Not all 4830s the same (some have less shaders)

[Wreckage]

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/other/155

http://www.techreport.com/discussions.x/15773

AMD has identified that, in addition to reference samples of the ATI Radeon? HD 4830 boards sent to media with a pre-production BIOS potentially impacting the card?s performance, a very limited number of ATI Radeon? HD 4830 boards were released to market with the same pre-production BIOS.

 

[Warren21]

No, all retail HD 4830s will come with 640 (8/10 SIMD clusters) shaders enabled. The 560 shader cards are an earlier revision; the number was increased as a last minute pre-launch decision. Some reviewers got these older cards by 'accident', they had already shipped review cards out before the change was made.

Source:

"Also, we were expecting to see 560 stream processors, but AMD made a last minute decision to enable an additional cluster. The fact that some samples sent out to reviewers had just 560 stream processors proves the decision was made just prior to launch. Fudo informed us about the change of plans a few days ago, and Wizzard also confirmed our report on techPowerUp. He got one of the crippled cards and had some fun with it, but don't worry, the cards with 560 will not find their way to the channel"

http://www.fudzilla.com/index....view&id=10116&Itemid=1

 

[Qbah]

Now this is just cheap ! Proper investigating needs to be done cause that's plainly put lying to the customer.

Perhaps the reviewer's unit was bad though? As I said, more testing would be nice.

EDIT: Warren21's post clears it though I'm guessing the 560 shader version couldn't compete properly with a 9800GT so they just activated one more block.

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: Warren21
No, all retail HD 4830s will come with 640 (8/10 SIMD clusters) shaders enabled.

Fudzilla as a source?

Turns out that site was WRONG. AMD has admitted botched cards are being sold.

AMD has identified that, in addition to reference samples of the ATI Radeon? HD 4830 boards sent to media with a pre-production BIOS potentially impacting the card?s performance, a very limited number of ATI Radeon? HD 4830 boards were released to market with the same pre-production BIOS.

 

[IlllI]

i wouldnt put much stock into Fudzilla.. much like the Inq

 

[taltamir]

... so all it took was a bios update? how far do those engineering samples differ from the final version? would more shaders be enableable with a bios hack?

 

[bryanW1995]

tal, that makes me think that you should actually be able to flash a 4830 with a 4850 bios to enable the extra clusters. of course, they probably disabled 2 clusters for a reason. Maybe you'd have to underclock the speeds down to 4830 speeds, that would still be a great upgrade.

 

[thilanliyan]

Why not quote more from the TR link Wreckage?

"Through consultations with AMD board partners, it has been determined with a high degree of certainty that fewer than 400 ATI Radeon? HD 4830 boards from one AMD board partner, HIS, have reached the market with the pre-production BIOS incorrectly provided by AMD. As only a small number of HIS-branded ATI Radeon? HD 4830 cards are impacted, we ask any customers that purchased an HIS-branded ATI Radeon? HD 4830 to test the board using the GPU-Z utility (available at http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz). If the GPU-Z utility reports fewer than 640 shaders, please visit the HIS website for information on how to update the card BIOS via a downloadable install utility."

Total of 400 cards...solved by a BIOS flash. Not so bad huh? Shouldn't have happened in the first place but still...not like it needs a recall.

 

[Extelleron]

Originally posted by: thilan29
Why not quote more from the TR link Wreckage?

"Through consultations with AMD board partners, it has been determined with a high degree of certainty that fewer than 400 ATI Radeon? HD 4830 boards from one AMD board partner, HIS, have reached the market with the pre-production BIOS incorrectly provided by AMD. As only a small number of HIS-branded ATI Radeon? HD 4830 cards are impacted, we ask any customers that purchased an HIS-branded ATI Radeon? HD 4830 to test the board using the GPU-Z utility (available at http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz). If the GPU-Z utility reports fewer than 640 shaders, please visit the HIS website for information on how to update the card BIOS via a downloadable install utility."

Total of 400 cards...solved by a BIOS flash. Not so bad huh?

It makes it sound a lot less exciting when you realize it affects less than 400 cards and can be fixed by a simple BIOS flash.

You can buy an HD 4830 today and you will be fine. The problem only affects an extremely small % of units from one board partner.

 

[Canterwood]

Wreckage in "Trying to dis' ATI" non shocker! :roll:

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Extelleron
It makes it sound a lot less exciting when you realize it affects less than 400 cards and can be fixed by a simple BIOS flash.

You can buy an HD 4830 today and you will be fine. The problem only affects an extremely small % of units from one board partner.

QFT.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
tal, that makes me think that you should actually be able to flash a 4830 with a 4850 bios to enable the extra clusters.

A la x800 GTO/GTO²? That would be sweet! BITD I had a Connect 3D x800 GTO that I flashed to become an x800 XL.

 

[FalseChristian]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
tal, that makes me think that you should actually be able to flash a 4830 with a 4850 bios to enable the extra clusters.

A la x800 GTO/GTO²? That would be sweet! BITD I had a Connect 3D x800 GTO that I flashed to become an x800 XL.

Interesting. I has a X800 Pro with only 12 -pipes (VIVO) that I flashed to 16-pipes to an X800XT PE. Awe, those were the days, eh Zap?:beer:

 

[rjc]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
tal, that makes me think that you should actually be able to flash a 4830 with a 4850 bios to enable the extra clusters. of course, they probably disabled 2 clusters for a reason. Maybe you'd have to underclock the speeds down to 4830 speeds, that would still be a great upgrade.

I dont think that will be possible, its disabled on the asic.

The story about the fault apparently is a test 4850 bios used to emulate the 4830 got onto the reviewers card it disabled 2 clusters from the bios which didnt line up with the 2 clusters disabled on the chip, leaving one net extra cluster disabled.

640 shaders is getting up there, originally remember reading rumors about how this card was going to be 480. Guess they were forced into it by he way the 9800gt was selling(its almost been available for a whole year now, time flies...). Like the GTX260/280 the cut down version seem to have a much smaller % disabled than in the past. Seem to be binning much more on clock speed now.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: FalseChristian
Interesting. I has a X800 Pro with only 12 -pipes (VIVO) that I flashed to 16-pipes to an X800XT PE. Awe, those were the days, eh Zap?:beer:

Yes they were! Did you ever have any NVIDIA cards from back then? I had a GeForce 6800 XT with 8 pipes. Other ones could be enabled through Rivatuner, but they were all faulty so got glitches... well, one set of 4 was only barely faulty so it wasn't super noticeable.

These days they're locking 'em down pretty good. Leaves us with nothing but voltmods, cooling mods and reminiscing.