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Turning A FX5900 Into A FX5950 Ultra, Tool-Free
A reader writes "Some very interesting details coming from various tech sites such as ExplosiveLabs and 3DChips that shows it is possible to turn a GeForce FX5900 into a FX5950 Ultra (which is NVIDIA's top of the line video card chipset currently available) through simply using the FX5950 Ultra BIOS on the FX5900 video card."
Based on the 3DLabs article, I'd be concerned that this is a situation like what happened with the Intel 486DX/SX. i.e. The chips that test better are marked as DX and the chips that have minor flaws are downgraded and marked SX. Installing the upgrade BIOS may put a strain on your chip that could damage it.
Basically, if you do this, don't be surprised if your card becomes toast a shortwhile after.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Is anyone else reminded of those virus programs that claimed to magically make your 386 a 486? Do you really think the BIOS is the only difference between the two cards?
It's not clear to me that this does anything other than change the text string containing the name of the card. It seems under some conditions people get better overclocking, but that could easily be due to room temperatures and the like. Are there any particular features in the 5950 not present in the 5900?
For great justice.
It's about economics. The same thing often occurs late in a processor's production line (recent examples are the Pentium III and certain Athlon XP silicon cores). While the hardware is capable of running faster, the company still has to provide a low-end (cheap) solution. Otherwise, their competitor(s) might snag some purchases with their cheaper chips/hardware. One other reason is that the clock jump from one model to another might be large. In the old Pentium days, the leap from 33MHz to 66MHz was large, and a chip that might perform well at, say, 61MHz would be sold as a 33MHz chip. Again, a business decision that could be a boon for someone brave enough to try overclocking.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
It makes less difference than that, there isn't even ONE game out there which gains any sort of benefit from the past THREE generations of cards from both ati and nvidia.
;)
Yes the cards are faster, but they already rendered the game at perfect speed 3 generations ago. A Geforce 4 will run any game out there perfectly... won't hold up in the benchmarks but you won't get a single visible frame faster performance on any actual game with a radeon 9800 pro
Well, come to think of it, I've gotten screwed by ATI's abandoning of hardware a couple times now, so ATI is on the "never buy, ever" list (and I got it put there for the fortune 500 company I work for, as well) so I wouldn't have bought an ATI card anyhow, but this is a cool bit of info. Not something I'd use at work, but still interesting.
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my Presidency. I'm fucked."; ~ Donald J. Trump
you are just right about the linux support
q3 runs ~160 fps on my 9700 Pro
and ~250 on my 5900
stop supporting microsoft with pirating their software!!!!!
I believe I hear the DMCA police coming.
Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if they whipped out the DMCA threatening letters for this.
_______
2B1ASK1
What resolution do you run at? I game at 1280x1024 all options turned up to the max. I can assure you that my FX5900 is a marked improvement over my TI4600. Before that I had an ATI AIW8500DV - but that card was a piece. I still have my ATI AIW128Pro 32mb AGP doing a nice job on capture. Old hardware can be usefull, but everything has it's place.
Next you're going to tell me my frame rates will go DOWN a whopping 2%!
"---Original BIOS---
FX5900 @ 475Mhz/950Mhz DDR (Overclocked to FX5950U Speeds)
3DMark03: 5770
---A380U BIOS---
FX5950 @ 475Mhz/950Mhz DDR (Default FX5950U Speeds)
3DMark03: 5661"
Sounds like one mod I can't wait to do...
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Does it even need a BIOS? I thought the *only* diffrence between the 9800 and 9800 pro was clock speed, and even the heatsinks were the same.
Browse at -1, because trolls are often the most creative part of
Last time I can recall was with the intel i865pe/875p chipsets. They were built identical, the only thing is that the 875p chipset had PAT and the ability for ECC RAM.
Since they were built the same, the 865pe could be run with PAT technology enabled by bypassing something.
Companies such as ASUS released 865pe motherboards with PAT technolgy then when Intel complained, they renamed it to 'MAM' (Memory Acceleration Mode) technolgy.
I also saved myself $50 by buying the 865 based mboard.
speed isn't everything though.. ATI has a continuing history of problems with their drivers that can cause problems in games, maya etc. Nothing worse then getting a program (especially if u buy it), and discovering graphical corruption problems the hard way. Another thing is that benchmarks like 3d mark 2003 do not represent real life performance. For starters, Directx 9.0 runs slower on just about every video card, and most games dont really even utilise dx 9 features (even the latest ones). Benchmarks also aren't optimised in the least for specific systems, so stuff like the nature scene in 3dmark 2003, would probably run alot faster if optimised on a per card basis. 3D mark also appears to just want to stuff as much polygons onto the scene, without taking much into consideration (I'd personally love to find out if the grass in the nature scene are all different models, which would be a total joke).. Anyway, i've found my geforce FX 5900 to be an excellent card, and mostly bug free, and nvidia are right to be saying that many benchmarks do not represent real performance. Overall though, if u already have a video card, no point of spending more money, at least not until the next generation of nvidia cards which will support 2D better
how many slashdotters who might have bought an ATI card might buy the second most expensive card nvidia makes now?
... gonna be up for it, aren't they?
Well, gotta be good news for nVidia, right? So why not do it? Why not make the cards deliberately up-clockable from the BIOS?
Basically product differentiation is about getting people to pay the maximum amount they are happy with. So, I don't have $400 for an ultra-pro-turbo, but I do have $300 for a vanilla and this is the tidbit that makes me part with my money in nV's direction. Well
Related story: I applied the screen spanning hack to my iBook so I could use it in a more "PowerBook" style. Having whetted by appetite I've now gone off and bought the real thing. BIOS hacks as a loss leader?
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.