More NVIDIA rebranding shenanigans! The creator of GPU-Z, W1zzard discovered something very strange about the new RTX Super Cards. The RTX 2060 Super and 2070 Super don’t each have the same device ID (meaning that there are different variants of each card). Instead, you can find the lower-end Supers will three different device models in the market.
This immediately raised some eyebrows because of NVIDIA’s earlier history of blurring brand names to the consumer’s detriment. The original RTX 2080 and 2070 had different device IDs that corresponded to differently binned parts. The Turing “A” variants were higher-binned products with greater overclocking headroom, while the “non A” variants were consigned to running at stock clocks. “A” variant parts were actually sold at a markup in manufacturers’ higher-end custom boards. While it’s standard practice for manufacturers themselves to bin higher-performing chips for their best models, it was concerning to say the least that Nvidia was doing this themselves and raised questions: was the “non-A” silicon if stock clocks themselves were pushing things? We’re not even going to talk about the abomination that is the GT 1030 DDR4, a card that deserves a special place in tech hell (and probably a class-action lawsuit).
Thankfully, on further examination, the device ID issue here doesn’t seem to be a problem. W1zzard noticed that the IDs for RTX 2070 Super cards (1E84, 1EC7, and 1EC2) were almost the same as for the RTX 2080 (1E87), with a change of only 40 hex values. This indicates that Nvidia appears to be flashing or otherwise converting existing 2080s and 2070s into their Super models. This opens up a whole new set of opportunities. Way back in 2010, AMD did something similar with initial batches of the Radeon HD 6950: They simply BIOS-locked some of the shader cores. Enterprising modders flashed HD 6970 BIOSes and got back the extra performance. We have no idea if Nvidia’s soft-locking these Super cards or if they’re laser-cutting the disabled units. In the highly unlikely event that this is a soft BIOS lock, RTX 2070 and 2060 Super owners are in for a genuine performance bonanza. We’ll keep you posted as this story develops.
