6800 and no SM3.0?

[PP Mguire]

Alright, ive posted this on other forums and got nothing. Sooo i came here and read some things and you guys seem to have some answers.

Anywho, i had a BFG 6600GT layin around and my friend has a Dell with a PCI-E vanilla 6800. Well i redid his machine (Format C:, the works) and made it all nice and shiny boss. Well i notcied one thing. NO SOFT SHADOWS. I have latest drivers installed, and i noticed this before i formated too. Im guessin its a marketing scheme from Dell and they have a modified bios in his 6800. As soon as i put my 6600GT (did nothing else, just installed) i noticed a considerate difference. So do you think flashing the bios with a stock 6800 bios would work and retrieve my SM3.0 back? (I traded him):yumyum:

 

[Mr. Popo]

I don't think it's something that can be disabled, it wont hurt to try.

 

[PP Mguire]

Well i figured since its Dell, they could have re-written the bios to disable SM3.0 to make you upgrade to a newer card. You never know. Supposedly its an eVGA card, so could i take an eVGA bios from here and flash it?

 

[Mr. Popo]

It doesn't matter what brand.

 

[PP Mguire]

Ok cool, i just want to make sure cause i dont wana ruin it. I eventualy wanna get my 6600GT back.

 

[Mr. Popo]

If it's the same hardware, what can go wrong?

 

[PP Mguire]

Thats the thing. According to Dells site it says its supposed to be an eVGA 6800, but it dosent say anywhere on the card that its eVGA. So im just taking a wild guess about all this.

 

[mVp24]

Ok cool, i just want to make sure cause i dont wana ruin it. I eventualy wanna get my 6600GT back.

Hey dude watch out by what you do. I suggest you post around a bit more and research your problem more. Let's get a take on this matter by multiple forum members. I'm not saying Mr. Popo is wrong, just saying don't modify any bios until more people post on it so you can get a general consensus. Also, sometimes i think Dell uses stripped versions of cards; basically less pixel pipes etc.

 

[PP Mguire]

Thats what i was figuring. Thats why i wanted to ask first until i actualy flashed the bios. I dont wanna flash it to something extreme, but just the regular bios so it has SM3.0 back on it. Im guessing if the stripped pipes is the case, then its probably missing some vertex shaders then.

 

[mVp24]

Thats what i was figuring. Thats why i wanted to ask first until i actualy flashed the bios. I dont wanna flash it to something extreme, but just the regular bios so it has SM3.0 back on it. Im guessing if the stripped pipes is the case, then its probably missing some vertex shaders then.

Just wait a bit and hopefully one of the pros will give you advice

 

[PP Mguire]

Hehe, whos considerd one of the pros? Im a n00b here.

 

[Mr. Popo]

Just wait a bit and hopefully one of the pros will give you advice

What am I? a noob?

 

[mVp24]

What am I? a noob?

Nope.

@ PP:Just wait for more people

 

[markkleb]

ooohhhh a flaming war....:flames:

Go with Popo dont be a fradie cat......

 

[mVp24]

ooohhhh a flaming war....:flames:

Go with Popo dont be a fradie cat......

It's good to be cautious when dealing with gfx cards. I'm very cautious though.

 

[PP Mguire]

Yea, i like to be cautious cause even if you have something better laying around its nice to have a good back up.

 

[Rastalovich]

Isn`t it something to do with all the 6x00 series, similar to the 7x00 series, use the 6800 gpu - however a 6600GT uses a 6800 gpu with bells and whistles.

I`d suggest that a pre-made retail pc is probably going to have a very basic card in it that maywell be made by eVga, and is `based` on the 6800, but it`s not like a 6800 card that u would buy online.

It`s like a 7300 card, I *think* it uses a 7800 gpu, but obviously it aint no 7800 card. And I guess when a 8300 comes out, it`ll be 8800 gpu based.

 

[llwyd]

Dont flash it with a bios from any card other than an IDENTICAL one, either try to find an eVga 6800 bios off a forum member or use nBitTor to retrieve the one that its using currently and then use the same app to modify it and (thanks to the newer versions not needing nFlash) save it direct to the card, although im not sure nBitTor will do that. Have you tried using RivaTuner to see if anything is locked on it? you might have 4 spare pipelines not in use aswell

 

[Dav0s]

yeah i awas about to suggest opening some pipes and see if that helps

 

[PP Mguire]

Isn`t it something to do with all the 6x00 series, similar to the 7x00 series, use the 6800 gpu - however a 6600GT uses a 6800 gpu with bells and whistles.

I`d suggest that a pre-made retail pc is probably going to have a very basic card in it that maywell be made by eVga, and is `based` on the 6800, but it`s not like a 6800 card that u would buy online.

It`s like a 7300 card, I *think* it uses a 7800 gpu, but obviously it aint no 7800 card. And I guess when a 8300 comes out, it`ll be 8800 gpu based.

I know for a fact this isnt the case. All 6 series Nvidia cards support SM3.0 im sure of that. That was the whole battle between 6 series and X8** series. Ive also takin the HSF to check the chip and it is indeed a 6800 card. Its just its a Dell POS im guessing cause i didnt see anything locked on it. When i get a chance ill take a screenie or 2 of Rivatuner for you guys to double check me.

Now what about this Nbittor, whats this?