Guest erico Posted October 25, 2007 Posted October 25, 2007 Wrong..... I think Rad is well aware of A+ acronyms. Here's another one for you. ROM (Read Only Memory). Thats where the image file of your GPU resides, and CANNOT be written to through a driver interface. Thats why its called hard coding, if your OS, or drivers had access to your GPU's hardware level configuration there wouldn't be many graphics cards left because OS's and drivers are very buggy and unstable. I don't think a ROM is used. Older technology GFX (AGP and PCI) cards used flasheable but soldered EEPROMs just as the newer GFX cards do.If that was not the case then you couldn't easily flash the BIOS with as simple a tool as a floppy and a utility program. The EEPROM on the older generation technology cards had far less capacity. I have not seen a ROM BIOS chip on a graphics card in quite some time. Your point is not really very clear to me. If you can provide a link to a block diagram which shows where the BIOS code on a PCI-e graphics card is located and it shows it as being in ROM rather than EEPROM, then I could probably agree with you. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
radodrill Posted October 25, 2007 Posted October 25, 2007 I don't think a ROM is used. Older technology GFX (AGP and PCI) cards used flasheable but soldered EEPROMs just as the newer GFX cards do.If that was not the case then you couldn't easily flash the BIOS with as simple a tool as a floppy and a utility program. The EEPROM on the older generation technology cards had far less capacity. I have not seen a ROM BIOS chip on a graphics card in quite some time. Your point is not really very clear to me. If you can provide a link to a block diagram which shows where the BIOS code on a PCI-e graphics card is located and it shows it as being in ROM rather than EEPROM, then I could probably agree with you. We know that the BIOS chips are EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory). The point is that hardware level overclocking requires reprogramming the BIOS chip but the chip is read only during system operation so there's no way a windows application can reprogram it (hardware OC) on the fly; even winflash requires a system restart for the BIOS chip to be programmed. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest erico Posted October 25, 2007 Posted October 25, 2007 We know that the BIOS chips are EEPROM (Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory). The point is that hardware level overclocking requires reprogramming the BIOS chip but the chip is read only during system operation so there's no way a windows application can reprogram it (hardware OC) on the fly; even winflash requires a system restart for the BIOS chip to be programmed. Awful nice of you to make Krazypoloc's point for him. Just kidding... This is an interesting thread... The GPU architecture of a 8600GT and a 8600GTS are not identical. They use different GPU chips. what would you expect in terms of long term stability in an overclocked card fudged with the BIOS of a similar but not identical card? I am asking because I am interested in your opinion based on your experience with GFX card BIOS flashing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
krazypoloc Posted October 25, 2007 Posted October 25, 2007 Awful nice of you to make Krazypoloc's point for him. Just kidding...This is an interesting thread... The GPU architecture of a 8600GT and a 8600GTS are not identical. They use different GPU chips. what would you expect in terms of long term stability in an overclocked card fudged with the BIOS of a similar but not identical card? I am asking because I am interested in your opinion based on your experience with GFX card BIOS flashing. The reason it's called EEPROM as apposed to just ROM is because back in the day you actually had to "flash" the CMOS of a motherboard to modify or load a different BIOS. This was a physical process that you had to, in essence zap the CMOS with a jolt of electricity, which as it sounds was very very risky at best. But that was the AT motherboard era. These days we have it easy and can do it all through CLI. As for flashing a card with a miss-matched BIOS.....yikes. I always frown on questions like "if I do x, will it produce y" and "Will it break if I do this?". Because I don't honestly know, and even if I did, I would be liable in part if you fry your gear. So all I can say is BIOS flashing is moderately risky, but worth it in my opinion. I love booting my rig and knowing I have a rock solid overclocked VGA card, and that I don't have to tinker with this and that. And make sure this program started up, or what speed is my card really running at? Is it really running as fast as this 3rd party program says? Or is there a bug in the software? Did windows not decide to launch my OC app of choice? Is my fan running fast enough to keep everything cool and kosher? So hardware overclocking is much, much better IMHO. But I wouldn't expect ANY difference in performance with a H/W vs. a software OC, only volt modding will garner you huge performance gains, and allow you to push your hardware to its max. But that requires additional cooling, and a lot more headaches than its worth with todays cards. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Please sign in to comment
You will be able to leave a comment after signing in
Sign In Now