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Non ultra 6800's - 1 or more disabled vertex processors?

MidasKnight

MidasKnight

Diamond Member


Minutes ago I had a little chat with Alexey (RivaTuner programmer) who did quite an interesting finding. I was a little in doubt wether or not to post this but it seems that Alex is 99.9% certain of his findings. Now we always figured that the difference between the GPU's was based on core & memory clocks frequencies versus pipelines, yet he discovered something else. BTW this info might be a little to geek for some of you, if that's the case just skip this news bulletin 😉

Alex is convinced that the GeForce 6800 non-ultra's have one or possibly more disabled Vertex Processors (programmers can run applications directly on the graphics chip as opposed to draining the CPU) where the 6800 series should have 6 active. With the help of the upcoming Rivatuner you'll be able to verify if you have them all active and thus have the best possible performing and healthy 6800. Now think about this, how about enabling it ? It might become an option in Rivatuner. In addition to this bulletin I must state that the discussion/discovery of disabled Vertex Processors has been here for a while now, to my understanding at the Beyond3D and nvnews forums.

Let me just show you what Alex had to say:

Yesterday I've received new MSI 6800 instead of old Leadtek 6800, which died during unsuccessfull BIOS flash (Thanks a lot to Andrew Worobiew for providing new one). So I was able to continue NV4x internals exploration and found some extremely interesting facts.

First, our assumption about dyad based pipeline control seems to be wrong. Pipelines are still masked at quad level rather than on dyad level. So RT's pipeline control tab is redesigned and will look a bit different comparing to the screenshots walking in the net.

Second (and the most interesting), I've found the way to detect and enable/disable active vertex units on NV40 boards. The most surprising fact is that _ALL_ 6800 non-Ultra boards I've seen have at least one disabled (bad?) vertex processor too, so just 5 or less of them are active instead of 6 in Ultra models. Like quads, vertex processors can be also disabled at both software and hardware levels, so RT will help you to unlock them only in the first case. Currently we're collecting 6800GT statistics to understand if these processors are full 6800U analogues or they also have ripped configuration due to disabled vertex processors. Also, we hope that NVIDIA will clarify specs for 6800NU/6800LE/6800GT boards, because currently we see the boards with different amount of disabled vertex units sold as regular 6800 model.


That is why I'd like to warn everybody going to buy non-Ultra 6800. We've already detected $350+ OEM Leadtek 6800 boards in Russia, which have 2 disabled quads and 2 disabled vertex processors. So if you're going to buy such board, we strictly recommend you to wait for new RT release and to verify the board before (or immediately after) purchasing. Otherwise you may get a regular 6800LE for a fabulous price.

Stay tuned.

I just finished some tests with the new RT Beta and so far I have been able to confirm his findings partly. A 12-pipe 6800 NU for example reports 5 Vertex Processors where it should have 6. Through a hack I'm trying to enable it and see if there is a noticeable difference in geometry limited tests. My finding show no noticeable results different in either graphics corruption or performance.
Click to expand...

From :
Guru3D
 
Interesting . . . Might have to take a look at Rivaturner when they release a version capable of detecting it.
 
Originally posted by: NightFalcon
Well wouldn't this explain my crapy Leadtek 6800 performance then... WTF!!!
Click to expand...


My evga 6800nu is preforming very well here. Getting 9300+ score in 3DMark03 with an overclock @ 351/760
 
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