from our VGA BIOS Collection and flash it to the card using WinFlash or ATIFlash.

This BIOS is designed for the AMD reference design samples that were sent out with 560 shaders, there is no reason to flash it on cards from other manufacturers that already have 640 shaders.

Statement by AMD

Added: Oct 24, 2008

"AMD has identified that a very limited number of ATI Radeon™ HD 4830 boards have shipped with an incorrect BIOS which may impact performance. This is in no way hardware related, and an updated BIOS fully resolves the performance limitation.
AMD has provided its board partners with the updated BIOS. Please contact your board manufacturer for instructions on updating the card BIOS."

Solaris17 · 10-23-2008, 05:13 AM

Intriguing ill see if we have a sample.

Do you think their were 2 different batches? 560SP for internal testing until they finally decided on a shippable 640SP?

wolf2009 · 10-23-2008, 05:22 AM

interesting .

How did you disable SIMD ?

Steevo · 10-23-2008, 05:36 AM

Pushing the big red button. Might get a fix for opening other doors and getting shaders back.

eidairaman1 · 10-23-2008, 06:25 AM

well if its a disable bit, i wonder if its hard disabled or just bios disabled, because you could modify the disable bit to get the 640 shaders, but i think this was the bios encoders fault or something.

btarunr · 10-23-2008, 07:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eidairaman1

well if its a disable bit, i wonder if its hard disabled or just bios disabled, because you could modify the disable bit to get the 640 shaders, but i think this was the bios encoders fault or something.

Did you read the article?

Quote:

The locking mechanism relies on fuses inside the GPU, or on the substrate - a mechanism similar to Intel's multiplier locking. It is not reversible as far as I know. It is however possible to temporarily disable _additional_ fuses to reduce the shader count even further.

ArkanHell · 10-23-2008, 12:44 PM

Wiz, you are the man.

newtekie1 · 10-23-2008, 02:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W1zzard

I am also 100% certain that shipping cards with 560 shaders was not intended by AMD at any time. Why should they make their own product slower?

They've done in the past.

lemonadesoda · 10-23-2008, 04:00 PM

The King of all Wizards.

THANKS FOR THE INFO!

thebluebumblebee · 10-23-2008, 04:54 PM

Did you pull the coolers to see if the chips are labeled the same?

W1zzard · 10-23-2008, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by thebluebumblebee

Did you pull the coolers to see if the chips are labeled the same?

look at the two reviews. i took photos of both gpus

thebluebumblebee · 10-23-2008, 05:16 PM

suraswami · 10-23-2008, 05:42 PM

[quote=W1zzard;I am also 100% certain that shipping cards with 560 shaders was not intended by AMD at any time. Why should they make their own product slower?[/QUOTE]

Any chance Powercolor screwed it up with a wrong bios? If AMD intended to ship with 560 shaders with a reasonable reduced price over 4850 with that kind of performance hit, I think it makes sense. I believe the 4830 is going to be around $150 and 4850 can be got at that price after rebates. If the 560 shader one comes in around $110 then it will be a balanced card.

my 2 cents.

W1zzard · 10-23-2008, 06:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suraswami

Any chance Powercolor screwed it up with a wrong bios? If AMD intended to ship with 560 shaders with a reasonable reduced price over 4850 with that kind of performance hit, I think it makes sense. I believe the 4830 is going to be around $150 and 4850 can be got at that price after rebates. If the 560 shader one comes in around $110 then it will be a balanced card.

my 2 cents.

why would amd state 640 shaders in their product brief then and risk to be exposed?

suraswami · 10-23-2008, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W1zzard

why would amd state 640 shaders in their product brief then and risk to be exposed?

that part is bit shady. Had they said 560 and kept the price down with excellent media center capabilities I will jump on this.

newtekie1 · 10-23-2008, 06:11 PM

I'm sure it wasn't intentional, really. The 560 SP cards were more than likely early samples, that probably just got mixed up when sending them out to reviewers. They certainly wouldn't intentionally send out the lower shader cards to the reviewers. I just hope none of them got sent out to retail channels.

Quote:

Originally Posted by suraswami

Any chance Powercolor screwed it up with a wrong bios? If AMD intended to ship with 560 shaders with a reasonable reduced price over 4850 with that kind of performance hit, I think it makes sense. I believe the 4830 is going to be around $150 and 4850 can be got at that price after rebates. If the 560 shader one comes in around $110 then it will be a balanced card.

my 2 cents.

The HD4830 is already available on newegg for $119 after rebate, or at least it was yesterday.

Edit: The PowerColor one is actually available for $114.99 after rebate.

Kreij · 10-23-2008, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W1zzard

why would amd state 640 shaders in their product brief then and risk to be exposed?

Quote:

When I added shader count reading support to GPU-Z yesterday

They didn't think you would get GPU-Z to figure it out so quick?

Polaris573 · 10-23-2008, 06:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kreij

They didn't think you would get GPU-Z to figure it out so quick?

When any product leaves a factory, in this case GPUs, an in depth analysis in not performed on every single unit rather a single unit is selected from that batch (production run of indefinite length) and only that unit is tested. This is generally enough to insure the quality of a batch of product, but if the manufacturing process is for some reason incorrectly producing 1 out of every 4 units a tester can easily miss that when only testing one unit from a batch. These are common quality control procedures, and while I do not know AMD's precise QC procedure I'm sure a scenario like similar to what was mentioned above is conceivable. When dealing with corporations there is a tendency for many people, without thinking about the situation, to jump on the "guilty until proven innocent" bandwagon. While it is entirely possible that it is conspiracy, it is more likely that when producing thousands of units a bad batch escaped.

Kreij · 10-23-2008, 06:44 PM

My comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek

I do not think AMD is trying to pull a fast one.

suraswami · 10-23-2008, 07:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by newtekie1

I'm sure it wasn't intentional, really. The 560 SP cards were more than likely early samples, that probably just got mixed up when sending them out to reviewers. They certainly wouldn't intentionally send out the lower shader cards to the reviewers. I just hope none of them got sent out to retail channels.

The HD4830 is already available on newegg for $119 after rebate, or at least it was yesterday.

Edit: The PowerColor one is actually available for $114.99 after rebate.

oops I didn't see that. hmm I checked yesterday for 4670 but don't remember seeing this. oh well.

dwarf · 10-23-2008, 10:10 PM

Hey, this is Kevin from Neoseeker. I wanted to report that my ATI review sample HD 4830 is missing the shaders.

When I started work today I was sort of surprised when glancing over some other reviews stating that the HD 4830 kicks the 9800 GT's ass. That wasn't what I found. Now it makes a bit more sense.

Sort of nullifies my review, which sucks. Ah well; so it goes.

Great work W1zzard, investigating this. You are the man.

davidletterboyz · 10-24-2008, 10:51 AM

I noticed that all the early reviews (that shows GPU-Z screenie) that received HD4830s from AMD have 560sp. If u google a bit for reviews with GPU-Z screenies, those HIS and Powercolor samples have 640sp. I guess it's a human mistake from AMD's side, packing the wrong samples? LOL

W1zzard · 10-24-2008, 11:30 AM

bump for updated bios in article

Wile E · 10-24-2008, 11:41 AM

Was it AMD that released the BIOS? Or did a third party mod the BIOS? Just curious.

alexp999 · 10-24-2008, 11:45 AM

So if I'm reading this right. All HD4830 GPUs are hard locked to 640SP, but for some reason the ati cards shipped with a bios locked to 560SP?
So a simple flash sets it back at 640SP?

10-22-2008, 08:25 PM	#1
W1zzard Administrator Join Date: May 2004 Location: Stuttgart, Germany Posts: 7,621 (3.78/day) Thanks: 79 Thanked 2,492 Times in 935 Posts System Specs	AMD sent HD 4830 samples to reviewers with missing shaders Introduction Today AMD released their Radeon HD 4830 card which is based on the RV770 GPU which is also used on the HD 4850 and HD 4870. In order to properly position the HD 4830, AMD reduced the number of shaders in the RV770 GPU core from 800 to 640. The locking mechanism relies on fuses inside the GPU, or on the substrate - a mechanism similar to Intel's multiplier locking. It is not reversible as far as I know. It is however possible to temporarily disable _additional_ fuses to reduce the shader count even further. The Problem When I added shader count reading support to GPU-Z yesterday, I noticed some contradicting numbers. I have two HD 4830 samples here: one card from AMD, and one card from PowerColor. Both cards are reference spec HD 4830s, both are supposed to have a shader count of 640 - just like all other HD 4830 cards. The GPU-Z readings however showed that the AMD card had 560 shaders and the PowerColor card had 640. How is that possible? If 80 shading units were missing, then this could mean a performance hit of up to 10%. In order to go from 800 shaders to 640 shaders, AMD disables two SIMD units. The original RV770 has 10 SIMDs (10 [SIMDs] * 16 [Pipes] * 5 [ALUs] = 800 Shaders). With just eight SIMDs you will get 640 shaders (= 8 [SIMDs] * 16 [Pipes] * 5 [ALUs]). The information which SIMDs are disabled is stored inside a GPU register that can be read back, and is basically a bit mask of the disabled SIMDs. For example, on the PowerColor HD 4830 that bit mask is 10 0000 0001. Ten bits, with two bits being 1 (=disabled). This leaves us eight SIMDs, resulting in 640 shaders. On the HD 4830 from AMD the bit mask is 00 0100 0011. But hey, that's only seven SIMDs which gives us 560 shaders. Truly strange. So let's try to confirm that the two cards really have different shader counts, which should be visible in the performance of these cards. Testing I first tested if this is some kind of power management feature which disables shaders when the card is idle. This is not the case. The shader count is constant under idle and load using Catalyst 8.10. Using 3DMark06 Perlin Noise (SM 3.0) I got the following results: AMD 4830 (560 SP) = 219.8 FPS PowerColor 4830 (640 SP) = 250.5 FPS HD 4850 @ 4830 clocks (800 SP) = 309.8 FPS It is clearly visible that there is some huge difference between all three cards, while there should only be a difference between the HD 4850 and the two HD 4830s. In some further testing I took the reference design HD 4850 and gradually reduced the number of SIMDs while running 3DMark06 Perlin. As you can see, the FPS changes linearly with the number of shaders in the GPU. Please note that this is data from some real empiric testing. All those ten tests were performed with a real running HD 4850 (running at HD 4830 clocks for better comparability), without reboot in between, shader count was changed on the fly. If you look back up at the first graph, you can easily see that the AMD 4830 result matches the result I got with 560 shaders and the PowerColor 4830 matches 640 shaders. This test confirms that 3DMark06 Perlin is a valid test to determine the relative shader performance of a RV770 card. It also confirms that the register contents reflect the active number of shaders and that AMD's sample has the shading power of a HD 4850 with 560 shaders and that the PowerColor card is equally as fast as a HD 4850 with 640 shaders. Concluding, we can see that AMD's sample card does not feature the intended shader count of 640, but comes merely with 560 shaders. What it means for you? So what does that mean for you, the end user? It is unknown how many of these cards AMD sent out to reviewers, so the reviews on other sites could be affected. I only talked to one other reviewer with a HD 4830 and he had also received a 560 shader card from AMD. Should those cards make it into retail channels you could potentially end up with a card that is quite a bit slower than intended (up to 10%). It is also unknown if only AMD's sampling is affected or if AMD board partners also sent out cards with 560 shaders. That's why I ask all reviewers who tested the HD 4830 to download this build of GPU-Z and verify if their card really runs with 640 shaders. Until a statement is made by AMD (I notified them of course), buyers should also test their cards to verify they bought what was promised to them. I am also 100% certain that shipping cards with 560 shaders was not intended by AMD at any time. Why should they make their own product slower? Feel free to post the results of your own cards in the comments of this article so we can get an impression of how widespread this problem is. Code: Manufacturer Cards Tested 640 SP 560 SP AMD 8 0 8 Sapphire 2 2 0 PowerColor 2 2 0 How to Fix Added: Oct 23, 2008 Grab this BIOS from our VGA BIOS Collection and flash it to the card using WinFlash or ATIFlash. This BIOS is designed for the AMD reference design samples that were sent out with 560 shaders, there is no reason to flash it on cards from other manufacturers that already have 640 shaders. Statement by AMD Added: Oct 24, 2008 "AMD has identified that a very limited number of ATI Radeon™ HD 4830 boards have shipped with an incorrect BIOS which may impact performance. This is in no way hardware related, and an updated BIOS fully resolves the performance limitation. AMD has provided its board partners with the updated BIOS. Please contact your board manufacturer for instructions on updating the card BIOS." Last edited by W1zzard; 10-25-2008 at 09:14 AM.

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10-23-2008, 05:13 AM	#2
Solaris17 Creator Solaris Utility DVD Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Midgar Posts: 9,536 (6.12/day) Thanks: 2,081 Thanked 1,486 Times in 1,169 Posts System Specs	Intriguing ill see if we have a sample. Do you think their were 2 different batches? 560SP for internal testing until they finally decided on a shippable 640SP? __________________ I Made the Millionth post! Does it come with a mountain climbing lanyard? If not, I'm not buying one.-Mlee My Rig 8500/8600GT Mod Guide Rebuild a Copperhead Heat Ware NF4 Ultra SLI Mod Solaris Utility DVD 3.0 GPU-Z Soundcard Mod Guide Vista Mark

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10-23-2008, 05:22 AM	#3
wolf2009 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: MI Posts: 2,777 (4.24/day) Thanks: 249 Thanked 552 Times in 296 Posts System Specs	interesting . How did you disable SIMD ? __________________ *Read My Avatar's Story*

10-23-2008, 05:36 AM	#4
Steevo Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 3,205 (2.17/day) Thanks: 84 Thanked 369 Times in 315 Posts System Specs	Pushing the big red button. Might get a fix for opening other doors and getting shaders back. __________________ If I wanted your thanks I would have asked for it, asshole. “it would have been perfect....its got trains and the line"tech your kids not to do what iv done"(or similar) because i had obviously done something to warrent 2 e-thugs to come 4000miles out of their way and kill me.” -Solaris17 “yeah i failed. i noticed the "coming soon" part after i posted.” -Mussels

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10-23-2008, 06:25 AM	#5
eidairaman1 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Stationed in Florida, Home is Houston, Texas Posts: 4,162 (4.76/day) Thanks: 227 Thanked 308 Times in 280 Posts System Specs	well if its a disable bit, i wonder if its hard disabled or just bios disabled, because you could modify the disable bit to get the 640 shaders, but i think this was the bios encoders fault or something. __________________ http://profile.xfire.com/eidsirairman1 “10 years ago I was banging cheerleader left overs and defending quarterbacks. Now I get excited over a box of fans and some silicone. I'm pathetic...We AMD boys like our CPU's like we like our women. Hot and fast. Do I have a deal for you! Step right up to the CRAZY MAILMAN® Phenom II emporium! EVERYTHING MUST GO! ” -TheMailMan78

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10-23-2008, 12:44 PM	#7
ArkanHell Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Paraguay Posts: 62 (0.05/day) Thanks: 0 Thanked 3 Times in 3 Posts	Wiz, you are the man.

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10-23-2008, 04:00 PM	#9
lemonadesoda Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 4,895 (4.15/day) Thanks: 622 Thanked 760 Times in 591 Posts System Specs	The King of all Wizards. THANKS FOR THE INFO!

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10-23-2008, 04:54 PM	#10
thebluebumblebee Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Portland, OR USA Posts: 467 (0.92/day) Thanks: 76 Thanked 101 Times in 83 Posts	Did you pull the coolers to see if the chips are labeled the same?

10-23-2008, 05:16 PM	#12
thebluebumblebee Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Portland, OR USA Posts: 467 (0.92/day) Thanks: 76 Thanked 101 Times in 83 Posts	oops

10-23-2008, 05:42 PM	#13
suraswami Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Irvine, CA Posts: 3,926 (2.32/day) Thanks: 508 Thanked 355 Times in 328 Posts System Specs	[quote=W1zzard;I am also 100% certain that shipping cards with 560 shaders was not intended by AMD at any time. Why should they make their own product slower?[/QUOTE] Any chance Powercolor screwed it up with a wrong bios? If AMD intended to ship with 560 shaders with a reasonable reduced price over 4850 with that kind of performance hit, I think it makes sense. I believe the 4830 is going to be around $150 and 4850 can be got at that price after rebates. If the 560 shader one comes in around $110 then it will be a balanced card. my 2 cents. __________________ Server -ECS GF8200 + Phenom 9550 + 8GB RAM + 2.5TB HDD Game Machine - W7 Ultimate 64bit, Biostar TF8200A, Phenom II X3 720BE @ 3.5Ghz- 1.38V, 8GB DDR2 800 ram, Gigabyte HD4850 512MB, 600W Ultra X pro, Xigmatek HDT-S1283, 200GB Maxtor IDE OS and 3 x 160GB SATA drives in RAID 5, Optical Drives - LG, Samsung and Sony Blue Ray, Ultra Aluminus Case with 2 x 120mm, HP 22" LCD Quitters Never Win, Winners Never Quit, But Those Who Never Win And Never Quit Are Idiots

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CD/DVD Drive:	Sony DRU-120C DVD-RW
CRT/LCD Model:	Dell 3007WFP 30" LCD (2560 x 1600)
Case:	Thermaltake Armor w/ 250mm Side Fan
Sound Card:	SupremeFX 8ch Audio
PSU:	Thermaltake Toughpower 750W Modular
Software:	Vista Ultimate 64 Bit SP2

Processor:	LGA 775 Intel E6550 Core2 Duo "Conroe" 2.33Ghz 4MB L2 Cache
Motherboard:	Abit IX38 QuadGT -- Intel X38 Chipset
Cooling:	Arctic Freezer
Memory:	6GB G.Skill DDRII 800 4-4-3-5
Video Card:	Sapphire HD 4850 512 MB PCI-E
Harddisk:	250 GB Seagate 16MB Cache
CD/DVD Drive:	Asus DVD Burner
CRT/LCD Model:	Acer X203w
Case:	Coolermaster Centurion 5
Sound Card:	Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Music
PSU:	OCZ StealthXStream 600 Watt
Software:	Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and Fedora 11 x64

10-23-2008, 06:44 PM	#19
Kreij TPU Hit Squad Member Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Cheeseland (Wisconsin, USA) Posts: 3,240 (3.18/day) Thanks: 92 Thanked 767 Times in 582 Posts System Specs	My comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek I do not think AMD is trying to pull a fast one. __________________ 53452340602F55453253602E35572D$20

10-23-2008, 10:10 PM	#21
dwarf Neoseeker Staff Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 11 (0.01/day) Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	Hey, this is Kevin from Neoseeker. I wanted to report that my ATI review sample HD 4830 is missing the shaders. When I started work today I was sort of surprised when glancing over some other reviews stating that the HD 4830 kicks the 9800 GT's ass. That wasn't what I found. Now it makes a bit more sense. Sort of nullifies my review, which sucks. Ah well; so it goes. Great work W1zzard, investigating this. You are the man.

10-24-2008, 10:51 AM	#22
davidletterboyz Join Date: Oct 2008 Posts: 2 (0.01/day) Thanks: 0 Thanked 0 Times in 0 Posts	I noticed that all the early reviews (that shows GPU-Z screenie) that received HD4830s from AMD have 560sp. If u google a bit for reviews with GPU-Z screenies, those HIS and Powercolor samples have 640sp. I guess it's a human mistake from AMD's side, packing the wrong samples? LOL

10-24-2008, 11:30 AM	#23
W1zzard Administrator Join Date: May 2004 Location: Stuttgart, Germany Posts: 7,621 (3.78/day) Thanks: 79 Thanked 2,492 Times in 935 Posts System Specs	bump for updated bios in article

10-24-2008, 11:41 AM	#24
Wile E Power User Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Western PA (Pittsburgh suburbs) Posts: 13,767 (11.99/day) Thanks: 257 Thanked 2,271 Times in 1,971 Posts System Specs	Was it AMD that released the BIOS? Or did a third party mod the BIOS? Just curious. __________________ Visit Ashentech Visit TechFuzion “What the hell did you expect? Leave Vista under the pillow and the OS fairy would make it Win7?” -El Fiendo “And Bring Mailman back god damnit, he is the Eric Cartman of TPU” -MRCL

System Name:	The ClusterF**k
Processor:	QX9650 @ 4Ghz (40010) 1.375V; 4455MHz (40511) benching
Motherboard:	Asus Maximus Formula flashed to Rampage BIOS
Cooling:	2x360mm rad, 2xDDC-1 pump w/Bitspower res top (1/2" fittings), DTek Fuzion, MCW60, DD-4870-X2
Memory:	2x2GB G.Skill Pi @ 1000Mhz 4-4-4-12 2.1V
Video Card:	4870X2; 8800GT 1GB (for folding, Physx and CUDA)
Harddisk:	Seagate 7200.10 320GB x2 RAID0; 2 x Samsung F2 1.5TB no raid; 1 Samsung F1 1TB
CD/DVD Drive:	LG GH22NS50
CRT/LCD Model:	Westinghouse L2410NM 24" 1920x1200
Case:	CM Stacker 830 Evo (well, the mobo tray anyway)
Sound Card:	Soundblaster Audigy2 ZS
PSU:	Antec True Power Quattro 1000W
Software:	Win7 Pro x64; XP Pro

10-24-2008, 11:45 AM	#25
alexp999 Staff Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Dorset, UK Posts: 6,728 (7.93/day) Thanks: 684 Thanked 924 Times in 791 Posts System Specs	So if I'm reading this right. All HD4830 GPUs are hard locked to 640SP, but for some reason the ati cards shipped with a bios locked to 560SP? So a simple flash sets it back at 640SP? __________________ ASUS P45 Club [FS] [WTB] Heatware ebay Elite Lounge USB Boot Guide 3DMark Vantage My Rig XBOX Gamertag Steam ID Dad's: EVGA 750i FTW, E6600, F7Pro, 4GB, 8800GTS 640MB SLi, SST 750W, Commodore EVE Gallente Case

System Name:	Gaming Rig \| Uni Laptop
Processor:	Intel Q6600 G0 (2007) @ 3.6Ghz @ 1.45625v (LLC) / 4 GHz Bench @ 1.63v \| AMD Turion 64 X2 TL-62 2 GHz
Motherboard:	ASUS P5Q Deluxe (Intel P45) \| HP 6715b
Cooling:	Xigmatek Dark Knight w/AC MX2 ~ Case Fans: 2 x 180mm + 1 x 120mm Silverstone Fans
Memory:	4GB OCZ Platinum PC2-8000 @ 1000Mhz 5-5-5-15 2.1v \| 2 x 1GB DDR2 667 MHz
Video Card:	XFX GTX 285 1GB, Modded FTW BIOS @ 725/1512/1350 w/Accelero Xtreme GTX 280 + Scythe sinks\| ATI X1250
Harddisk:	2x WD6400AAKS 1 TB Raid 0, 140GB Raid 1 & 80GB Maxtor Basics External HDD (storage) \| 160GB 2.5"
CD/DVD Drive:	Asus 2014L1T Sata DVD-RW \| HP GSA-T20N DVD-RW
CRT/LCD Model:	Samsung SyncMaster SM2433BW @ 1920 x 1200 via DVI-D \| 15.4" WSXGA+ (1680 x 1050 resolution)
Case:	Silverstone Fortress FT01B-W ~ Logitech G15 R1 / Microsoft Laser Mouse 6000
Sound Card:	Soundmax AD2000BX Onboard Sound, via Logitech X-230 2.1 \| ADI SoundMAX HD Audio
PSU:	Corsair TX650W \| HP 90W
Software:	Windows 7 Ultimate Build 7100 x64 \| Windows 7 Ultimate Build 7100 x64
Benchmarks:	3DM06: 19519, Vantage: P16170 ~ Win7: -CPU 7.5 -MEM 7.5 -AERO 7.9 -GFX 6.0 -HDD 6.0

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