review of the new nvidia GTX260 216

[wonderlust]

what a daft name for a card...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3408

[Aaron]

NVIDIA just enabled another TPC on the Core 216 (or alternatively, disabled a TPC on a GTX 280).Interesting.. I wonder if that something that could be done at home too. I had a 6800GT which I softmodded into a 6800 Ultra (I think) just using RivaTuner and a few mouse clicks. It just needed the extra pipes switched back on that nVidia had disabled. Wonder if its a similar softare thing, or whether its an actual hardware thing on these?

[alexnifty]

Basically nVidia are selling the chips which couldn't quite make it as a 280 because a TPC was dead.

[jonwoad]

Same as Intel did with the Core Solo where one core was defective...

[alexnifty]

AMD have a 3 core CPU don't they? Thats the same thing.

[jonwoad]

I thought the 3 core ones were actually 3 cores not 4 with one disabled

[alexnifty]

I'm pretty sure its a 4 core that didnt make it. Their process has all four cores on the same die doesnt it?

[marsey99]

common practice, where do you think the e5x00 and bellow came from? where did all the semprons come from? list goes on and on.

you cant re-enable syuff any more thru software tho :( they changed the way they did during the 7 series and i belive they now give them the snip with a laser so you can force the driver to use them.

my 7600gt has 4 pipes i can find that are not in use but i tried alot of thing and none got them working.

its an easy fix really, they have a better card they can cripple and it will beat the 4870 at a lower price point so they dont have to lower the price of their flagship.

[Aaron]

Such a shame if that is the case.. That was one of the main reasons I went for a 6800GT at the time :lol:

[wonderlust]

It's a shame they only did that for the AGP cards, the PCI-E ones were a revised chip.