PowerColor Radeon R9 290 unlocked into R9 290X?

[Boomstick777]

A member of PC Games Hardware (Speedy1612) forums has shared a very interesting information. His PowerColor Radeon R9 290 OC was supposedly unlocked into full 290X by simply replacing a GPU BIOS. This way he unlocked all 2816 Stream Processors and 176 Texture Units. The R9 290 has 2560 and 160 respectively. The same user posted many screenshots with his benchmarks, and even a video. So far everything seems to confirm what he said. However ss far as I know, there is no way to change Device ID, while his screenshots confirm it’s actually possible.

http://videocardz.com/47971/powercolor-radeon-r9-290-unlocked-r9-290x

 

[Boomstick777]

Couldn't this just be GPU-Z seeing the X bios and reporting the corresponding shader count from its database? How does it query these stats?

Plenty of people have already tried this already so I guess not, otherwise we would've heard by now.

No.

The OP ran tests with stock 290 bios VS 290X bios at same clocks, the 290X got better scores, would only be possible if extra shaders had unlocked.

So far it's only the Powercolor 290 OC model that can be bios unlocked to the full 290X.

 

[Boomstick777]

Well, my heart dropped when I received my XFX 290 with v1.1 pcb but this is what happened after the flash.

Tests to follow...

Nice