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[VARIOUS] RX480 4gb has 8gb with half of it disabled

11K views 91 replies 51 participants last post by  GOLDDUBBY 
#1 ·
Not sure if repost:

Quote:
The first Radeon RX 480 GPUs with 4GB of memory, have sometimes 8GB of RAM on board where half is turned off. Thus discovered some tweakers. In theory it is possible to activate the additional memory by flashing the bios.
SOURCE

TRANSLATED: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Ftweakers.net%2Fnieuws%2F113169%2Feerste-rx-480-gpus-met-4gb-hebben-8gb-geheugen-waarvan-helft-actief.html&edit-text=

ORIGINAL: https://tweakers.net/nieuws/113169/eerste-rx-480-gpus-met-4gb-hebben-8gb-geheugen-waarvan-helft-actief.html

TLDR;

Quote:
Because you still need eight chips for 4GB. The memory of this card include 256-bit, or rather, eight 32-bit memory controllers. The moment you will put only four chips on the PCB will halve the memory bandwidth because you have only a 128 bit memory bus (4 times 32 bit).

A 128-bit memory bus, however, half the memory bandwidth is far too little for a quick card like this, which also pieces will perform worse and the worst circumstances, which have only 50% of the performance, which is not to do so.

So what you need are still eight memory chips, but with half the capacity so that you come to a total of 4GB. AMD had in his own words, however, too little time or wanted to spend money, to certify an additional card. So the first RX 480 with 4GB versions have just 8GB. All these maps of the different cards also come from AMD with only a sticker of a XFX, Sapphire, MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, etc. stuck on.

At the time manufacturers such as XFX, Sapphire, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc their own card designs and sell them there just stick 4GB memory. Or: eight 4Gb (small b-bit) memory. So grab your chance now can !.




AMD Retail Radeon RX 480 4GB to 8GB Memory Unlock Mod Works, We Benchmarked



Quote:
Earlier this week, we heard reports of some early adopters of the 4 GB variant of AMD Radeon RX 480 claiming that their cards shipped with 8 GB of memory physically present on their cards, but their graphics card BIOS somehow prevented the GPU from addressing more than 4 GB of it. In its Reddit AMA, the company presented a vague answer to the question of whether such 4 GB cards are moddable to 8 GB by flashing it with the BIOS of the 8 GB variant, by stating that the ability to mod is restricted to review samples. This is both true and false. Short answer: retail 4 GB RX 480 can be flashed to 8 GB, and the modified card perfoms on par with the 8 GB variant.
Source
 
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#2 ·
The first comment explains it quite well.
Quote:
Because you still need eight chips for 4GB. The memory of this card include 256-bit, or rather, eight 32-bit memory controllers. The moment you will put only four chips on the PCB will halve the memory bandwidth because you have only a 128 bit memory bus (4 times 32 bit).

A 128-bit memory bus, however, half the memory bandwidth is far too little for a quick card like this, which also pieces will perform worse and the worst circumstances, which have only 50% of the performance, which is not to do so.

So what you need are still eight memory chips, but with half the capacity so that you come to a total of 4GB. AMD had in his own words, however, too little time or wanted to spend money, to certify an additional card. So the first RX 480 with 4GB versions have just 8GB. All these maps of the different cards also come from AMD with only a sticker of a XFX, Sapphire, MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, etc. stuck on.

At the time manufacturers such as XFX, Sapphire, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc their own card designs and sell them there just stick 4GB memory. Or: eight 4Gb (small b-bit) memory. So grab your chance now can !. : p/QUOTE]
 
#3 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slaughtahouse View Post

The first comment explains it quite well.
Quote:
Because you still need eight chips for 4GB. The memory of this card include 256-bit, or rather, eight 32-bit memory controllers. The moment you will put only four chips on the PCB will halve the memory bandwidth because you have only a 128 bit memory bus (4 times 32 bit).

A 128-bit memory bus, however, half the memory bandwidth is far too little for a quick card like this, which also pieces will perform worse and the worst circumstances, which have only 50% of the performance, which is not to do so.

So what you need are still eight memory chips, but with half the capacity so that you come to a total of 4GB. AMD had in his own words, however, too little time or wanted to spend money, to certify an additional card. So the first RX 480 with 4GB versions have just 8GB. All these maps of the different cards also come from AMD with only a sticker of a XFX, Sapphire, MSI, Asus, Gigabyte, etc. stuck on.

At the time manufacturers such as XFX, Sapphire, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, etc their own card designs and sell them there just stick 4GB memory. Or: eight 4Gb (small b-bit) memory. So grab your chance now can !. : p/QUOTE]
Yea, was about to post that too. Added to OP
 
#5 ·
So basically you will be able to buy a 4GB version, and if it is identical to the 8GB, you might have a change to unlock it for a 8GB version with a bios manipulation?
That makes the 200$ an actually amazing deal if you can snag one with all the chips.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Defoler View Post

So basically you will be able to buy a 4GB version, and if it is identical to the 8GB, you might have a change to unlock it for a 8GB version with a bios manipulation?
That makes the 200$ an actually amazing deal if you can snag one with all the chips.
Yea, basically. Regardless if its identical, the memory chips are matching, so i guess if someone is good in BIOS editing they can just manually force it?
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1337LutZ View Post

Yea, basically. Regardless if its identical, the memory chips are matching, so i guess if someone is good in BIOS editing they can just manually force it?
Hopefully we will see it happen.
We have seen several times people being able to unlock AMD CPU cores or GPU streaming cores using bios editing. Some people were able to unlock a fury to a fury x recently even.
 
#21 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dudewitbow View Post

gotta love the silicon laser lottery with AMD's history, be it unlocking more cores on CPUs(athlons, semprons and more), the shaders on the (6950 > 6970), and the handful of GCN unlocks(Hawaii, Fiji, Tonga(?)). Time to bring in the next treat
Yep I got a bargain 6950 that unlocked the shaders, was a nice bonus along with a small OC quite an increase in performance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hollowtek View Post

gamechanger if it applies to most 4gb 480's that actually costed $200. still doesn't solve it's glaring power issues.
You had to be that guy that spoiled the party.
smile.gif
 
#22 ·
The title slightly bothers me, since from what I've read so far its not on all 4GB models, just a few. The title makes it sound like all of them have 8GB and are just locked.
 
#26 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by Waitng4realGPU View Post

I'm sure they are going to be sufficient in the areas you mention.
I certainly hope so.

As it is right now, it seems like a 970 just got 25% cheaper (but with extra problems).

Still an improvement, but not enough improvement after such a long wait.
 
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