# Some AMD GCN GPU Disabled Stream Processors Unlockable via Software



## btarunr (Aug 6, 2015)

This is big. A new software is doing rounds on the forumscape, with lets you check exactly which GCN compute units (CUs) were disabled by AMD to carve out your "Pro" SKU graphics card (eg: R9 Fury non-X, R9 390, R9 285, etc.), and if you're lucky, re-enable some of those disabled CUs via a good old fashioned soft-mod. Called CUINFO, developed by OCN Forums member tx12, the tool has seen some success in unlocking disabled CUs in graphics cards based on "Fiji," "Hawaii," and "Tonga" chips. 

The success is limited probably because AMD appears to be using two methods to disable CUs - laser-cutting them, and through firmware. Even in chips that let you unlock, you may not unlock all CUs, since some are genuinely damaged and disabled as part of the harvesting process, to maximize yield. There are no telltale signs of which chips let you unlock and which don't, and so you'll be playing a lottery. Cards with re-enabled CUs have shown increased performance, confirming that the soft-mod is real.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Sony Xperia S (Aug 6, 2015)

Very good. 

It is easier to say only R9 Fury, without that non X, people are not that confused in order not to differentiate Fury and Fury X.


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## zsolt_93 (Aug 6, 2015)

I think it is clear which cards is about. In the Fury thread i predicted this will happen, noone really noticed it, it was the only cheap solution for AMD to increase profits and survive this period instead of going bust. Probably the R9 3xx series and the Fury is affected, and the R9 2xx was laser cut from the factory.


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## Marshall_lockjaw (Aug 6, 2015)

Tahiti Support??


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## BiggieShady (Aug 6, 2015)

With Fiji in low supply, it seems it's really hard to find Fury Air that unlocks to full Fury X without artifacting ... some had luck unlocking 4 CU out of 8 ... AMD is binning each and every good Fiji chip as Fury X.


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## Mussels (Aug 6, 2015)

been reading up on this for a few days, since people are working on/succeded in 290(x) to 390(x) upgrades as well, with regular to X upgrades unlocking shaders.


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## LightningJR (Aug 6, 2015)

Pretty sweet. I wish I could unlock the extra shaders to get me to a 680


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## Relayer (Aug 6, 2015)

zsolt_93 said:


> I think it is clear which cards is about. In the Fury thread i predicted this will happen, noone really noticed it, it was the only cheap solution for AMD to increase profits and survive this period instead of going bust. Probably the R9 3xx series and the Fury is affected, and the R9 2xx was laser cut from the factory.



People unlocked 290's too.


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## FordGT90Concept (Aug 6, 2015)

Huh, so Fiji Pro software locks all chips to a lower standard while laser cutting still terminated the bad CUs.  Seems kind of silly to have the firmware part at all.  AMD should just market them as having at least x components then let it use them all it can.

I guess they can't because of power/cooling considerations.  Time for a paradigm shift?


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## Bansaku (Aug 6, 2015)

Marshall_lockjaw said:


> Tahiti Support??



You can try and let me know!


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## BadIronTree (Aug 6, 2015)

Bansaku said:


> You can try and let me know!


 T.A.H.I.T.I. " Is a Magical Place"


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## NC37 (Aug 6, 2015)

Not surprised. AMD has a history of doing this with not only their GPUs but also their CPUs. One of the perks of going AMD. Sometimes you get little presents like this.


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## MagnuTron (Aug 6, 2015)

Well I mean, its awesome to have software with direct acces to HW like this - but some of us already tried unlocking our Hawaii cards back in late 13. Dual BIOS was a blessing for that.


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## RejZoR (Aug 6, 2015)

Now they make it when I switched the camps. Shuuu.


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## TheButcherNL (Aug 6, 2015)

Of course too good to be true, says not possible to unlock them, grrr...


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## Aquinus (Aug 6, 2015)

I remember when I could turn on/off pixel and vertex pipelines simply by clicking checkboxes in RivaTuner back in the day. Too bad things aren't so simple anymore.


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## AsRock (Aug 6, 2015)

NC37 said:


> Not surprised. AMD has a history of doing this with not only their GPUs but also their CPUs. One of the perks of going AMD. Sometimes you get little presents like this.



Yup like the Amd 555 which i have hear with 2 unlock and usable cores


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## KainXS (Aug 6, 2015)

there seems to be no support at all for tahiti and pitcairn, . . . . . . yet.

" this ASIC is not supported"


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## EarthDog (Aug 6, 2015)

Mussels said:


> been reading up on this for a few days, since people are working on/succeded in 290(x) to 390(x) upgrades as well, with regular to X upgrades unlocking shaders.


lol upgrade...? Its the same card with 8GB of ram and oveclocked. Like the 290x Tri X 8GB... if you want to risk bios flashing for a name change and clocks you can set with software... have at it. 

It doesn't appear that success rates are very high in looking at the OCN thread.


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## Mussels (Aug 6, 2015)

EarthDog said:


> lol upgrade...? Its the same card with 8GB of ram and oveclocked. Like the 290x Tri X 8GB... if you want to risk bios flashing for a name change and clocks you can set with software... have at it.
> 
> It doesn't appear that success rates are very high in looking at the OCN thread.



if you unlock shaders on a 290, its an upgrade. people are reporting higher FPS, with issues. Still, it's interesting.


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## EarthDog (Aug 6, 2015)

Indeed. But your post said 290x to 390x... which is the same card but overclocked. Don't risk it for nothing.


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## Mussels (Aug 6, 2015)

EarthDog said:


> Indeed. But your post said 290x to 390x... which is the same card but overclocked. Don't risk it for nothing.



some cards can do it, some cant. in the thread they've got 290->390x bioses with 290 clocks. they'll nail down a range most cards can unlock to over time.


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## KomanderKain (Aug 6, 2015)

Thoughts on trying this out on a FX 7500 Notebook APU?


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## DoomDoomDoom (Aug 6, 2015)

KomanderKain said:


> Thoughts on trying this out on a FX 7500 Notebook APU?



Thought: "lol no"


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## GhostRyder (Aug 6, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I remember when I could turn on/off pixel and vertex pipelines simply by clicking checkboxes in RivaTuner back in the day. Too bad things aren't so simple anymore.


 You should give it a whirl and see if you can enable anything on your card!


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## Aquinus (Aug 6, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> You should give it a whirl and see if you can enable anything on your card!


I don't think the 390 GAMING has a BIOS switch and I'm not prepared to brick it when I'm not even running it 100% in most cases. I tend to be more cautious however I've read some interesting posts on updating not only to unlock CUs but to enforce lower timings at higher frequencies on the VRAM. Of course this all sounds interesting but, I'm not prepared to potentially brick my new toy just yet.


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## Mussels (Aug 6, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I don't think the 390 GAMING has a BIOS switch and I'm not prepared to brick it when I'm not even running it 100% in most cases. I tend to be more cautious however I've read some interesting posts on updating not only to unlock CUs but to enforce lower timings at higher frequencies on the VRAM. Of course this all sounds interesting but, I'm not prepared to potentially brick my new toy just yet.




run the program to see if yours can unlock without actually flashing it then.


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## Kissamies (Aug 6, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I remember when I could turn on/off pixel and vertex pipelines simply by clicking checkboxes in RivaTuner back in the day. Too bad things aren't so simple anymore.


Remember soft-modding those GF 6800/6800LE cards with Rivatuner back in the day


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## yogurt_21 (Aug 6, 2015)

9700 Pro said:


> Remember soft-modding those GF 6800/6800LE cards with Rivatuner back in the day


the X800 GTO/(GTO^2) put this site on the map back in the day. we had the best guides for it. Get the right 250$ X800 GTO 256MB, do a soft mod or bios flash and BAM it's a 500$ X850XT.

The gamble always seems to be one gamers are willing to take. I will miss the Built By ATI warranty though. V modded and destroyed 3 X700 Pros and they replaced it each time.


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## _larry (Aug 6, 2015)

My XFX R9 290 is laser cut. Damn...No X for me...


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## Aquinus (Aug 6, 2015)

Mussels said:


> run the program to see if yours can unlock without actually flashing it then.


I totally missed the download link and wish I hadn't this morning. I'll test it out when I get home. Even if it thinks there are unlockable CUs, I don't want to flash the BIOS because I have no switch so there is potential to brick it I think. Once again, I would rather be cautious.

Edit: Mussels, if you read the link it says this tool only detects if there are potentially unlockable CUs, not to actually unlock them.


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## GhostRyder (Aug 6, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I don't think the 390 GAMING has a BIOS switch and I'm not prepared to brick it when I'm not even running it 100% in most cases. I tend to be more cautious however I've read some interesting posts on updating not only to unlock CUs but to enforce lower timings at higher frequencies on the VRAM. Of course this all sounds interesting but, I'm not prepared to potentially brick my new toy just yet.


 Unfortunate they no longer have that on those 



Aquinus said:


> I totally missed the download link and wish I hadn't this morning. I'll test it out when I get home. Even if it thinks there are unlockable CUs, I don't want to flash the BIOS because I have no switch so there is potential to brick it I think. Once again, I would rather be cautious.
> 
> Edite: Mussels, if you read the link it says this tool only detects if there are potentially unlockable CUs, not to actually unlock them.


 Yea I was more meaning to check if you could because it would be fun to have an R9 390X for the price of an 390.


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## Aquinus (Aug 7, 2015)

GhostRyder said:


> Yea I was more meaning to check if you could because it would be fun to have an R9 390X for the price of an 390.


Yeah, not this one. That settles that.


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## Mussels (Aug 7, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> I totally missed the download link and wish I hadn't this morning. I'll test it out when I get home. Even if it thinks there are unlockable CUs, I don't want to flash the BIOS because I have no switch so there is potential to brick it I think. Once again, I would rather be cautious.
> 
> Edit: Mussels, if you read the link it says this tool only detects if there are potentially unlockable CUs, not to actually unlock them.



bad wording aside, i was aware of that. the tool lets you detect if your card can be unlocked, and they've got various links to modded BIOS'es to flash to unlock if you desire.


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## okidna (Aug 8, 2015)

Take a look at this, Asus STRIX Fury unlocked to Fury X, modded, and then overclocked : http://forum.hwbot.org/showthread.php?p=400893


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## ur6beersaway (Aug 8, 2015)

Didn't we go through with this shyt with the 6950..unlock shaders to 6970? Wow here we go again.......


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## Mussels (Aug 8, 2015)

ur6beersaway said:


> Didn't we go through with this shyt with the 6950..unlock shaders to 6970? Wow here we go again.......




why is it 'shyt' ? isnt this a good thing for experienced OCers?


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## Cool Vibrations (Aug 10, 2015)

Mussels said:


> why is it 'shyt' ? isnt this a good thing for experienced OCers?



It's not "shyt" at all.

He's probably a disgruntled Nvidia buyer and is sad his company offers their consumers absolutely no chance in hell to in unlocking their cards. It plays out perfectly since they're all overpriced.


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## Athlonite (Aug 12, 2015)

Ohwell   never mind 


Adapters detected: 1
Card #1 PCI ID: 1002:6939 - 1043:0486
DevID [6939] Rev [00] (1), memory config: 0x500013A9 Elpida
Tonga-class chip with 8 compute units per Shader Engine
SE1 hw/sw: FF010001 / 00000000 [.......x]
SE2 hw/sw: FF010001 / 00000000 [.......x]
SE3 hw/sw: FF010001 / 00000000 [.......x]
SE4 hw/sw: FF010001 / 00000000 [.......x]
28 of 32 CUs are active. HW locks: 4 (R/O) / SW locks: 0 (R/W).
Sorry, all 4 disabled CUs can't be unlocked by BIOS replacement.


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## Mussels (Aug 12, 2015)

my 290 arrives today, cant wait to test the program out


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## Mussels (Aug 13, 2015)

Mysteoa said:


> I will come back when the make Cherry Slim keys.




... wrong thread?


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## Kissamies (Aug 13, 2015)

yogurt_21 said:


> the X800 GTO/(GTO^2) put this site on the map back in the day. we had the best guides for it. Get the right 250$ X800 GTO 256MB, do a soft mod or bios flash and BAM it's a 500$ X850XT.
> 
> The gamble always seems to be one gamers are willing to take. I will miss the Built By ATI warranty though. V modded and destroyed 3 X700 Pros and they replaced it each time.


That was a popular card here in Finland those days


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## Aquinus (Aug 14, 2015)

So, has anyone with Hawaii/Granada actually found their CUs to be enableable?


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## Mussels (Aug 14, 2015)

Aquinus said:


> So, has anyone with Hawaii/Granada actually found their CUs to be enableable?



no luck for me


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