Rare GPUs / Unreleased GPUs

[T4C Fantasy]

Oops I could have taken a much better picture. Sorry! I just grabbed the phone to snap a quick one without really thinking about setting up the camera.

Length of the card is 192mm, or 7.56in.

Quick edit: I feel a bit dorky. I've got like 80 GPUs and that little 9800 GT is the best I have to add to the database. I guess you guys have really been doing a great job of getting things listed.

yes please I would greatly appreciate it if you take a better pic

 

[Fouquin]

yes please I would greatly appreciate it if you take a better pic

Sorry for the wait, spent the weekend out of town. I took a slew of pictures and dropped them all into this album: http://imgur.com/a/ZdWvR#0

Go ahead and see if any of those are better, or just good enough. I don't exactly have studio lights to be getting awesome pictures with. Hope that helps!

 

[T4C Fantasy]

updated the picture thanks xD

 

[Fouquin]

Uh oh, coming in for another 6 month revival. I got the goods though, so hopefully nobody gets irritated.

Meet the Palit 9600 GT Sonic:

Outfitted with out of the box clocks of 700MHz Core, 1750MHz Shader, and 1GB of DDR3 running at 1GHz. The IO is pretty impressive, consisting of a couple DVI-I Dual-Link, Display-Port 1.1a, HDMI 1.3b, and SPDIF optical. All of this powered by a single 6-pin PCI-E.

I'm not sure what the rarity of the card is, but it is definitely a very important GPU nonetheless due to the fact that it is the first consumer card I can find to ever include DisplayPort. Not to mention the factory overclocks and 1GB frame buffer, this card was a hell of a deal in 2008 when it launched.

Speaking of launch, the date is fuzzy but the earliest review I found was March 3, 2008 so that's when I'm going to guess the launch date is.

Finally, very sorry for the poor quality photos, I'm without my camera and cannot get anything better at the moment.

 

[Kursah]

I had the non-sonic version of that 9600GT, was and still is an awesome card. Mine is kept as a spare anymore though. Was fun as hell to OC back in its day. Thanks for the share!

 

[LightningJR]

Uh oh, coming in for another 6 month revival. I got the goods though, so hopefully nobody gets irritated.

Meet the Palit 9600 GT Sonic:

Outfitted with out of the box clocks of 700MHz Core, 1750MHz Shader, and 1GB of DDR3 running at 1GHz. The IO is pretty impressive, consisting of a couple DVI-I Dual-Link, Display-Port 1.1a, HDMI 1.3b, and SPDIF optical. All of this powered by a single 6-pin PCI-E.

I'm not sure what the rarity of the card is, but it is definitely a very important GPU nonetheless due to the fact that it is the first consumer card I can find to ever include DisplayPort. Not to mention the factory overclocks and 1GB frame buffer, this card was a hell of a deal in 2008 when it launched.

Speaking of launch, the date is fuzzy but the earliest review I found was March 3, 2008 so that's when I'm going to guess the launch date is.

Finally, very sorry for the poor quality photos, I'm without my camera and cannot get anything better at the moment.

Nice spdif port

 

[Fouquin]

Nice spdif port

I know right? I have to wonder if that was intentional or necessary to get audio through the card.

 

[Mr.Scott]

Uh oh, coming in for another 6 month revival. I got the goods though, so hopefully nobody gets irritated.

Meet the Palit 9600 GT Sonic:

Outfitted with out of the box clocks of 700MHz Core, 1750MHz Shader, and 1GB of DDR3 running at 1GHz. The IO is pretty impressive, consisting of a couple DVI-I Dual-Link, Display-Port 1.1a, HDMI 1.3b, and SPDIF optical. All of this powered by a single 6-pin PCI-E.

I'm not sure what the rarity of the card is, but it is definitely a very important GPU nonetheless due to the fact that it is the first consumer card I can find to ever include DisplayPort. Not to mention the factory overclocks and 1GB frame buffer, this card was a hell of a deal in 2008 when it launched.

Speaking of launch, the date is fuzzy but the earliest review I found was March 3, 2008 so that's when I'm going to guess the launch date is.

Finally, very sorry for the poor quality photos, I'm without my camera and cannot get anything better at the moment.

Nice. I've had this card since release. Runs cool, overclocks decently. Running 780/1080/1950

 

[Fouquin]

Nice. I've had this card since release. Runs cool, overclocks decently. Running 780/1080/1950

See I was pretty sure it wasn't "rare", but I don't often see them around. Not nearly as much as the ASUS and BFG 9600s.

I literally saved this from the parts recycling bin, and it too OCs pretty well. I've not seriously pushed it but it was capable of 755/1050/1870 when I tested it. Managed to edge out a 9800 GT that I was testing against, so that's something.

On a seperate note not related to your comment, do engineering samples count as rare cards in the context of this thread? I've got a stack of AMD ES (and dev sample) cards and a few are different spec than what they were finalized.

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

See I was pretty sure it wasn't "rare", but I don't often see them around. Not nearly as much as the ASUS and BFG 9600s.

I literally saved this from the parts recycling bin, and it too OCs pretty well. I've not seriously pushed it but it was capable of 755/1050/1870 when I tested it. Managed to edge out a 9800 GT that I was testing against, so that's something.

On a seperate note not related to your comment, do engineering samples count as rare cards in the context of this thread? I've got a stack of AMD ES (and dev sample) cards and a few are different spec than what they were finalized.

AMD ES cards? You good Sir, got my attention!

 

[Mr.Scott]

AMD ES cards? You good Sir, got my attention!

Yup, mine too.
Post em up.

 

[P4-630]

@Fouquin awaiting pics!

 

[Fouquin]

@uuuaaaaaa @Mr.Scott @P4-630

Sorry for the wait, was at work when I posted that.

**BANDWIDTH WARNING**

Here's some pics for you guys:

Radeon HD 7770 ES:

Radeon HD 6990 ES (Also a review sample, possibly Guru3Ds card that they tested. Not sure, but the stickers appear to match.)

Radeon HD 7950 ES: (Or maybe 7970)

Cool combo output on this guy.


And here's a pic of the 6990 with some of it's brothers:

And finally, a GTX 260 Core 216 ES for ya guys.

 

[Fouquin]

Oh crap I have a Radeon HD 6790 ES as well and forgot to get pictures of it. I'll do that in a bit if you are interested.

 

[uuuaaaaaa]

@uuuaaaaaa @Mr.Scott @P4-630

Sorry for the wait, was at work when I posted that.

**BANDWIDTH WARNING**

Here's some pics for you guys:

Radeon HD 7770 ES:

Radeon HD 6990 ES (Also a review sample, possibly Guru3Ds card that they tested. Not sure, but the stickers appear to match.)

Radeon HD 7950 ES: (Or maybe 7970)

Cool combo output on this guy.


And here's a pic of the 6990 with some of it's brothers:

And finally, a GTX 260 Core 216 ES for ya guys.

That 6990 looks damn sexy!

 

[Fouquin]

On top of the 6790, I also forgot the Radeon HD 7950 Monica, which was a developer card.

Here's it is:

Has 1536 SPUs, 32 ROPs, and 96 TMUs with 3GB GDDR5 on a 384-bit bus (like normal.) These aren't totally rare since they were shipped in pretty large quantities to developers and engineers, but they aren't retail by any means.

 

[Constantine Yevseyev]

I also forgot the Radeon HD 7950 Monica, which was a developer card.

A "developer" card? What does it mean?.. Are they meant for, like, supercomputer builders, or probably some other areas? Do they also come with special drivers/tools bundled? This sounds incredible, I want to know everything about them, do you have any links or something?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Fouquin]

A "developer" card? What does it mean?.. Are they meant for, like, supercomputer builders, or probably some other areas? Do they also come with special drivers/tools bundled? This sounds incredible, I want to know everything about them, do you have any links or something?

Thanks in advance.

The common theory behind the 7950 Monicas are that they were bulk purchased from AMD by game and software developers. They got the first cards and the earliest software so they could start developing around the new hardware and work with AMD on driver development leading up to and exceeding the consumer launch. These cards having a lasered (not locked, but physically cut) ASIC is really the only thing that makes them stand out, as even the ASIC itself is a serialized part, not a ENG slice. That said, they work on any Catalyst/Radeon driver and actually perform close to the full Tahiti 7970. Not all are stable cards, and a lot of people who end up with them are usually people buying 7970s used on eBay, only to find the missing units and "Monica" sticker, followed by artifacting and general instability. This one that I own actually runs really well and OCs to a respectable 1170/1510, and never exceeds 62C on gaming or benchmarks. I got lucky, to say the least.

They do also have a second vBIOS which locks the card to 768 SPUs, 16 ROPs, and 64 TMUs which is assumed to be for testing the scaling of the working software to lower end, less capable hardware.

 

[dorsetknob]

A "developer" card?

Probably a Pre release commercial/ pre retail product sent to websites and developers for pre release testing and review

 

[Fouquin]

Alright one last round of pictures:

Radeon HD 6790 ES

Shares the PCB with the 6870, hence the C222 model number. In fact, here's a 6870 ES.

Radeon HD 6870 ES

"But wait, that's a production sticker!"

The 6870 does not display as a fused ASIC either when tested with TSMC-PDE, and reports the ASIC quality as "unsupported." Why this card received a production serial number is beyond me.

I do also have one each of the review sample Radeon HD 6970 and 6950. HD 6000 series cards with the flame-lick print are all going to be either review, engineering, or qualification samples. No boxed cards or AIB cards came with that design printed to the cooler shroud.

Here are all the engineering/review sample Radeon HD 6000 cards in a beautiful line:

"Can you render me now?"

 

[T4C Fantasy]

See I was pretty sure it wasn't "rare", but I don't often see them around. Not nearly as much as the ASUS and BFG 9600s.

I literally saved this from the parts recycling bin, and it too OCs pretty well. I've not seriously pushed it but it was capable of 755/1050/1870 when I tested it. Managed to edge out a 9800 GT that I was testing against, so that's something.

On a seperate note not related to your comment, do engineering samples count as rare cards in the context of this thread? I've got a stack of AMD ES (and dev sample) cards and a few are different spec than what they were finalized.

yes!!!!!!!!!!! please show HD pics

 

[Fouquin]

yes!!!!!!!!!!! please show HD pics

You want MORE pics?

Also, would you please add the 9600 GT Sonic to the database? It's not on there and I think it deserves to be.

 

[tabascosauz]

@Fouquin Does this mean that the HD 7950 Monicas were basically the HD 7870 XT with a 384-bit GDDR5 bus?

I have never heard of this card up until now. You sure have an impressive collection! Thanks for sharing these gems (especially the card with the DP + HDMI combo connector).

 

[dorsetknob]

was a guy in the buy sell trade thread selling loads of monica's recently like 2 to 3 months ago cant Remember his name tho

@ZenEffect
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/gpu-monica-7870-7950-3gb.207821/
dear God it was a year ago

 

[Fouquin]

@Fouquin Does this mean that the HD 7950 Monicas were basically the HD 7870 XT with a 384-bit GDDR5 bus?

Basically, yes. I would not be surprised if somebody at AMD pitched the 7870 XT as a way to remove remaining stock of ASICs that were fused to be Monicas.