NVIDIA Sells Two SKUs of each Turing GPU (a normal and OC model)

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 09/17/2018 02:13 PM | source: techpowerup | 50 comment(s)

So a colleague website just posted this, and since the cat is out of the bag we might as well post it also. A while ago we noticed separated (two) GPU hardware IDs for the same Turning GPU. Let's call it an A and B model for each GPU. The one is a standard SKU, the other an OC version. And here is how that works.

So let's take the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti as an example, the GPU in there is a TU102. So basically NVIDIA offers two chips based on TU102, one is the TU102-300 and the other TU102-300-A. That A model is short for an OC SKU. So when a board partner is using the TU102-300 (and not TU102-300-A), then they are not allowed to factory tweak it. Thus such a product would end up at reference clock frequencies and would end up in the cheaper blower cooler style products right? Likely the better yielded GPUs end up as an A model.

Now here's why I wanted to write a news item on this: people can still manually tweak that non-A model. So you as a person could grab Afterburner or any tool of your preference to overclock yourself. Chances, however, are higher than the overclock might be less than the A model.

I hope that clarifies a thing or two. BTW TPU who reported this is spot on, we've verified this weeks ago already with many AIBs. And from what we learned, all of them are simply opting the A (OC) series GPUs.

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vbetts
Moderator

Posts: 15142
Joined: 2006-07-04

#5585692 Posted on: 09/17/2018 09:17 PM

Enough of this conversation. Only warning.

tunejunky
Senior Member

Posts: 3444
Joined: 2017-08-18

#5585694 Posted on: 09/17/2018 09:18 PM

as schmitty and vbetts said...this reeks of Intel marketing.

there has been a lot of engineering cross-pollination, i guess that some in marketing have moved as well...

honestly this is a major fail that should never have seen the light of day.

and it is very true that AIB manufacturers have very thin margins that are being squeezed thinner. in the past the lower binned chips would be a different model if the variance in headroom and performance was so high.
again, greed and sloppy marketing for a very short-lived product staring obsolescence in the face. (from its own company at the very least, not counting AMD and Intel).

schmidtbag
Senior Member

Posts: 7431
Joined: 2012-11-10

#5585714 Posted on: 09/17/2018 09:58 PM

It matters because it's yet another tickbox that gets the final prices to be even higher than the supposed msrp. Instead of having the standard of yields and average oc of chips produced later stabilizing, now you can sell them on a premium over your supposed msrp, because there is no one out there to stop you.

That's assuming absolute worst case scenario where there isn't enough AIB competition. I don't see that happening any time soon.

fry178
Senior Member

Posts: 1947
Joined: 2012-04-30

#5585725 Posted on: 09/17/2018 10:27 PM

@Yogi
and i still prefer to buy the more efficient unit, as the power has to be made somewhere,
the less my pc needs, the less greenhouse effect (while doing the same thing with it)...

same reason i would have prefered a golf gti over a pontiac firebird @same HP (1.6L vs 7L),
not that i was old enough to drive

WareTernal
Senior Member

Posts: 259
Joined: 2013-09-27

#5585727 Posted on: 09/17/2018 10:30 PM

Obviously Nvidia is in business to make money, but is this really a problem?
Since the partners can't stay in the lines and want to make "Super OC/RGB" everything, this lets Nvidia try to maintain some quality.
I'd prefer to know my factory OC'd card was binned by Nvidia, and not just slapped with a bigger heatsink and price tag.
This also seems like it might be a good way to distinguish product lines like Strix, and Aorus.

Since the source was TPU I'll quote them:
"Two device IDs per GPU is very unusual. For example, all GTX 1080 Ti cards, whether reference or custom design, are marked as 1B06. Titan Xp on the other hand, which uses the same physical GPU, is marked as 1B02. NVIDIA has always used just one ID per SKU, no matter if custom-design, reference or Founders Edition."
After this they show a picture from 'nv_dispi.inf' which shows 2 2080ti's, 2 2080's, and 2 2070's.

The quote is just wrong from what I can tell. They've used multiple ID's per GPU forever. Here are a few:

NVIDIA_DEV.0401 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT"
NVIDIA_DEV.0402 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GT"

NVIDIA_DEV.0422 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS "
NVIDIA_DEV.0424 = "NVIDIA GeForce 8400 GS "

NVIDIA_DEV.05E2 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260"
NVIDIA_DEV.05EA = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 260 "

NVIDIA_DEV.0601 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT"
NVIDIA_DEV.0605 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT "

NVIDIA_DEV.0612 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX/9800 GTX+"
NVIDIA_DEV.0613 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX+"

NVIDIA_DEV.062D = "NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT "
NVIDIA_DEV.062E = "NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT "
NVIDIA_DEV.0637 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT "

NVIDIA_DEV.0610 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GSO"
NVIDIA_DEV.0635 = "NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GSO "

NVIDIA_DEV.0CA0 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330 "
NVIDIA_DEV.0CA7 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 330 "

NVIDIA_DEV.0CA5 = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 "
NVIDIA_DEV.0CAC = "NVIDIA GeForce GT 220 "

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