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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."
Why do businesses sell underclocked hardware when they know some geek somewhere is going to try loading the higher software in and seeing what happens?
Because they also know that 99% of their customers don't read slashdot and don't care.
Cost savings by using the same architecture in several products: $ LOTS
Revenue loss from slashdotters who value their time much less than their money: $ NOT MUCH
Net Profit: Only a very small amount less than $ LOTS
Basically, if you do this, don't be surprised if your card becomes toast a shortwhile after. Umm, no. If you've ever overclocked, you'd understand that hardware starts getting errors when it's pushed too far. In a video cards' case, it will begin rendering things incorrectly.
The errors start happening LONG before hardware burns up, and is soon as the card is set to a slightly lower speed, the errors disappear.
Basically, if you get your card to where it gives no errors, and are able to keep it around the same temperature, it won't have any troubles.
hey!
I can just see it, Nvidia Board Meeting:
Okay, I've been to this site, slashdot.org, and they have some radical ideas about business plans, but I think they have something we can use. It's called the ? plan, and always ends in profit. See, here's ours:
1. Release Underclocked Card
2. Release NEW and IMPROVED card, costing more money!
3. Piss off people with NEW and IMPROVED card when they find out Underclocked card can have new bios, being just as good as NEW and IMPROVED card.
4. People who pay more for NEW and IMPROVED card don't buy any more NEW and IMPROVED cards.
5. ???????
6. Profit!!!!!!!!!!
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
-This is your bin-sorted video card.
-This is your overclocked bin-sorted video card catastrophically failing.
Any questions?
I'm sure that Nvidia bins their chips for speed, but from what I've heard at various online forums is that some people belive that the 5950 bios slightly increases the memory and GPU voltage (usually helps with some overclocking). If you look closely, you'll see that at the same clockspeeds, the 5900 bios is faster. More then likely, the 5950 bios includes looser memory timings that allow for higher clocked memory.
Exactly. On the AthlonXP there are jumpers that change the XP into a MP. There is another set that changes it to a Mobile Athlon. More jumpers change a 2500+ to a 3000+ (multipliers), etc, etc. Producting 10 different cores would make the processors cost about $1000 a piece. Selling 3200+s for more than they cost and 2500+s for less make AMD profitable (well, not really. but it's the right idea :)
Anyway, your 2500+ is only guarenteed to run at 1700MHz (or whatever). If it runs at 2200MHz, great. If not, tough shit. If you buy a 3200+, though, then it had better run at 2200MHz (200x11, right?). If not, then you can complain.
Selling underclocked 3200+s as 2500+s allows AMD to sell bad 3200+s instead of throwing them away. The reason that some overclock well is because AMD tests a few out of one batch, and if any are bad AMD brands them _ALL_ as 2500+s. So it's highly likely that you really have a 3200+, but, again, don't count on it.
My other car is first.
It's not even "corporate greed".
The consumer gets a card with a higher-quality product than advertised. Give me an "underclocked" card rather than one pushing its performance envelope as far as it can go, at the same price, anyday.
The manufacturer gets to keep costs down.
WHO LOSES? Nobody.
Some people will complain about anything. :)
Before we get into the hack itself, we need to look at the chips and BIOSes involved. The 5900 cards use the NV35 chipset, and the 5950 uses the NV38 chipset. The two chips are very similar, but they are not exactly the same. This is not the Radeon 9500 to 9700 hack. In that situation, you had an R300 in both cards--here, you have to very similar chips. The differences between the NV35 and the NV38 are slight, at best, and as far as anyone knows, they have more to do with the cost of manufacturing than anything else (I've heard that 5900 cards are so cheap now simply because they are being dumped in lieux of 5950s).
So, where does that leave us? The BIOS hack. Essentially, it does three things to the best of anyone's knowledge:
So, the decrease in performance at the same clock speeds is due to the relaxed memory timings, but just like with anything else, you can get a higher overclock as a result.
HOWEVER--there is one potentially serious problem. Most people have reported that the 5950 BIOS flash has caused no change in the reported temperatures. Given what we know about the new BIOS and increased voltage, this makes no sense. I am, then, forced to wonder if the temperature diode becomes less accurate after the BIOS is flashed with the 5950 BIOS. No one has confirmed this, and since I don't have a 5900 to try it on, I can't either. However, it's something to keep in mind.
Finally, this is not newsworthy in the least. It's the same as people changing 9800 non-Pro BIOSes to those of 9800 Pros and getting better memory overclocks. It's nothing special or magical; you're not doubling the number of pipelines and the memory bus like you were with the 9500 to 9700 hack. However, it works (or seems to, at least), and it's pretty cool.
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nV News
Wow! Thats cool. I wonder then if there is a way to turn my vodoo3 into a Video Card...
- no sig.
Some people will complain about anything. :)
I nominate that the above statement replace "News for nerds, stuff that matters." as the Slashdot motto.