AMD sent HD 4830 samples to reviewers with missing shaders

no, possible etching of the PCB was done either on purpose or accidentally, that or the cards were locked further because of Shader Flaws in the earliest batches, just managed to slip thru the cracks, but no worries, if the card doesnt meet the specs advertised you can take the part back and ask for your money back, but with this set of cards, i say until AMD gets the bugs out, i say go with the 4850 or 4870.

 

But you are the Wiz, you can make it

 

pheew ... .

btw how do you disable SIMD ?

 

BUMP and thanks to w1zz for identifing the issue, informing AMD, getting a fix, and posting it!



What a champ...

 

Ah, so it was just a faulty BIOS issue.

Does that mean a re-review of the ATi card is coming? Or did you already have to send the card back? Any chance boards slipped into the retail market with the defect?

I wonder if they flashed the BIOS with the locked pipes to possible test an even lower end configuration for the 4800 series. Maybe we will see an HD4810?

 

and flash it to HD4830, or even 4850 !! Yay !!!

 

Cool, thats what I figured.

Off Topic: Any tips on overclocking an HD4670? I bought the same one you reviewed from HIS, but I can't overclock it at all via software. I tried using AMD's GPU Clock Tool (0.9.8), but any time I adjust the core frequency at all the computer just locks up.

 

how did you manage to alter the usable shader count without rebooting W1z?

 

Hi W1zzard,

Where can I download the "560" shaders 4830 BIOS, or can you share this BIOS with us? Thanks!

 

I have a 4830 ES that has only 560 stream processor enabled. Flashed with the bios, i went up to 640 without problem (perlin noise test from 180 to 250 fps...).

Thanks a lot W1zzard.

AMD said to me that the alu are physically disable.

 

that is really good point

 

ohh , w1zzard really nice work , ati now very thankful to you im sure

 

BUMP

Sry for it but this one catched my interest.

When you found this out, did you see if there were any diffrence in heat as well between the cards?

Or even better, if there were any differ in current consumption?

 

Thx.

I was just thinking if this could be done on laptops to reduce power consumption, or if its already done by the power saving mechanics?

 

W1zzard,

How did you disable SIMD units on the fly? You mention a register, so I assume you edited that somehow, but what program did you use? I found it very interesting that the AMD 4830 used significantly less power at idle than the PowerColor 4830. Only about 25% of my time on my PC is spent on gaming. My biggest gripe with the 48xx cards (and now the 47xx cards too by the looks of the initial reviews) is their idle power usage in comparison with a 3850 (my current card) or a 4670. If SIMD units could be turned off on the fly on a 4850 or 4870, say down to 4670 levels, and there was a corresponding idle power usage decrease, that would be perfect, even if a restart was required to re-enable them. The power of a high end card when needed, the low power usage of a low end card when not.

Thanks in advance for any information you can provide.

 

wow bring back a topic that has been dead and over with for some time now. Attn All 4830s have the 640 Shaders. May we please close this topic?

 

Wow... super-fast reply! Yes, his test unit did come with only 560 SPs enabled, but he then went on to gradually disable SIMD units on a 4850 to see if there was a linear decrease in performance. I'm wondering how he disabled them on the 4850.

 

Couldnt you edit the bios so the idle clocks are lower?

 

eidairaman1,

Sorry to have bumped an old post. I just stumbled on it... late to the party. I tried to find some discussion of this in other posts or on other sites, but it looks like W1zzard is the only person who took his testing to this level. I'm not actually interested in how many shaders a 4830 has, but rather in being able to disable shader units on any 48xx card in order to reduce idle power consumption. W1zzard was able to disable them on a 4850 without even rebooting... I'm just hoping to benefit from his advanced knowledge.


[I.R.A]_FBi,

Lowering the idle clocks does help, but not enough. I bought a 4850 when they first came out and tried super-low settings. That was when the BIOSes were shipping with the wrong settings in them. The idle power usage never came anywhere near 3850 levels though. W1zzards testing potentially opens up a new way to lower power usage.