Flashable GTX 680s being sold in the UK, super cheap!

[cal6n]

Disclaimer: I have no association with the seller. Just giving a heads-up on a staggeringly good deal.

For UK readers, The PNY GTX 680 is currently available, new and sealed from a trader on eBay for only £299 inc. P&P... I suspect they won't last at that price.

I ordered on Monday, it was delivered today, sealed in PNY packaging with accessories. No issues flashing and I now have boot screens, 5.0 GT/s goodness, and it's no louder than a 5870.

 

[wonderspark]

Nice. If I were on 10.8, I'd go for that myself!

 

[Inconsequential]

How do you know that is flashable?

Edit: Just found this: http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5709.0.html

If so, that makes my next GPU purchase very tricky indeed.

Edit 2: No it doesn't. A good 7950 is £250, a GTX680 is the best part of £400 for give or take the same performance.

I don't know what nVidia are smoking, I'm buying a 7950!

 

[Kissaragi]

Seems suspiciously cheap?

 

[MacUser2525]

No issues flashing and I now have boot screens, 5.0 GT/s goodness, and it's no louder than a 5870.

Does the HDMI port work on these flashed cards? Thanks.

 

[Prince134]

Does the HDMI port work on these flashed cards? Thanks.

Yes, mine works.

 

[ActionableMango]

That even beats USA prices.

How do you know that is flashable?
Edit 2: No it doesn't. A good 7950 is £250, a GTX680 is the best part of £400 for give or take the same performance.

He said it flashed fine, so I image that's how he knows it's flashable.

I don't think 7950 and 680 are same performance, where did you get that idea? Maybe you meant to say 7970 and 680?

 

[Prince134]

How do you know that is flashable?

Edit: Just found this: http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5709.0.html

If so, that makes my next GPU purchase very tricky indeed.

Edit 2: No it doesn't. A good 7950 is £250, a GTX680 is the best part of £400 for give or take the same performance.

I don't know what nVidia are smoking, I'm buying a 7950!

That's 2gb reference card made by Nvidia. It should work.

 

[cal6n]

How do you know that is flashable?

As stated in the original post, I have successfully flashed it.

Edit: Just found this: http://forum.netkas.org/index.php/topic,5709.0.html

If so, that makes my next GPU purchase very tricky indeed.

Edit 2: No it doesn't. A good 7950 is £250, a GTX680 is the best part of £400 for give or take the same performance.

Again, as stated, this GTX 680 is currently £299 delivered. I don't know how long that'll last, though.

And the GTX 680 wipes the floor with the 7950.

I don't know what nVidia are smoking, I'm buying a 7950!

Good for you!

Seems suspiciously cheap?

I thought that, but the seller has regularly got good feedback for similar items. I figured it was worth a punt.

Does the HDMI port work on these flashed cards? Thanks.

Yes, see screenshot, although I'm unable to test the audio as I have no TV, only a monitor.

That's 2gb reference card made by Nvidia. It should work.

That was my theory too, but my card does't have the "NVidia" screen printed logo by the connector. It happily took the ROM, though.

 

[MacUser2525]

Yes, see screenshot, although I'm unable to test the audio as I have no TV, only a monitor.

Good that is all I need it for as well, thanks.

 

[lewdvig]

Audio over hdmi usually works on these cards if you install a patch. I read about here and on netkas.

 

[Inconsequential]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/645?vs=555

I wouldn't say that the 680 wipes the floor with the 7950.

Fact of the matter is that the 7950 is better value for money overall.

Granted at £299 the 680 is worth a punt but at normal retail prices its pretty straight forward IMO.

 

[cal6n]

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/645?vs=555

You're comparing the HD 7950 with boost to the stock GTX 680. The Mac edition of the HD 7950 is equivalent to the reference board.

The real anandtech comparison.

(Oh, and please learn how to link )

I wouldn't say that the 680 wipes the floor with the 7950.

You're pretty much on your own there, I'm afraid.

Fact of the matter is that the 7950 is better value for money overall.

Fact? I do not think that word means what you think it means...

Granted at £299 the 680 is worth a punt but at normal retail prices its pretty straight forward IMO.

Finally, you admit it's just your opinion. I suppose you're entitled to that, at least.

 

[Inconsequential]

You're comparing the HD 7950 with boost to the stock GTX 680. The Mac edition of the HD 7950 is equivalent to the reference board.

The real anandtech comparison.

(Oh, and please learn how to link )

You're pretty much on your own there, I'm afraid.

Fact? I do not think that word means what you think it means...
Finally, you admit it's just your opinion. I suppose you're entitled to that, at least.

Wow, your a friendly one aren't you. BTW, I never check my URLs because most forums automatically convert them, clearly this one doesn't!!

Secondly, In a thread where we are talking about flashing cards, it is quite valid to pick any 7950 (including Boost - which is the model I intend to buy and flash) to compare the 680 by.

Thirdly, the 7950 Boost cards in some cases are faster than the 680. A card cannot 'wipe the floor' with another if this is the case. It is generally regarded from my browsing of forums that once the 7950 and 680 are over clocked the average performance of both is much, much closer.

The >67% of the performance for 67% the price sounds like good maths to me. Plus the 7950 will have a quieter cooler thanks to the non-reference designs.

Finally, I am suspicious of the ebay link because the cheapest 680 I can find from an etailor is the best part of £400, probably absolutely fine but if an offers too good to be true....

 

[cal6n]

removed

 

[Nalp2010]

Some questions ... I have a Mac Pro 2008 with a 8800GT graphics card. The two motherboard connectors supply power to the 8800GT and a four port USB 3 card. Will the GTX680 fit in my Mac Pro and will the motherboard power connectors supply enough power for the GTX680 and the USB 3 card?

 

[TedM]

what does flashable mean? I have a gtx 680 in my machine, but I've never heard the term flashable.

 

[MacUser2525]

what does flashable mean? I have a gtx 680 in my machine, but I've never heard the term flashable.

able to be flashed, flashed being programming the eeprom on the video card which contains the cards BIOS or in OSXs case the BIOS + efi part needed for a Mac to recognize the card at boot.

 

[xcodeSyn]

I have a gtx 680 in my machine, but I've never heard the term flashable.

In order to flash the EVGA GTX 680 Mac Edition's rom, your GTX 680 needs to conform to the reference design which includes features such as 2GB VRAM, 2 6-pin power connectors, 256K EEPROM, and single fan. So what the OP means by flashable is that this particular PNY GTX 680 model conforms to the reference design, therefore can be flashed successfully. If you try to flash the Mac rom to a non-reference design GTX 680, you may end up with irregular fan speed or worse a dead card.

 

[Nalp2010]

So it seems that each PCI-e slot can provide 75W, and each motherboard power connector can provide 75W. This means the maximum power for a single card is 225W? Reviews of GTX680 cards suggest they require over 400W at full load. Have I made a mistake somewhere?

 

[cal6n]

So it seems that each PCI-e slot can provide 75W, and each motherboard power connector can provide 75W. This means the maximum power for a single card is 225W? Reviews of GTX680 cards suggest they require over 400W at full load. Have I made a mistake somewhere?

Yeah, that 400W at full load is for the whole PC. The GTX 680 is rated at 195W.

 

[Moleyman69]

Hi Cal6n,

My PNY 680 has just been delivered today, thanks to your keen ebay spot

I have seen your post regarding the flashing via Bootcamp and NVflash. I just wanted to check that I can do this with just the GTX680 installed and no other video card? If only the GTX680 is installed, does the card not get flagged as "in use" or such like by nvflash? i have a 2600XT that i can leave in my Mac pro if that would make things easier by hooking up my monitor to the 2600.

Also, i cannot install the nvidia windows drivers in windows 7 it seems until the 680 is installed, according to an error message I get when trying yesterday.

Any other gotchas or info would be greatly appreciated - I'm hoping to try and avoid any similar problems to poor Kunia.

All the best,

Moley.

 

[cal6n]

I can confirm that I flashed in Windows 7 64-bit with only the GTX 680 installed.

If I remember correctly, I installed the card and booted into windows. Windows then downloaded and installed the drivers automagically. This took a couple of minutes and I think the HDMI audio driver didn't install correctly. I then rebooted and flashed according to the instructions. I didn't need the optional step for protectoff. Another reboot (this time with boot screens) and Windows felt the need to download another set of drivers. After another couple of minutes, this time the HDMI audio installed correctly. Another reboot and GPU-Z identified the card as an EVGA.

I'll repost the instructions here for clarity.

To flash the BIOS, download the latest version of nvflash here.
Extract the nvflash files to C:\
Unzip and save the attached Mac Edition BIOS file (gtx68mac.rom) to C:\
open elevated cmd window (hit start button, type "cmd", right click cmd icon, run as administrator)
Change directory to C:\ (type "cd C:\", without the quotes, obviously)
OPTIONAL: type "nvflash --protectoff" then hit enter (turns off any error msg that may result from software write protection)
BACKUP ORIGINAL BIOS: Type "nvflash -b backup.rom" and a copy of your bios will be saved to the nvflash directory
Type "nvflash -4 -5 -6 gtx68mac.rom"
Wait for it to finish
Reboot
OPTIONAL: reinstall drivers

​

The only other gotcha I can think of is that, while OS X and Windows 7 are fine, ubuntu won't boot using the display port, although it used to with my previous card, a Gainward Phantom GTX 670. I'm looking into this but I'm currently using DVI until I can sort out what's happening there.

 

[Moleyman69]

Thanks Cal6n,

I've installed the unflashed card in my Mac and System Profiler can see the card under the Graphics/Displays tab and confirms running at 16x.

However, if I click on the PCI cards section, I get the message "There was an error while gathering PCI card information." - normally this would show my USB PCI card and my eSata PCI card details here - is this just because I haven't flashed the card yet?

I've also installed the CUDA 5.0.45 drivers but when I try to run CUDA-Z, this won't run and returns an error "".

Any further advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

Moley

 

[cal6n]

Thanks Cal6n,

I've installed the unflashed card in my Mac and System Profiler can see the card under the Graphics/Displays tab and confirms running at 16x.

However, if I click on the PCI cards section, I get the message "There was an error while gathering PCI card information." - normally this would show my USB PCI card and my eSata PCI card details here - is this just because I haven't flashed the card yet?

That's what I saw before flashing it, so that's expected.

I've also installed the CUDA 5.0.45 drivers but when I try to run CUDA-Z, this won't run and returns an error "".

*snip*

That's strange. I was able to run CUDA-Z with the PNY BIOS. Screenshot attached.