R9 290 Firepro Softmods Still Exist?

[FAQBytes]

I've always been interested in soft/hardmodding graphics cards into their "professional" brethren, as they are essentially the same card with a little less RAM (I understand some PGPUs do use ECC ram, but the effect is negligible). I was wondering if anyone here still softmods or hardmods their cards or still own one they did it to. 

 

Of course my motive for all this is potentially getting a driver package that will install the Firepro drivers for an R9 290/x as all the downloads I can find on the internet are dead.

 

Thanks.

 

(And before you say it can't be done: http://www.overclock.net/t/1403233/amd-firepro-modded-drivers-13-152-4-whql-for-radeon-cards-11-22-2013/10 )

[KezzaMcFezza]

2 minutes ago, FAQBytes said:

I've always been interested in soft/hardmodding graphics cards into their "professional" brethren, as they are essentially the same card with a little less RAM (I understand some PGPUs do use ECC ram, but the effect is negligible). I was wondering if anyone here still softmods or hardmods their cards or still own one they did it to. 

 

Of course my motive for all this is potentially getting a driver package that will install the Firepro drivers for an R9 290/x as all the downloads I can find on the internet are dead.

 

Thanks.

 

(And before you say it can't be done: http://www.overclock.net/t/1403233/amd-firepro-modded-drivers-13-152-4-whql-for-radeon-cards-11-22-2013/10 )

Whats hard/softmodding?

[thekeemo]

1 minute ago, ProKeero said:

Whats hard/softmodding?

hard means you have to modify hardware like changing a resistor or something

software means its software only

[KezzaMcFezza]

Just now, thekeemo said:

hard means you have to modify hardware like changing a resistor or something

software means its software only

So your saying people used to add more ram to their cards? that's sick!

[FAQBytes]

2 hours ago, ProKeero said:

Whats hard/softmodding?

Turning your GPU into a different model/type.

One of the most popular ones is turning an r9 290 into the X variant with driver alterations.

 

Back with the old Nvidia cards this could also be done, but have since moved to hardware identifiers which is where hardmodding comes in.

http://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/hacking-nvidia-cards-into-their-professional-counterparts/

[FAQBytes]

2 hours ago, ProKeero said:

So your saying people used to add more ram to their cards? that's sick!

Actually, no. The RAM stays the same as that would take far too much effort to reverse engineer. Sometimes you could unlock more compute units, however. 

[thekeemo]

Just now, ProKeero said:

So your saying people used to add more ram to their cards? that's sick!

Not that extreme...

Things like changing a resistor or bodging a wire would count.

With my 690 I can hard mod it into teslas/quadros.

I can soft mod it using bios flashing into 770s

[KezzaMcFezza]

Just now, FAQBytes said:

Actually, no. The RAM stays the same as that would take far too much effort to reverse engineer. Sometimes you could unlock more compute units, however. 

Man that's so cool xD, i guess nvidia will lose some money on their part for being stupid and removing a couple of resistors and making another card