Rare GPUs / Unreleased GPUs

[lexluthermiester]

They're the same quality as any other sticker

We can agree to disagree here. I used to collect engineering sample tech as a hobby and in my experience, the ES models generally had stickers of lesser quality, IF they had any at all.

it's the font choice and size that makes them harder to read with these newer ones.

This one is likely, but again, lends to the lower quality aspect of ES stickers.

They pack a lot of information into a tiny 13x44mm sticker, so the letters are only 0.5-0.75mm at the largest on some of them.

This is for sure. It's bizarre choice.

 

[Fouquin]

We can agree to disagree here. I use to collect engineering sample tech as a hobby

I really don't think flexing experience here is what matters, because simply browsing images posted in this thread will expose you to quite possibly hundreds of examples of ES cards with stickers showing. Anyone could quickly become experienced in the subject with this resource. You may even note that quite a few of those photos are from my own extensive collection, which is 17 years in the making.

I've actually rather enjoyed following along with how the "internal use" stickers have evolved. AMD and NVIDIA hardly even use the blatant "engineering sample" sticker method any longer, and it's all transitioned to simple plastic inventory and serial number tags. AMD does still make use of the classic yellow and green ES stickers but almost out of formality at this point.

 

[PixelButts]

I really don't think flexing experience here is what matters, because simply browsing images posted in this thread will expose you to quite possibly hundreds of examples of ES cards with stickers showing. Anyone could quickly become experienced in the subject with this resource. You may even note that quite a few of those photos are from my own extensive collection, which is 17 years in the making.

I've actually rather enjoyed following along with how the "internal use" stickers have evolved. AMD and NVIDIA hardly even use the blatant "engineering sample" sticker method any longer, and it's all transitioned to simple plastic inventory and serial number tags. AMD does still make use of the classic yellow and green ES stickers but almost out of formality at this point.

In my line of work (Game Development) I can assure you the prototype/engineering sample stuff gets absolutely wild to track and document. I honestly prefer the little yellow stickers and labels compared to the unlabeled black boxes running god knows what inside. I'm definitely in the flex territory (knowledge wise, give or take) in my field but I am just enjoying all the little variances between GPUs I've seen in this thread. Admittedly it feels like a breath of fresh air to me despite the rather large amount of things to learn.

Crossover is minimal but an example I'd point to is the PS4 prototype devkits. Once upon a time you could build one with some approximate specs, and a special Sony provided APU card. They're intended to be destroyed afterwards, and I've never actually seen one slip into circulation (many such cases for early prototype console stuff). The card was your bread and butter and on super lockdown contract/person wise.
You could make one similar (which was kinda recommended due to supply) and get approximate performance if you wanted to make your own homebrewed one with a Tahiti card. Which one? Not totally sure. From Software still uses these internally for some baffling reason.

 

[Fouquin]

In my line of work (Game Development) I can assure you the prototype/engineering sample stuff gets absolutely wild to track and document. I honestly prefer the little yellow stickers and labels compared to the unlabeled black boxes running god knows what inside. I'm definitely in the flex territory (knowledge wise, give or take) in my field but I am just enjoying all the little variances between GPUs I've seen in this thread. Admittedly it feels like a breath of fresh air to me despite the rather large amount of things to learn.

Wish everyone would just do what Apple does. You get a big bright white label with everything on it, no extra inventory tracking required because everything you need to know about the thing is printed right on it.

 

[PixelButts]

Wish everyone would just do what Apple does. You get a big bright white label with everything on it, no extra inventory tracking required because everything you need to know about the thing is printed right on it.
View attachment 306029

Print too small on that for my eyes. I'd increase the font a little.

Also I was editing my post to mention a little more that may be worthwehile - have you come across any prototype Tahiti cards in your venture? I figure it might be worth knowing what's out there.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I really don't think flexing experience here is what matters

Wasn't "flexing". Sorry if it came off that way. I made a statement, you told me I was wrong and then I qualified myself. But hey, it's all good.

You may even note that quite a few of those photos are from my own extensive collection, which is 17 years in the making.

I have. And your efforts are very much appreciated! No doubt there.

Didn't mean to offend you good sir!

 

[Fouquin]

Print too small on that for my eyes. I'd increase the font a little.

The scale is maybe a bit deceiving, here's what that looks like on a 13" laptop. It's quite legible in person. I'd roughly equate it to 14pt font on a 24" 1080p display.

have you come across any prototype Tahiti cards in your venture?

Only a couple and not many I could afford! You've already seen the one posted above because you asked about the wonky HDMI+DP combo output. I've missed out on a bunch of the red-board samples (with the green sticker) because those are instantly recognizable as early prototypes and get swallowed up by those with fatter wallets than I. Tahiti's board development was pretty sheltered and mostly done well in advance of when it actually launched, AMD was working on Tahiti being their second 32nm generation chip after Cayman when TSMC pulled the plug on 32nm and shifted to 28nm. As such they basically had everything else done in advance of having chips out of TSMC, so there's not many exciting samples out there to be found. I'm sure some incredibly crazy prototypes were made at some point but unlike almost every other generation AMD managed to keep those out of the public eye.

Now this brings up a potential holy grail (though perhaps more of a cryptid) which is the theorized existence of a 32nm Cayman prototype. TSMC had been printing 32nm wafers for customers in 2009 when they ran into the 40nm SNAFU, and AMD was one of their only customers for that node. As per reports of the time Barts was pushed back to 40nm very early for both cost reasons and to alleviate Cayman's yields suggesting chips were being made and tested. After the cancellation AMD had to pull a lot of the intended features (and a few compute units) and re-use old design features to cram Cayman back into 40nm and print enough to ship within a single calendar year. The original Cayman would have looked a lot more like Tahiti I suspect. So, holy grail item, a 2009 prototype of a 32nm Cayman graphics card if any managed to exist.

 

[SyWillCry]

Definitely a 5, flat top of it is the giveaway for me.

View attachment 306019

To me it looks like a 6. The "5" in the 25 next to it is the clue.

They're the same quality as any other sticker, it's the font choice and size that makes them harder to read with these newer ones. They pack a lot of information into a tiny 13x44mm sticker, so the letters are only 0.5-0.75mm at the largest on some of them.

I had a look at the sticker under a microscope. It does appear to be a '5' rather than a '6', which I do think makes more sense if this is indeed a 7970 (GHz edition).

 

[PixelButts]

I had a look at the sticker under a microscope. It does appear to be a '5' rather than a '6', which I do think makes more sense if this is indeed a 7970 (GHz edition).

Needing a microscope to read a label is definitely some dedication.

 

[lexluthermiester]

I had a look at the sticker under a microscope. It does appear to be a '5' rather than a '6', which I do think makes more sense if this is indeed a 7970 (GHz edition).

Fair enough.

Needing a microscope to read a label is definitely some dedication.

Right?

 

[xdevilx]

Hm. today?

acceptable?

 

[MrNobodie]

I don't know how rare it is but I just bought a brand new EVGA GTX 670 4GB ! Still have the plastique cover.
I thing I need to open it and test it because there is some weird noise when I move the box ...
Should I do an unboxing video ?

 

[dont whant to set it"']

The card should be fine unless it was tossed around , as for something loose in the box , be it driver cd/dvd or power cable adapters, le: sli bridge?

 

[lexluthermiester]

I don't know how rare it is but I just bought a brand new EVGA GTX 670 4GB !

Those are actually fairly uncommon and are becoming rarer. Nicest version of that GPU, full stop!

 

[MrNobodie]

I felt bad for opening it, like it's a piece of history now that EVGA is no longer doing Nvidia GPU.

Juste the plastic case, probably too old and break but nothing wrong with the card !
In the box :
- A GPU
- User manual
- CD Driver
- Stickers
- DVI to VGA adapter
- 2x molex to 6 pin
- A poster

I can't wait to test it !

 

[lexluthermiester]

I felt bad for opening it, like it's a piece of history now that EVGA is no longer doing Nvidia GPU.

Don't feel bad. You get to had that "Opening up something new!" feeling, and it'll be one of the last times that happens with an EVGA product. Enjoy!

PS, Thank You for sharing!

 

[xdevilx]

NOS

 

[lexluthermiester]

NOS
View attachment 309346

BITD, those two cards in SLI offered godly performance with an OC'd C2Q. Those take me back to a very good time! Good times indeed!

 

[Darthgrey]

So, who was that not very lucky buyer, who bought this 2900XTX for $150 and in 10 minutes seller relisted it for $300 as auction?

Link on ebay

 

[Fouquin]

So, who was that not very lucky buyer, who bought this 2900XTX for $150 and in 10 minutes seller relisted it for $300 as auction?

Link on ebay

Hate it when sellers get greedy. Cancelling a legitimate sale to then auction it off is against ToS.

Neat card though. Once again proves that these cards are still out there sitting in somebody's closet who doesn't know what it is.

 

[erek]

Hate it when sellers get greedy. Cancelling a legitimate sale to then auction it off is against ToS.

Neat card though. Once again proves that these cards are still out there sitting in somebody's closet who doesn't know what it is.

Yup, happened for the Intel Larrabee that a HardOCP / HardForums member won legitimately and then LTT (Linus) poached it after the fact of the auction concluding for more money

horrible.

The seller even lied to people inquiring saying something Intel reclaimed it or some other bogus response

Intel Larrabee - a prototype

Or this guy was expecting this card to sell at $1000+ and he just cancelled on you. Time will tell if it shows back up. :(

hardforum.com

Yup, happened for the Intel Larrabee that a HardOCP / HardForums member won legitimately and then LTT (Linus) poached it after the fact of the auction concluding for more money

horrible.

The seller even lied to people inquiring saying something Intel reclaimed it or some other bogus response

Intel Larrabee - a prototype

Or this guy was expecting this card to sell at $1000+ and he just cancelled on you. Time will tell if it shows back up. :(

hardforum.com

Also Linus doesn’t give a crap about the hardware and lost the card

https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/ylatqu/_/iuzndy7

 

[basco]

found mine and looks not so good but should be water tight-- and in europe we only got 3dmark free key:



and did not even know i got this:
asus gtx260 matrix:

 

[boomstik360]

NOS
View attachment 309346

Man I remember looking at those brand new on Newegg back in the day LOL.

 

[T4C Fantasy]

I love everyone's dedication to their collections and showing off their rare cards, I appreciate it.

If anyone comes across a rare gpu and the chip isn't HQ please take a clear Shiny (no sunspots/glare and shadows) pic of the die, I love chip pics and can use ultra high quality pics for the gpudb

Example: G86

NVIDIA G86 GPU Specs

16 Cores, 8 TMUs, 4 ROPs

www.techpowerup.com

Please keep in mind that the same applies for PCBs but will only accept professional grade pictures (very clear and big resolution pics, 2000x2000 at the smallest, no grain.
Must have white paper as background so I can clean it faster. If good enough I will also add your matrox/amd/ati/nvidia or 3dfx gpu

 

[boomstik360]

I felt bad for opening it, like it's a piece of history now that EVGA is no longer doing Nvidia GPU.

Juste the plastic case, probably too old and break but nothing wrong with the card !
In the box :
- A GPU
- User manual
- CD Driver
- Stickers
- DVI to VGA adapter
- 2x molex to 6 pin
- A poster

I can't wait to test it !


View attachment 309321

It's so hard not to buy stuff like this on ebay LOL. There's actually quite a bit here and there of old cards, even much older in new, or like new with box for cheap. Would be fun but idk LOL.