Rare GPUs / Unreleased GPUs

[chisaki]

Are you sure? ES/QS usually has "Not for EMC testing" sticker on them, but those Titans X had no such sticker. Also from the left they have a big retail sticker with model name and S/N, PCB made in China, ES/QS often are made in Hong Kong or USA (but not always). I think it's a special OEM card.

I agree with you, I think it should have "EMC certification pending" sticker. But non-official QS, that is to say, QS from AIB normally has no such sticker.

 

[Darthgrey]

Feast of my XGI Volari video cards: Volari V5 128 and 256M, few V8's and V8 Duo Ultra!







I wonder how many was made, it's always was hard to find one of those. Plus cards with reference coolers, like a boxed similar looking on a photos - they have a huge gap between GPU and heatsink and require a lot of paste to get a contact with it. If paste will become dry - they will die because of overheat, maybe thats why it's not so many of them remained.

 

[孙义飞]

HD3870X2 ES

 

[SyWillCry]

Not necessarily rare, but a Sapphire R9 390 Toxic (which was only available in Asia according to some quick googling). I will get to extracting its BIOS eventually as the card itself appears to be entirely dead. Only real difference that I can spot is that the Toxic uses a different VRM (6 phases using the IR3553M for the Toxic, vs. the Vapor-X using 10 phases of IR6811 high sides and IR6894 low sides).

Spoiler: Pictures of R9 390 Toxic, as compared to an R9 290 Vapor-X

 

[孙义飞]

Quadro 5000 ES 3GB

 

[Masterchief79]

My humble addition to this great thread. HD4870x2 Evaluation Board (not a real ES, but not a retail card either). PLX chip still has "ENG" printed on it, by my research they used those on some early cards and press samples. Some stickers on the GPUs which aren't found on retails.

 

[Masterchief79]

And some HD5970 4GB Black Edition Limited pics. A while back someone requested more PCB pics.

My guess: AMD had a really good look at this PCB when designing the HD6990. They are almost identical. Same screw holes as well, you might even be able to use a HD6990 waterblock on the HD5970BEL.

One of the key differences is the use of vapor champers for the GPUs on the 6990. XFX still used heatpipe coolers for the 5970BEL which is part of the reason for the incredible noise this thing makes.

"Fun" fact: The master GPU of this card was only recognized with x4 speeds suddenly. I had some work to do.
The card got a new master GPU, PLX chip reball and some new SMD components.

The whole time, the fault was this little broken capactitor... I resoldered all of them and this one came apart when I did so. No idea how that even happens, from one day to the next.

Now it's x16 again and works perfectly.


And this little snippet I found in the German PCGH magazine about these cards.

 

[chisaki]

not a real ES, but not a retail card either

You can say it is an ES card. It is on QS stage.

 

[Masterchief79]

I just realized I already posted that 5970 BEL in this thread almost 10 years ago.

Rare GPUs / Unreleased GPUs

Radeon 8500 x4: http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=1262 Also I remember a prototype radeon card which was a dual card and one half used agp, the second half used the pci slot or something? I was not able to find it on the net. Maybe my memory is cheating me :)

www.techpowerup.com

I sold it to a friend in about 2012 and actually it found its way back to me last year, which is incredible.
I have to post some pics of the original accessories. Those are freaking wild.

 

[cal5582]

sometimes i wonder if the reason multi-gpu stopped was the company that made plx chips being bought out by broadcom in like 2014. its a real shame, i love seeing these old ES cards that were pushing the limits of sanity and physics.

 

[孙义飞]

sometimes i wonder if the reason multi-gpu stopped was the company that made plx chips being bought out by broadcom in like 2014. its a real shame, i love seeing these old ES cards that were pushing the limits of sanity and physics.

Not so But because multi-GPU technology is not suitable for consumer-level platforms.
You can still see them on graphics computing and data center cards like the w6800x DUO

 

[cal5582]

Not so But because multi-GPU technology is not suitable for consumer-level platforms.
You can still see them on graphics computing and data center cards like the w6800x DUO

that card appears to have its own special bus. may not be pci-e?
i know 2 cards on one slot stopped being a thing roughly around the time of the 295x2 roughly 2013. fury and vega etc were all aimed at higher single card perf, they could still be paired just not on the same board with a plx chip.

 

[chisaki]

that card appears to have its own special bus. may not be pci-e?
i know 2 cards on one slot stopped being a thing roughly around the time of the 295x2 roughly 2013. fury and vega etc were all aimed at higher single card perf, they could still be paired just not on the same board with a plx chip.

There are many professional GPUs using multi-gpu technology.
AMD: Radeon Pro V540, V340.
NVIDIA: Tesla A16 (four GA107 core).
Intel: VCA 2, VCA 3.

 

[PixelButts]

There are many professional GPUs using multi-gpu technology.
AMD: Radeon Pro V540, V340.
NVIDIA: Tesla A16 (four GA107 core).
Intel: VCA 2, VCA 3.

There's also the Pro Duo for AMD. Sadly no v440 or v640 from what I know of but I suspect it's also because the power each single gpu provides now is more than sufficient
Not sure if the W6800X for Apple machines counts but may as well also mention it.