R9 290x Retail Flashed with Press/Review Bios

[Tecnic]

First Post here hope I'm not doing anything wrong
 
Found the link on pcper.com for a review that is very interesting.

 

Edit: I updated the link from pcper, apparently I posted the wrong one. It was supposed to be about a review from legit reviews which I linked down below before sorry.

Pcper page where I found link for the review (http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/Controversy-continues-erupt-over-AMDs-new-GPU)

Review: http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-press-sample-versus-retail_129583/3

 

We wanted to see if there was a difference in the BIOS version between cards, so we used ATIWinFlash v2.6.6 and saved the ‘Quiet’ BIOS from the press card with the intention of putting it onto the retail card. The retail card came with BIOS version 015.039.000.007 and BIOS part number 113-C6710100-102. Our press card had an identical BIOS version, but the part number was different.

 

After a restart we noticed the BIOS part number was now 113-C67101A0-026 on the retail card, which is what we had on our press sample from AMD.

 

 

By doing so they were able to get a Retail card which right now depending on the vendor they have a very big difference in performance compared to the Press cards to basically the same performance, AMD or the vendors have done something to the BIOS because the cards should be performing very similarly.
 
Tell me what you guys think, should the people who have Press cards make the BIOS available for download so people who have 290x can flash it ?

[Blade of Grass]

AMD you've done messed up

[tristan1035]

Damnit AMD (or board partners)!

[TheMissxu]

I think the BIOS' are just configured differently. duh

 

Any DIY builder should be able to change the values with CCC/PowerTune.

[Askew]

AMD must hate Pcper so much, they first discover the frame rating issue and made it a hot topic for months, and now this!

[TheMissxu]

AMD must hate Pcper so much, they first discover the frame rate issue and made it a hot topic for months, and now this!

Nvidia developed FCAT and apparently pushed the tests hard towards PCPer. Talk about a smear campaign...

 

None-the-less, you are correct. Pcper has had some very anti-amd content for a while. At least they still recommend the cards, contrary to AnandTech.

 

PS, I've never noticed the "frame rate issue," so I don't think it's an "issue."

[EChondo]

As an owner of AMD GPU's, I cannot commend Ryan enough on these issues. AMD and Nvidia BOTH HAVE ISSUES. If it wasn't for Ryan we wouldn't have evidence of the past(and still current) frame problems and he again shows that AMD is messing up.

 

AMD knows what they're doing, and PCPer is catching them in the act. All of this "PCper is fucking disgusting and should be banned by this forum", if Ryan and the rest of the team over at PCPer didn't expose what was wrong in the first place, we ALL with AMD cards will still be having issues blaming everything on tearing and lack of v-sync.

[exyia]

Nvidia developed FCAT and apparently pushed the tests hard towards PCPer. Talk about a smear campaign...

 

None-the-less, you are correct. Pcper has had some very anti-amd content for a while. At least they still recommend the cards, contrary to AnandTech.

 

PS, I've never noticed the "frame rate issue," so I don't think it's an "issue."

 

PcPer has already stated that none of that is true - even posting emails that Nvidia's FCAT was merely a coincidence in timing

 

they're not anti-AMD - they're anti-bullshit. Something we need more of in this day and age of the internet

 

hell Ryan even recommended AMD mid-range cards to viewers himself. All this nvidia fanboy crap is what turns forums into garbage and it needs to stop

[stevv]

somebody's not going to get a Press card next time  :lol:

[beebskadoo]

To those that are saying that Ryan is a fanboy bla bla bla bullshit, he is putting his neck out there by telling the truth! yeah it's happening more to AMD lately and I can assure everyone that Nvidia will be treated just the same if they f*ck up and try to hide it. But Ryan is running a business, why pt your name on the line and risk backlash from a tech juggernaut like AMD if you didn't care about anything but honest reporting of facts. 

Ryan has one hell of an approach and has been in the business for at east 15 years, much longer than a lot of reviewers have, the man knows his stuff.

At least he doesn't work for The Verge...

[Skanic]

Its not like Nvidia or Intel ever did this right?

Because they did, the press samples of the ivy bridge or was it haswell where higher binned and people like TTL got higher overclocks than people who bought it.

[ajoy39]

I just want to add an update to this, I decided to check my own card and my bios is different than both their review sample and the retail version. 

 

 

As you can see, my bios version, part number, and bios date are all different. My card, a Sapphire card purchased the day they went up for sale from newegg, has an outdated bios compared to both the reference cards AND the retail card legitreviews tested. 

 

This is pretty obviously Sapphires fault, so now the question is, is the difference between the press samples and current retail card they tested also on Sapphire. To this, I have no answer. 

 

@LinusTech and @Slick thought you might want to know. 

[totjup5]

AMD you screwed up.