Rare GPUs / Unreleased GPUs

[KLiKzg]

Not in that shape...with aftermarket covers & not aligned fan.

Unless you want to have "Frankenstein" on a wall.

 

[Mr.Scott]

For that price I might try it just to bench the sh1t out of it.

 

[Fouquin]

I don't know if this is anything or not, but just in case it not "just" a chopped up 5970:

ATI RADEON GRAPHICS MODEL C000 VIDEO GRAPHICS CARD | eBay

<p>ATI RADEON GRAPHICS MODEL C000 VIDEO GRAPHICS CARD. </p><p>Condition used *(2034</p>

www.ebay.com

That or this thing has had some rough LN2 runs ;p Either way worst case for $30 It'd still be a cool wall ornament?

Ha, 3870x2 shroud on a 5970. That's pretty clever! For years there have been 5970s floating around eBay with no fan or shroud, a bunch from old compute and early mining racks. They likely bought one of those cheap and then rigged that up as a cooling solution. Looks like it probably works pretty well.

 

[80251]

Has anyone here ever had a video card using WRAM (Window RAM)? What video cards used this unique, dual-ported memory? Was Window RAM just a particular manufacturer's brand name for dual-ported video RAM?

 

[Fouquin]

Has anyone here ever had a video card using WRAM (Window RAM)? What video cards used this unique, dual-ported memory? Was Window RAM just a particular manufacturer's brand name for dual-ported video RAM?

Yes indeed I've got an Intergraph branded Matrox Millennium II for Macintosh that has 8MB of WRAM onboard. Number Nine also had some WRAM cards.

 

[80251]

Yes indeed I've got an Intergraph branded Matrox Millennium II for Macintosh that has 8MB of WRAM onboard. Number Nine also had some WRAM cards.

View attachment 243727

Was dual-ported VRAM only useful when there were still RAMDAC's on videocards?

I have an old Matrox Mystique, which I only used for a couple of months when I replaced it with a Voodoo 3/2000.

 

[KLiKzg]

Yes indeed I've got an Intergraph branded Matrox Millennium II for Macintosh that has 8MB of WRAM onboard. Number Nine also had some WRAM cards.

View attachment 243727

Had a same card...brutal for 2D CAD or dual monitors, but not much else.

They are quite pricy on the market now here in Croatia...but not much on eBAY:

Vintage Matrox Millenium II 8MB & Matrox Myst28N PCI Graphics Video Cards - Box | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vintage Matrox Millenium II 8MB & Matrox Myst28N PCI Graphics Video Cards - Box at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[lexluthermiester]

brutal for 2D CAD or dual monitors, but not much else.

That's is what it was intended and geared for. However, it also did 3D CAD very well. With the memory upgrade, it was smooth as silk. It was intended to be a professional card that could also do a reasonable amount of gaming. In that capacity it was amazing!

 

[madness777]

Original Nvidia GTX 590 ''ES'' (I'm actually not 100% sure if it's es, it doesn't have any post screen info but the cores are unmarked. Any input is appreciated)
Installs 267.85 driver which still has unlocked voltage control and has unlocked voltage range, the card doesn't shut down and can be overvolted
It came in pretty rough shape, fully refurbished back to its original form. Absolutely love the design on it

 

[Fouquin]

Original Nvidia GTX 590 ''ES'' (I'm actually not 100% sure if it's es, it doesn't have any post screen info but the cores are unmarked. Any input is appreciated)
Installs 267.85 driver which still has unlocked voltage control and has unlocked voltage range, the card doesn't shut down and can be overvolted
It came in pretty rough shape, fully refurbished back to its original form. Absolutely love the design on it

It's one of the launch day review kit cards! Not sure how many were made, but not enough that every reviewer got their hands on one. Doesn't match up to any of the cards I can find that have decent pictures, but I'm sure with enough digging you might find where it came from.

Don't suppose it came with the ammo can and dog tags?

 

[madness777]

Don't suppose it came with the ammo can and dog tags?

No, just a bag

Ty for the details!

 

[lexluthermiester]

Installs 267.85 driver which still has unlocked voltage control and has unlocked voltage range, the card doesn't shut down and can be overvolted

This suggests that it's an ES unit. I could be wrong though.

It's one of the launch day review kit cards! Not sure how many were made, but not enough that every reviewer got their hands on one.

Or this.

 

[Audioave10]

I have to say...that 590 is beautiful!

 

[Darthgrey]

One more bizarre deal from ebay:


Unfortunately for the original lucky $30 buyer, later somebody offered seller more money and as result this XGI Volari V8 Duo was sold for $1000. BTW this seller had many interesting S3 videocards for sale (I assume they were sold as a scrap from ex S3 employee or from old S3 test lab), I saved some pictures for the history:

Spoiler: CAUTION! More photos, but I attached them as thumbnails

S3 Graphics 700E:



S3 Graphics Delta Chrome Desktop Evaluation Board:



S3 Graphics Delta Chrome DC S8 Nitro:



S3 Graphics S27C:



S3 Graphics Delta Chrome S8 Pro



XGI Volari V8 Duo:



S3 Graphics Chrome GTX440 & others:

 

[Fouquin]

One more bizarre deal from ebay:

View attachment 245700
Unfortunately for the original lucky $30 buyer, later somebody offered seller more money and as result this XGI Volari V8 Duo was sold for $1000. BTW this seller had many interesting S3 videocards for sale (I assume they were sold as a scrap from ex S3 employee or from old S3 test lab), I saved some pictures for the history:

Spoiler: CAUTION! More photos, but I attached them as thumbnails

S3 Graphics 700E:

View attachment 245701View attachment 245730View attachment 245703View attachment 245705

S3 Graphics Delta Chrome Desktop Evaluation Board:

View attachment 245706View attachment 245707View attachment 245709View attachment 245710

S3 Graphics Delta Chrome DC S8 Nitro:

View attachment 245711View attachment 245713View attachment 245712View attachment 245715

S3 Graphics S27C:

View attachment 245716View attachment 245719

S3 Graphics Delta Chrome S8 Pro

View attachment 245731View attachment 245721View attachment 245723

XGI Volari V8 Duo:

View attachment 245726View attachment 245727View attachment 245728

S3 Graphics Chrome GTX440 & others:

View attachment 245732View attachment 245734View attachment 245735

View attachment 245736View attachment 245737View attachment 245738

View attachment 245739View attachment 245740View attachment 245741

They came from the Centaur Technologies lab in Austin Texas. It was one of the few lots we couldn't recover, and that seller is asking 5-10x what they should be worth for most of those cards. I've also got the pictures saved and cropped, but we can't add S3 to the database yet.

Centaur likely did some of the packaging and platform testing for S3 in their lab which is why many of those cards were there.

 

[Darthgrey]

They came from the Centaur Technologies lab in Austin Texas. It was one of the few lots we couldn't recover, and that seller is asking 5-10x what they should be worth for most of those cards. I've also got the pictures saved and cropped, but we can't add S3 to the database yet.

Centaur likely did some of the packaging and platform testing for S3 in their lab which is why many of those cards were there.

This is very interesting indeed.

Original Nvidia GTX 590 ''ES'' (I'm actually not 100% sure if it's es, it doesn't have any post screen info but the cores are unmarked. Any input is appreciated)
Installs 267.85 driver which still has unlocked voltage control and has unlocked voltage range, the card doesn't shut down and can be overvolted
It came in pretty rough shape, fully refurbished back to its original form. Absolutely love the design on it.

Nice find. I also have a review sample of Nvidia dual GPU card - but mine is GTX690. Originally it should be packed in a wooden military style ammo crate with the crowbar, unfortunately I was able to get card only. It was sold as a card with some issues, but I checked it on my AM3 and 1366 bench systems and it works fine without any problems.



My card has a number #29 (all review GTX690 had special numbers written on the back side), was made in Hong Kong and took part in a review made by bjorn3d.com - link.

 

[erek]

@Darthgrey @Fouquin

NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT 256MB GDDR3 PCI-E (E565-A02-G-385) Engineering Sample | eBay

GPU GeForce 9600M GT. Core Clock 500 MHz. DirectX DirectX 10. SLI Support No. Max Resolution2560 x 1600. RAMDAC 400MHz. TV-OutHDTV / S-Video Out. 1 x 40-pin LVDS.

www.ebay.com

 

[DFX87]

This is very interesting indeed.



Nice find. I also have a review sample of Nvidia dual GPU card - but mine is GTX690. Originally it should be packed in a wooden military style ammo crate with the crowbar, unfortunately I was able to get card only. It was sold as a card with some issues, but I checked it on my AM3 and 1366 bench systems and it works fine without any problems.

View attachment 245863View attachment 245864View attachment 245865

My card has a number #29 (all review GTX690 had special numbers written on the back side), was made in Hong Kong and took part in a review made by bjorn3d.com - link.

Nice card!

A few years ago I was able to rescue a GTX 690 ES from the electronic scrap. The card was probably thrown carelessly into the scrap container by the previous owner, so unfortunately a few SMD components are missing. Nevertheless, still a nice card for the showcase!

 

[Fouquin]

Nice card!

A few years ago I was able to rescue a GTX 690 ES from the electronic scrap. The card was probably thrown carelessly into the scrap container by the previous owner, so unfortunately a few SMD components are missing. Nevertheless, still a nice card for the showcase!

View attachment 245996View attachment 245997

Oh interesting, partner sample of some kind I assume. It's got the July 2012 firmware revision sticker, so I assume it's one of the driver/firmware partner test vehicles that stayed in the labs. I find those cards get heavily abused when their effective lifespan is considered done. They're frequently thrown into big cardboard boxes full of other end-of-life cards and trucked off to be recycled. Thankfully somebody salvaged it from destruction!

Since we're sharing GTX 690s, I got this back in December but forgot to post it here. I think I posted in the new tech purchase thread, though.



An interesting side affect of the GTX 690 being finished before the cooler was, you don't find many proper engineering samples of these cards. They're all production run PCBs and ASICs, but with varying stages of cooler assembly progress. This is one of the raw casting cooler samples mounted to a final board, assembled likely a month or so before launch. This is what the raw metal looks like before the three process alloy plating is applied to give it that awesome silver sheen.

For reference, here's what an early sample GTX 690 looks like circa February 2012 before the decision was made to radically redesign the entire cooling arrangement into what we know and love:



Even at the point of that sample being assembled the PCB was already in mass production.

 

[Darthgrey]

View attachment 245998

This is one of the raw casting cooler samples mounted to a final board, assembled likely a month or so before launch. This is what the raw metal looks like before the three process alloy plating is applied to give it that awesome silver sheen.

I've seen such card on ebay not long ago, one was sold like ASUS GTX690, other one as noname, saved ebay links in Telegram, but they are gone already: link1 and link2.

One more rare card from me:



This is Zotac Geforce GTS250 DUAL. As far as I know Zotac made them special for Asia region, it was made 999 of them and price for each was 999 ¥, however cards don't have individual numbers on PCB, so it's hard to say how many of them were made and sold. When I got it in my hands - first of all I took off cooling system to replace old thermal paste and I was surprised - there was no any thermal interface at all: both GPU and cooling system had no signs of previous old thermal paste and were like new. After maintenance I checked it in few benchmarks - card was working fine with SLI enabled:

 

[madness777]

I've seen such card on ebay not long ago, one was sold like ASUS GTX690, other one as noname, saved ebay links in Telegram, but they are gone already: link1 and link2.

One more rare card from me:

View attachment 246050View attachment 246051

This is Zotac Geforce GTS250 DUAL. As far as I know Zotac made them special for Asia region, it was made 999 of them and price for each was 999 ¥, however cards don't have individual numbers on PCB, so it's hard to say how many of them were made and sold. When I got it in my hands - first of all I took off cooling system to replace old thermal paste and I was surprised - there was no any thermal interface at all: both GPU and cooling system had no signs of previous old thermal paste and were like new. After maintenance I checked it in few benchmarks - card was working fine with SLI enabled:

View attachment 246053

Insanely cool!
Man I love these wacky zotac designs from the past

 

[80251]

@Darthgrey
is the separate heatsink along the top of the Zotac Geforce GTS250 DUAL dedicated for the VRM circuitry?

 

[lexluthermiester]

@Darthgrey
is the separate heatsink along the top of the Zotac Geforce GTS250 DUAL dedicated for the VRM circuitry?

Yup, that's exactly what it's for.

 

[DFX87]

Oh interesting, partner sample of some kind I assume. It's got the July 2012 firmware revision sticker, so I assume it's one of the driver/firmware partner test vehicles that stayed in the labs. I find those cards get heavily abused when their effective lifespan is considered done. They're frequently thrown into big cardboard boxes full of other end-of-life cards and trucked off to be recycled. Thankfully somebody salvaged it from destruction!

Since we're sharing GTX 690s, I got this back in December but forgot to post it here. I think I posted in the new tech purchase thread, though.

View attachment 245998View attachment 245999View attachment 246000View attachment 246001

An interesting side affect of the GTX 690 being finished before the cooler was, you don't find many proper engineering samples of these cards. They're all production run PCBs and ASICs, but with varying stages of cooler assembly progress. This is one of the raw casting cooler samples mounted to a final board, assembled likely a month or so before launch. This is what the raw metal looks like before the three process alloy plating is applied to give it that awesome silver sheen.

For reference, here's what an early sample GTX 690 looks like circa February 2012 before the decision was made to radically redesign the entire cooling arrangement into what we know and love:

View attachment 246005View attachment 246006

Even at the point of that sample being assembled the PCB was already in mass production.

Yes, I think you are right. I was able to save more ES cards from the shredder that day. Among others six G71 Duo cards (4x GTX 7900 Duo and 2x FX 4500 X2). Here a FX 4500 X2 Made in USA :

 

[Fouquin]

Yes, I think you are right. I was able to save more ES cards from the shredder that day. Among others six G71 Duo cards (4x GTX 7900 Duo and 2x FX 4500 X2). Here a FX 4500 X2 Made in USA :

View attachment 246355View attachment 246356

That is an excellent salvage! I miss being on the front lines of the ewaste recycling. The number of unique cards that came through each year for shredding or donation was incredible.