Sapphire RX 480 4GB Teardown - With 8GB Surprise!

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IEC

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,577
5,989
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Tore down my Sapphire 4GB cards.

Interestingly, my Sapphire 4GB cards are both "4GB" in name only - they physically have 8x Samsung (616) K4G80325FB HC25 GDDR5 modules.
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/products/dram/graphic-dram/gddr5-component/K4G80325FB?ia=759

I was successful in overclocking to 8.8GHz (from 7GHz stock) with 4GB. Edit: Successful flash to 8GB using Techpowerup BIOS and ATI winflash.

They are using IR 3567B dual output 6+2 phase PWM controllers:
http://www.infineon.com/cms/en/prod...?productType=5546d462533600a401533d2546765ec7

Specific chip marking for PWM controller is:
IR
3567B
C547P
1DRY

MOSFETs (thanks to MrTeal for links):
High Side - http://www.magnachip.com/userfiles/PowerSolutions/MDU1514.pdf
Low Side - http://www.magnachip.com/userfiles/PowerSolutions/MDU1511RH.pdf

Gate Driver is the CHiL8510/IR3537 - http://www.infineon.com/dgdl/ir3537.pdf?fileId=5546d462533600a4015355cd6c46175c

MDU1511
H25704GP

8S10
026-17
N1528
(???)

Here it is in all its naked glory:

With heatplate/blower still on:
IMG_0573_zpsdqfaz8ix.jpg


Naked:
IMG_0574_zpsc2q9bxgq.jpg


Samsung GDDR5 (x8):
IMG_0576_zpsvuteqypk.jpg


IR 3567B:
IMG_0578_zpsr5xhwhus.jpg


MOSFETs:
IMG_0579_zpsandorfxy.jpg
 
Last edited:
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S

SimianR

Senior member
Mar 10, 2011
609
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81
Has anyone figured out how to get access to the full 8GB yet? ;) maybe a bios flash?
 
W

Wall Street

Senior member
Mar 28, 2012
691
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91
Once the Bios flash utilities get updated to recognize Polaris, you will have 8 GB cards. Unfortunately, the existing utilities won't recognize it yet.
 
Stuka87

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
2,559
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Well now I know why OC UK was told that there would not be any more 4GB 480s made.
 
S

Silverforce11

Lifer
Feb 19, 2009
10,457
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It may not cost much more than a few $ for 8GB modules than 4. Especially if they need 8 chips due to the 256 bit bus.

If I had to guess, Samsung makes denser higher capacity chips mostly.

When the bios tools work with RX 480, $199 RX 480 8GB. lol

What a marketing gimmick, paying more for nothing.
 
2

24601

Golden Member
Jun 10, 2007
1,683
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Silverforce11 said:
It may not cost much more than a few $ for 8GB modules than 4. Especially if they need 8 chips due to the 256 bit bus.

If I had to guess, Samsung makes denser higher capacity chips mostly.

When the bios tools work with RX 480, $199 RX 480 8GB. lol

What a marketing gimmick, paying more for nothing.
Click to expand...

They made R9 290x's into R9 290's as well, but that didn't last very long at all (A week and a half or so at launch).

How important this would be depends entirely upon how fast they switch to the real 4GB cards.

Given the massive shortages on the current fake 4GB cards (And low availability of them to start with), I highly doubt many would be able to benefit from this anomaly.

The 4GB cards at launch was clearly just for marketing purposes to justify their earlier claims of "200 USD".
 
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H

hsjj3

Member
May 22, 2016
127
0
36
There are two issues with this:

1) Overclocking from 7GHz to 8GHz doesn't prove anything.

2) 8 memory modules proves nothing either. It's more likely each module is 512MB.
 
M

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
3,904
2,651
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hsjj3 said:
There are two issues with this:

1) Overclocking from 7GHz to 8GHz doesn't prove anything.

2) 8 memory modules proves nothing either. It's more likely each module is 512MB.
Click to expand...

What are you talking about? IEC posted pictures of the GDDR5 chips on his 4GB board, and the part number. While they're not exactly easy to read, you can verify the part number and see they're 1Gb modules.
 
coercitiv

coercitiv

Diamond Member
Jan 24, 2014
7,139
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hsjj3 said:
8 memory modules proves nothing either. It's more likely each module is 512MB.
Click to expand...
Drink your coffee, then click on the link the OP provided for the specific chips found on his cards: they are 8Gb chips, hence 8 memory modules => 8GB.

Going past that, the information was already circulating around: AMD has had trouble sourcing enough 4Gb chips for the launch, so they decided to make 4GB cards using higher density chips and limit the cards via BIOS. Over at OcUk a company representative already said 4GB cards sold very fast and AMD told them they could not get new batches straight away, which indicates they are planning on making the switch to normal capacity chips quite soon.

Whoever bought reference 4GB cards at launch likely got a sweet deal, all they need is an update down the road, which will surely come.
 
IEC

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,577
5,989
136
hsjj3 said:
There are two issues with this:

1) Overclocking from 7GHz to 8GHz doesn't prove anything.

2) 8 memory modules proves nothing either. It's more likely each module is 512MB.
Click to expand...

There are 8 physical modules of Samsung (616) K4G80325FB HC25 GDDR5.
This is 8Gb per module x8 for a total of 8GB, with a speed of 25 = 25ns/8000 MHz.
http://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/products/dram/graphic-dram/gddr5-component/K4G80325FB?ia=759

So each module is indeed 1024MB of 8000 MHz GDDR5. I expect it will be unlockable to full 8GB within a few weeks.
 
IEC

IEC

Elite Member
Super Moderator
Jun 10, 2004
14,577
5,989
136
What I expect happened is K4G41325FC (EOL 4 Gb chips) became scarce because they are EOL in 3 months, and its replacement K4G41325FE (new 4 Gb chips) are just now being sampled by customers = AMD needed to hard launch with 4GB parts but did not have 4 Gb chips on hand, so they artificially limited some 8GB cards and called it good.
 
crisium

crisium

Platinum Member
Aug 19, 2001
2,643
615
136
Hopefully these can be unlocked. It's nice that the ancient ATi tradition of unlocking a lower level card to one higher still continues (I won't complain about my Fury partial unlock).
 
poofyhairguy

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
14,612
318
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I can't wait to get my 4GB card already, and now to learn it might be a 8GB card makes it potentially my best GPU buy ever. Nice little reward for those who bought reference as you have to figure this will be sorted out before AIB card release.
 
Sonikku

Sonikku

Lifer
Jun 23, 2005
15,864
4,832
136
So by the time I get an after market cooler 480 they probably would have shifted to 4gb physical variants that can't be unlocked. :( Darn.
 
LTC8K6

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
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Are the extra mem chips powered up? If so, that seems like a waste of power?
 
poofyhairguy

poofyhairguy

Lifer
Nov 20, 2005
14,612
318
126
Sonikku said:
So by the time I get an after market cooler 480 they probably would have shifted to 4gb physical variants that can't be unlocked. :( Darn.
Click to expand...



Maybe, we will have to see. You have to assume eventually there will be real 4GB chips.
 
M

MrTeal

Diamond Member
Dec 7, 2003
3,904
2,651
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LTC8K6 said:
Are the extra mem chips powered up? If so, that seems like a waste of power?
Click to expand...

There's not extra memory chips, the memory chips are double capacity. You need all eight chips powered; each has a 32-bit bus. If you only powered four of them you'd get 4GB capacity, but you would only have a 128-bit bus.
 
LTC8K6

LTC8K6

Lifer
Mar 10, 2004
28,520
1,575
126
MrTeal said:
There's not extra memory chips, the memory chips are double capacity. You need all eight chips powered; each has a 32-bit bus. If you only powered four of them you'd get 4GB capacity, but you would only have a 128-bit bus.
Click to expand...

I forgot how those chips work.
 
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