[gboeds]

Anyone ever seen anything like this? Is this card a fake, or is it a defective chip or something?



edit: was sold to me as a 7970, unbranded, no labels denoting HD 79XX...

 

[Bartouille]

Just run a benchmark and compare with other 7970s users. If it performs the way it should then I wouldn't worry too much about it, otherwise you can try to flash to a standard 7970 bios or something.

 

[gboeds]

Well, I have it folding at 1000Mhz, and it is getting about 1/4 the ppd as my other 7970....I think the shader count on GPU-Z must be accurate.

I have already contacted the seller for a refund, but I still am confused as to what this is? FAH recognizes it as a Tahiti PRO, which is a 7950, but it still is folding at about 1/3 of what I would see from a 7950.

 

[Bartouille]

I would return it, clearly the card isn't performing the way it should...

 

[Abundant Cores]

The thing has more TMU's than a 7770 but less than a 7790, something very strange about it.

send it back.

 

[Domino]

isnt there a bios switch?

 

[PontiacGTX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Domino

isnt there a bios switch?

you can try flashing the bios for safest way for having a 7970 is returning it to the seller

 

[anubis1127]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gboeds

Well, I have it folding at 1000Mhz, and it is getting about 1/4 the ppd as my other 7970....I think the shader count on GPU-Z must be accurate.

I have already contacted the seller for a refund, but I still am confused as to what this is? FAH recognizes it as a Tahiti PRO, which is a 7950, but it still is folding at about 1/3 of what I would see from a 7950.

The Device ID 1002 679A is 7950, probably why [email protected] recognized it as such.

Very odd indeed. Does it look like a reference 7970?

 

[Flying Toilet]

It could be an ES model, or some sort of OEM card... But odds are, they force flashed a 7790 to 7970. Where did you buy it from?

 

[cam51037]

Sounds also that it might be a 7790 flashed to a 7970 BIOS.

Definitely interesting, can you maybe post some pictures of the card itself?

Edit: OP, it might be a kind of 7850 type card, read here: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Pitcairn-radeon-HD-7850-768-shaders-gpu,15524.html

Sounds like you have a 7850 768 shaders edition, and unreleased card, or possibly an early model of a 7790.

But OP, if you don't mind me asking, didn't you notice right off the bat? 7850's and down all have a single PCI-E power connector, unlike 7870's or higher with dual power connectors. That is if this card turns out to be this 768 core 7850.

 

[anubis1127]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cam51037

Sounds also that it might be a 7790 flashed to a 7970 BIOS.

Definitely interesting, can you maybe post some pictures of the card itself?

Edit: OP, it might be a kind of 7850 type card, read here: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Pitcairn-radeon-HD-7850-768-shaders-gpu,15524.html

Sounds like you have a 7850 768 shaders edition, and unreleased card, or possibly an early model of a 7790.

But OP, if you don't mind me asking, didn't you notice right off the bat? 7850's and down all have a single PCI-E power connector, unlike 7870's or higher with dual power connectors. That is if this card turns out to be this 768 core 7850.

I don't think that is the case, because it's not Pitcairn, it still shows as Tahiti, but it could be something similar to the card in that article. Maybe an ES 7950 with only 768 shaders.

 

[cam51037]

Quote:

Originally Posted by anubis1127

I don't think that is the case, because it's not Pitcairn, it still shows as Tahiti, but it could be something similar to the card in that article. Maybe an ES 7950 with only 768 shaders.

But couldn't you flash the BIOS so it says that it's a different card?

Like I know you can flash a GTX 680 to a GTX 770, which is a GK110 card (if I'm not mistaken) and adds extra features to it like a temp target, couldn't that have been done here as well?

 

[anubis1127]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cam51037

But couldn't you flash the BIOS so it says that it's a different card?

Like I know you can flash a GTX 680 to a GTX 770, which is a GK110 card (if I'm not mistaken) and adds extra features to it like a temp target, couldn't that have been done here as well?

You could flash a Pitcairn with a Tahiti bios, but I doubt the card would work after that.

GTX 770 is GK104, same as 680.

 

[gboeds]

it is now packed for shipping and taking it to UPS to ship back this afternoon, have already gotten agreement from seller for 100% refund (bought on E-Bay)

Definitely looks like a 7970/7950, it not having the model on the card is what made me open GPU-Z immediately on installing the card, and I found what I found....



HWInfo says it's a 7950, too....

 

[PontiacGTX]

OP check this

http://www.techpowerup.com/165334/production-radeon-hd-7850-packs-768-stream-processors.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/768-shader-pitcairn-review,3196.html

it is a ES of 7950

 

[healey33]

The 7950 (Tahiti Pro) has two 6-pin PCIe power connectors. I see that yours has one 6-pin and one 8-pin - this is consistent with the 7970 (Tahiti XT). It may have been flashed with a 7950 bios?

EDIT: The P/N is difficult to make out but it looks like 102C386#### which is Tahiti. Also, it has 3GB of SDRAM which was only available on Tahiti boards as far as I know

 

[gboeds]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PontiacGTX

OP check this

http://www.techpowerup.com/165334/production-radeon-hd-7850-packs-768-stream-processors.html

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/768-shader-pitcairn-review,3196.html

it is a ES of 7950

Quote:

Originally Posted by healey33

The 7950 (Tahiti Pro) has two 6-pin PCIe power connectors. I see that yours has one 6-pin and one 8-pin - this is consistent with the 7970 (Tahiti XT). It may have been flashed with a 7950 bios?

EDIT: The P/N is difficult to make out but it looks like 102C386#### which is Tahiti. Also, it has 3GB of SDRAM which was only available on Tahiti boards as far as I know

or an ES 7970 flashed with a 7950 BIOS!

That makes sense, right?

Well, it is shipped off and I will get my refund when it gets there.....now to find a REAL 7970

 

[anubis1127]

Glad you got the return sorted out. After seeing it, it is definitely an ES Tahiti, whether it was 7970, or 7950, who cares at this point, haha. axipher did get an ES 7950 from an AMD event last year, and it was nearly identical to 7970 reference cards too.

 

[healey33]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gboeds

or an ES 7970 flashed with a 7950 BIOS!

That makes sense, right?

Well, it is shipped off and I will get my refund when it gets there.....now to find a REAL 7970

Yes, most likely! The only strange thing is the sticker. That is a production sticker - the engineering samples have different ones (they say engineering sample on them amongst some different numbers). ES's do not have a S/N :S

Anyways, it doesn't matter anymore. Good luck finding another!

 

[WalkerYYJ]

___

Sorry first post got lost in the ether, posting this for the crawlers:
Note the cards I have had "MONICA" in place of where the model number should be... on the bottom was the following part number : 7121A10000G On the back of the card was: 102C3861000 000001
___

UPDATE!!!!!!

OK! Well perhaps some of the mystery has been solved...

So according to the guy I bought these 7 cards off of, they were salvage from a dead games developer... So this led me to go back to my old AMD Developer account and poke around... The current working theory is these cards were early developer samples which were available to dev's to test aspects of the new architecture before the final PCB/chip design on the production cards were settled. IE they aren't internal engineering samples, but rather partner developer samples which were "my guess is" under an NDA (which may or may not have expired.) Regardless I suspect that ATI never meant for these cards to get into the wild and were probably supposed to be scrapped at end of life. So if you happen to have one of these cards either it "fell off the truck" OR maybe there was a bankrupcy auction or some such thing and some poor sap ended up buying a bunch of cards thinking they were "real."

never the less a few more points...

They show 768 shaders and ~38Gtexel/s out of the box..... I flashed 2 of my 7 with the 7950 Bios Boost update found here: http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33993264 which increased my shaders to 1536 and boosts the fillrate to what it should be for the REAL pre update 7950 IE ~80Gtexel/s... however if your using these cards for Scrypt mining.... sorry to say I "think" your out of luck. Iv been screwing around with clocks and voltages all day and cant seem to pull much more than 230 Kh/s (compared to the ~700 Kh/s a real reference 7950 pulls).

Anyway I JUST figured this out so hopefully the dude from ebay I got these from plays nice, although If he ended up picking up a giant pile of these things being told they were all 7950s I do feel bad for the guy...

Anyway my suggestion is if you DO end up reading this thread is to get rid of them, plenty of REAL 7950s/7970s out there.

I also think there may be a few more people out there who may find themselves in the same boat as I JUST received a PM from someone with the exact same issue not more than 18 hrs after bumping this 3+month old thread...