A cut-down card isn't always a failed chip, remember Radeon 9500, 9800 SE, X800/X850 Pro VIVO, X800 GTO2, X1800 GTO, HD 6950 etc..? And software unlocking GF 6800 cards
Oh I remember plenty of unlocks that failed miserably, the odds were no where close to 100%. I remember it was closer to a 50/50 thing. Surplus cores getting mixed into actually failed silicon.
You also had to deal with the laser locks that appeared in short order.
Either way my point stands, they are likely being made out of either surplus or failed cores, that can be sliced down to function like a lesser version.
The 2060 KO is laser locked last I heard, so unless NV changes how it treats these 'deal cards', they'll likely be more of the same.
Though they might not get the bump to their CUDA cores like the 2060KO did, so they won't get better work performance to offset the crappier everything else about them. If these can unlock, that would be awesome but I will believe it when I see it.
I still remember being so bitter when my X800XL VIVO unlocked and it was bad. Between a friend and myself, not 1 of 4 R290s would unlock. I did have a 9500 NP that unlocked but couldn't do quite hit 9700 NP clocks.
So...
Failed or borderline cores are possible. Binning is real, look at the 9900K(KF) shortly before the 9900KS and since.
