Chinese hack mining GPU and turn it into gaming GPU!

[seanalpha]

So according to the first chatting screenshot, a TaoBao seller hacked NVIDIA P106, which is about the same spec as GTX 1060 6GB but without video output and DX support, and somehow get DX support back, then using integrated GPU to output video signal. As for result, this thing could run almost smooth as low-end GTX 1060 with only 1/4 of a regular 1060 price. 

 

DO A REVIEW PLZ LINUS

[deedee123]

or they just say that to sell a shitty card

[Guest]

I'd like to see this on LTT 

[vorticalbox]

I remember reading about a feature on Intel cpus that allowed you to connect your display to the Intel gpu but the bit would use your discrete gpu when you open an intensive programs.

 

I can't remember the name of the feature though.

[GoldenLag]

1 minute ago, vorticalbox said:

I remember reading about a feature on Intel cpus that allowed you to connect your display to the Intel gpu but the bit would use your discrete gpu when you open an intensive programs.

 

I can't remember the name of the feature though.

Display passthrough isnt something very new. you can passthrough Nvidia and AMD cards aswell, so its not too surprising that this happened at some point.

[asus killer]

some of those cards even have video output hidden behind the backplate (sorry, i/o shield), you just don't have the "hole".

[GoldenLag]

Just now, asus killer said:

some of those cards even have video output hidden behind the backplate, you just don't have the "hole".

dont you have the saughter joints for where the output would be?

 

so with some Shenzen skills you can get these cards running again quite easily

[Spotty]

I'm guessing the P106 is just the GP106 die?

Apparently these cards use PCIe 1.0/1.1?

 

https://www.asus.com/Graphics-Cards/MINING-P106-6G/specifications/

 

https://www.gigabyte.com/Graphics-Card/GV-NP106D5-6G-rev-10#sp

 

 

Looking at the Gigabyte P106 card, it looks like it still has the contact points on the PCB for display outputs, so it *should* be possible to solder some output connectors on to it and flash a GTX 1060 bios on to the card...?

Spoiler

 

Seems like a lot of effort though. Just buy a 2nd hand GTX 1060 if you want to save a few bucks.

[Spotty]

9 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

come to think of it, the miners themselves might be the ones more likely to do this to secondhand it off o_o

Just another reason not to buy a graphics card from China on eBay...

[asus killer]

21 minutes ago, GoldenLag said:

dont you have the saughter joints for where the output would be?

 

so with some Shenzen skills you can get these cards running again quite easily

i saw it somewhere a while ago, some chinese brand card, if you removed the i/o there was real hdmi and display port connections back there, they had just "frankestein" a i/o shield on top.

 

[Fnige]

Not tech news really...

[Nicnac]

58 minutes ago, SlimyPython said:

Not tech news really...

Y tho

I find it quite interesting that someone managed to work around nvidia's restriced mining cards to use them as actual graphics cards.

[BananaInSandals]

Plot twist: it's a fake 1060 with a 560 instead lol

[Jurrunio]

Not surprised. I've seen GTX 950M in desktop card form factor. The seller provides modded drivers based on ancient drivers, but if you can mod new drivers and install them yourself.

 

Oh, and good luck getting rid of your stock, Nvidia

[BananaInSandals]

Upon further reading into the pictures, there's no way in hell that's a 1060/P106. It's selling at 400 RMB, which is 60 USD... Yeah... Coz anyone with half a brain will sell a fully functioning 1060 at that price... It's more than likely that's a scam using a very old card (such as a 550) and "fake" it as a 1060. Gamers Nexus has a vid about that scam.

[yjjddpizza]

2 hours ago, BananaInSandals said:

Upon further reading into the pictures, there's no way in hell that's a 1060/P106. It's selling at 400 RMB, which is 60 USD... Yeah... Coz anyone with half a brain will sell a fully functioning 1060 at that price... It's more than likely that's a scam using a very old card (such as a 550) and "fake" it as a 1060. Gamers Nexus has a vid about that scam.

Well they are P106 mining cards that were abused... Just like RX570s that were used for mining were dumped for almost the same price on Taobao. They would probably die in several weeks if not days time.

[Errilhl]

These are not scams, they're just offloading headless mining cards. Both Science Studio and Linus did a test on such cards - they're genuine 1060s

[Edgar R. Zakarian]

What about the malware risk? Is there any way or anyone who could check on this?
It's a REALLY good value, especially in Europe where prices are crazy high.
It'd be AWESOME to build a budget build with a card like that. They (10606gb) cost around 200 USD used here.

[Code.016]

14 minutes ago, Edgar R. Zakarian said:

What about the malware risk? Is there any way or anyone who could check on this?
It's a REALLY good value, especially in Europe where prices are crazy high.
It'd be AWESOME to build a budget build with a card like that. They (10606gb) cost around 200 USD used here.

since it is not digitally signed driver, someone can include a package of malware to the drivers and you unknowingly installed it. so the better way to do it, test the card to another PC and monitor it for a week or a month. if there are not funny stuffs showing up on your PC, then you are good to go.

[Edgar R. Zakarian]

1 minute ago, Code.016 said:

since it is not digitally signed driver, someone can include a package of malware to the drivers and you unknowingly installed it. so the better way to do it, test the card to another PC and monitor it for a week or a month. if there are not funny stuffs showing up on your PC, then you are good to go.

Thanks for the tip!
But could also happen a year after right? If some guy has a keylogger in, keeps logs of all your logins, then a year after goes into action, you won't suspect a thing?

[Guest]

On 11/29/2018 at 8:19 PM, RorzNZ said:

I'd like to see this on LTT 

Oh snap

[asand1]

On 11/28/2018 at 11:19 PM, RorzNZ said:

I'd like to see this on LTT 

 

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, asand1 said:

 

I said it way before the video

[Dev Dichromate]

On 1/15/2019 at 11:04 AM, Edgar R. Zakarian said:

What about the malware risk? Is there any way or anyone who could check on this?
It's a REALLY good value, especially in Europe where prices are crazy high.
It'd be AWESOME to build a budget build with a card like that. They (10606gb) cost around 200 USD used here.

There is no malware risk in the drivers. Modification of the driver takes just editing few lines in the a file. Its so easy that you can do it yourself.
Go to Github and search for P106 Nvidia, there is a detailed instruction on how to do it. However its not much reliable for a budget build as they use Pci gen 1.0 instead of the 3.0 which Gtx 1060 uses.

 

I don't know how Linus got 63 average fps with the P106-100 and 68fps on Gtx 1060 6gb when the P106-100 uses PCI 1.0 while the gaming graphics card Gtx 1060 6gb uses PCI 3.0 or is it that the P106 has been overclocked a lot and his powerful processor compensated the loss of fps

[WildCat444]

 

5 hours ago, Dev Dichromate said:

I don't know how Linus got 63 average fps with the P106-100 and 68fps on Gtx 1060 6gb when the P106-100 uses PCI 1.0 while the gaming graphics card Gtx 1060 6gb uses PCI 3.0 or is it that the P106 has been overclocked a lot and his powerful processor compensated the loss of fps

Roughly speaking PCIe 3.0 x4 == PCIe 2.0 x8 == PCIe 1.0 x16 so the performance loss should not be that significant (as long as it's running in 1.x  x16) and equivalent to using a thunderbolt 3 dock on a laptop. If you want to see the performance difference yourself you can put tape over the appropriate number of pins on the expansion card and the system should detect the card with that bandwidth. The card pictured below is only running in x4 mode in the first one because there are not enough PCIe lanes.

Original:

Taped off: