Found a weird Radeon HD 7950 with 1536 shaders and no temperature readout

[sam_86314]

Not a prototype, but development card. These are final spin production ready boards and silicon, everything that went into the reference HD 7970 is present. The prototypes are much uglier and are absolutely not stable for the kind of work the Monicas were built for. Think of it like a dev kit; the hardware inside is just consumer grade stuff but it's all packaged up special for developers to get early access to.

How many of these cards have you dealt with? If you've messed with multiple of them, have any of them also had the temperature readout issue that mine has?

That's really my only holdup with this card; I have no idea how hot the core is running, and obviously, automatic fan control doesn't work.

I mean, I guess I could just assume that 40% fan at stock speeds and settings should keep it in check, especially with new thermal paste.

I'd also love for your explanation to be added to the OP, just to make the info more accessible.

 

[biffzinker]

And the card reports itself to be a 280x?

Could it be GPUZ is picking it up as 280X? When I downloaded a Windows XP driver for a 7950 GHz for my R9 280 to install for Windows XP it gets reported as a 7950 card.

 

[thesmokingman]

Reporting anomaly aside this is still one of my fav all time gpus.

 

[Caring1]

Monica is a dev card for game and software developers, produced and serialized for said use case. Snip They carry an entirely unique ASIC designation from any other Tahiti cut.

Explains why I couldn't find a card with a matching chip number if it's unique to that board and not released.

 

[Fouquin]

How many of these cards have you dealt with? If you've messed with multiple of them, have any of them also had the temperature readout issue that mine has?

That's really my only holdup with this card; I have no idea how hot the core is running, and obviously, automatic fan control doesn't work.

I mean, I guess I could just assume that 40% fan at stock speeds and settings should keep it in check, especially with new thermal paste.

I'd also love for your explanation to be added to the OP, just to make the info more accessible.

Temp readout works in all Crimson and older Catalyst drivers for sure, because I've repasted a few and have notes on temperature readouts from running overclocks. I haven't tried one on any of the later Adrenalin drivers that support GCN 1.0. Expect that on new paste it's probably not going much over 70C unless it's totally chock full of dust. Afterburner can definitely set all the usual parameters with the older drivers no problem, I've seen some of these cards pull off some reasonably spicy OCs.

 

[TM30]

FYI, i also got a MONICA but with earlier BIOS version,lower core clock and a different device id. Have a look here.