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RTX 2070 SUPER with TU104-100A-A1

Arnib

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I recently bought an RTX 2070 SUPER from the NVIDIA website. I wanted to water-cool it, so I took it apart. I discovered that my card has the TU104-400A-A1 chip of the RTX 2080 instead of the TU104-410-A1. I checked online if this was a common thing, but I couldn't find anything. Additionally, GPU-Z didn't recognize the GPU either. I attached pictures of the card and GPU-Z.

Has this happened to anyone else? I wonder if it was possible to activate all the CUDA-Cores of the card if I flash the bios of an RTX 2080. Could this be possible by any means?
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Quite sure you won't be able to, Nvidia locks this down with true passion. As in, physically. But never say never...
 

W1zzard

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I checked online if this was a common thing, but I couldn't find anything. Additionally, GPU-Z didn't recognize the GPU either. I attached pictures of the card and GPU-Z.
Next build of GPU-Z will support this variant.

if I flash the bios of an RTX 2080. Could this be possible by any means?
I doubt it, but still worth a try.
 
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But beware of bricking the card in the process (do it carefully). Still I think that it might be disabled from hardware level (laser cut-off).

I would be quite a nice bonus if you would succeed with unlocking it (+24 TMU's). But anyway, aren't "410" higher binned and achieving higher core frequency on average?
 
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i have the means to restore a bios after a failed flash so i would give it a shot but if you dont then it might not be a good idea. if the memory is the same, gpu die is the same, then there probably is a good chance it may work. nvidia may have done this on purpose so people like me would say, look what i found and then everybody would go out and buy up every super rtx2070. at the end of the day nvidia makes a crap load of cash and everybody feels good that they got a 2080.
 
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That's interesting. The capacitor pads next to the inductors look like they are for Panasonic ESL capacitors, but it hard to tell if they are for Panasonic capacitors. The second part is you can see they have used one pad to solder in ceramics instead. Can the OP please post a close-up photo of the capacitors from the side.
 
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Arnib

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I tried flashing the 2080 FE bios with nvflash but I get a device ID mismatch error:
Device ID in the rom image does not match the device ID in the chip.
Update aborted, please use a rom image that supports device ID 0x1EC7.

It seems like this is blocked on hardware level: https://www.tomshw.de/community/thr...ips-der-geforce-rtx-2070.471/page-4#post-6206
@delshay: I'm sorry, but I already installed the card and I don't want to drain my loop to disassemble it again.
 
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Programmer is quite hard solution, but should do. Anyway this stuff is expensive as far as I remember.
NGREEDIA is master of blocking HW. Someone has to pay for all Huang's leather coats. Fifty coats of Huang. lol
Machine spirit does't not approve this action.

Interesting if only FE have 2080 cores (I bet not only). New TU104 410 should be higher binned allowing to operate with little higher frequencies (boost). In next month or two we should look at it, mby TOP AIB's will have 410, meanwhile some cheaper variants will have cut-down 400 "A" chips to fill the gape in production. That would make sense since cheapest constructions aren't meant to reach 2000-2100MHz.
FE is almost the cheapest solution for €529 in EU. TOP AIB's cost from 580 to 660 €.
 

Arnib

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I ordered an EEPROM programmer. I will try flashing the card with it.
My card has a boost clock of 2025 to 2055 MHz, depending on the temperature. I applied a stable core clock offset of +140 MHz.
 

bigfatlpjiji

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I recently bought a STRIX 2070 SUPER Advanced Overclocked (RTX2070S-A8G-GAMING) https://www.newegg.ca/geforce-rtx-20...82E16814126330

https://puu.sh/DXeER/d83560cc66.pnghttps://puu.sh/DXeFQ/f0fea60e41.png https://puu.sh/DXeMv/98c367616f.png (TU104-B?)

Card model also not recognized by gpuz yet. And voltage editor in afterburner grayed out also (even on the 4.6.2 beta 2). Voltage slider works in gpu tweak thing though.

Overclocks okay, can hold core clocks 2040-2055 on 1.043V or something while gaming. memory easily @ 2000MHz. Core clocks 2020-2040 while doing a time spy run. During time spy can reach ~250-260 watts.

Is there currently any bios that i could flash to increase the power limit? This card is on this bios version https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/212505/212505

Feel like the card could do much more with higher power limit. Doesn't even ever hit over 60c @ 70% fans. Few other card's bios i checked and see that they got 300w+ limits
 

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I ordered an EEPROM programmer. I will try flashing the card with it.
My card has a boost clock of 2025 to 2055 MHz, depending on the temperature. I applied a stable core clock offset of +140 MHz.

Back up the working bios
 

Arnib

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I flashed the card with the RTX 2080 reference bios but I couldn't get any signal from the card, so I guess it's not possible to unlock the extra cores of the TU104-400A-A1. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experiment.
 

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I flashed the card with the RTX 2080 reference bios but I couldn't get any signal from the card, so I guess it's not possible to unlock the extra cores of the TU104-400A-A1. Nonetheless, it was an interesting experiment.
Can you compare the PCB components on your card with the ones from my 2080 FE review? One resistor should be different, either added or removed
 

Arnib

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It's hard to see if there is a resistor on the PCB just from the pictures. I think I may have found one resistor on my board that is missing on the 2080. It is located near the EEPROM chip.
128322
 

W1zzard

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Does the resistor and the empty pad next to it look like someone did manual solder work?

Just took a new photo of that area on my 2080 FE review sample from NVIDIA

 
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Does the resistor and the empty pad next to it look like someone did manual solder work?

Do you think moving the resistor from the left position to the right would unlock the card? The other remaining are in identical positions, (ones in that column).

Edit: are they 0 ohm resistors?
 
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W1zzard

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Benchmark Scores They're pretty good, nothing crazy.
PENCIL MOD! (jk)

If it's the same chip, you should be able to flash it to a 2080 with the nvflash with the board ID override no?
 

Arnib

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Does the resistor and the empty pad next to it look like someone did manual solder work?

Yes, the solder looks a bit odd in this area. Additionally, the resistor seems to be a little brighter than the others.
 

Arnib

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I was curious and soldered the resistor to the right side like on the RTX 2080. I tried booting the card with the 2080 and the 2070S BIOS, but neither worked. There are probably more measures to prevent this hack. The resistors are 100 kΩ. It looks like they can either be in pullup or pulldown configuration.
After soldering the resistor back to the left side, the card worked again with the 2070S BIOS.
 

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Arnib

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Ok, done.

I just want to add that the resistor was glued on to the PCB, which could indicate that there really was some manual soldering done. Also, it makes it difficult to get it off.
 
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