NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 ***VERY RARE ENGINEERING SAMPLE COLLECTORS ITEM*** for Sale

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 VERY RARE ENGINEERING SAMPLE COLLECTORS ITEM For Sale

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 VERY RARE ENGINEERING SAMPLE COLLECTORS ITEM:
$750.00

***Purchase a rare piece of NVIDIA GPU history!***Up for sale is a VERY RARE genuine NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 graphics card made by NVIDIA themselves here in the USA (rather than overseas) that was used for very early testing and was never supposed to be released from factory.
To give a backstory on the history of these cards and how this particular one was acquired please do read the below.
***NVIDIA GeForceGTX 280 Chip History***
To give a bit of details on the GTX280 chips for those who are unaware (seeing as how I have dealt with a lot of different GTX280\'s over the years), allow me to personally explain the GPU production history behind the GTX280:
There were a total of 4 variants of the GTX280 GPU since the beginning of the test samples back in the factory.
The following are brief explanations of each variant produced and what its purpose was.

G200-ES-A1 ENG SAMPLE***This is the one I have listed for sale here***

These are the first GTX280 variants ever produced (of which I personally own and have for sale here the 8th sample ever produced). These are the first engineering samples of which NVIDIA worked closely with a company called Flextronics to have produced and tested for them. They were mainly used for debugging and were produced with very robust quality to prevent any sort of hardware failure. All of these were produced directly in the USA and never left the test facilities. These A1 revisions were very early full GTX280 samples and are to be considered of extreme rarity.

G200-300-A2 ENG SAMPLE

These are the first GTX280\'s that were ever officially sent out of factory. The majority of the owners that received these would be partners (as reference samples) and review sites that had special agreements. A few OEM cards were also produced and sent out to a few manufacturers like Dell and HP. These were mainly used for reviewing and as reference samples for partners to reproduce. Most were made in China and a there have been quite a few sightings of these cards (especially for are the first GTX280\'s that were ever released for official production (specifically by partners). Not much has changed here since the A2 revision reference engineering sample. Each card had it own customized BIOS (based on partner name) with a few variable overclocked editions. These were mainly used for full production for the first half of 2008. These were pretty much known to be the standard revision and were thoroughly reviewed. All produced in are the last known revisions of the GTX280\'s. NVIDIA had released these chips to partners after a few optimizations to power consumption, heat, and performance had be applied. These were not very common but began production sometime in the second half of 2008. These were rarely reviewed since people had rarely noticed this variant and not a lot is known specifically about these chips. However, NVIDIA had originally used these chips as testers for what they planned to release as the GTX290 (a card that never came out). After that plan was canned, they decided to cut down the GPU to a GTX280 and have them produced prior to the release of the GTX285 (of which had a completely different variant and stepping). These were mainly produced in China with a few rare USA variants being sent as reference cards to EVGA, XFX, Zotac, and PNY (private sources).***Backstory For The Graphics Cards I Have Listed For Sale Here***Discovery
This card was accidentally discovered back in 2009 upon the purchase of a mystery unmarked and unlabeled GPU (looking like a GT200 series video card) located on a offer right here on . Originally I had purchased it expecting it to simply be some non-working OEM GT200 series GPU just so I could try to see if I can repair and revive it for my personal usage.
Receiving, Inspecting, and First Power-On
Upon reception of this GPU, I had noticed it was quite unusual in multiple ways. In most cases it was resembling a GTX280 because it had a backplate and also an 8+6 pin power connector configuration. The best my guess would have been is that this is an OEM GTX280. However, the first difference I noticed is that there were no stickers or markings on it whatsoever. Secondly, this card had a silver aluminum top sink (which was never seen before). Thirdly, this card seemed to be heavier and made of a much higher quality than the previous GTX280\'s I have worked with. Upon further inspection and detailed Google searches, I realized this was no ordinary GTX280.
It appeared that I have just received a Genuine NVIDIA GTX 280 Engineering Sample, and not just any engineering sample but an A1 Revision (meaning one of the first few GT200 video cards ever made!).
Of course you can expect I was a little skeptical and I had thought that there would be no chance this video card was working. So I decided to give it a try and power it on, and I was shocked. The card indeed had POSTed and booted perfectly fine into Windows and it looks like everything was operating just fine on it.
Upon checking further to see if I could get more details from it, I discovered it had a super early BIOS version which was never released to the public with the following details:
Original Unreleased BIOS Details
Version: 62.00.01.00.D5Core Clock: 600 MHzShader Clock: 1300 MHzMemory Clock: 1050 MHzStock Voltage: 1.05 V
So at this point, I wanted to test the card properly but, (before doing so) I wanted to disassemble it first to refresh the thermal paste and thermal pads (as I was sure they were all quite old and much less effective by this point after considering how long it had sat around after initial factory assembly and testing).
Disassembly and Impressions of Hardware
***See all photos attached on this listing***
After slowly and carefully disassembling the card, straight on first inspection, I could tell this thing was unusually well made. The quality of the parts they used to build this thing was unlike I\'ve seen before and the cooler looked exceptionally effective due to it\'s design. Working with several GTX280\'s over the years I can tell you for a fact the cooler design is much different than on the retail GTX280\'s. It also appeared that NVIDIA was smart with their thermal paste application and didn\'t overdo it (unlike its partners).
After cleaning off the thermal paste I could see a manually written (in permanent marker) number \"8\" on the GPU chip itself (please photo 20, 4th from last photo, you could see faintly written in the top left corner of the chip). This meant it was the 8th sample ever produced of this chip!
The other thing I was somewhat surprised by is that NVIDIA decided to go with the slightly cheaper Hynix video memory manufacturer. They weren\'t known to be the most exceptional VRAM producers (at the time) but in later testing this video memory did seem a little better than I expected.
I could also see a bunch of different stickers and labels I had not seen on retail versions of this card before and also an interesting blue wire connected to a resistor on the board that I had never seen before on any version of this card. It was just above the barcode sticker above the PCI Express socket on the board (visible in the 22nd photo - 2nd to last photo of this listing).
After snapping a bunch of photos, at this point, the disassembly procedure was reversed and the card was reassembled back together with a high end Japanese Shin-Etsu X23-7783D thermal paste and brand new fresh thermal pads in the respective areas (see 8th and also last photo on this listing).
Second Power-On and Testing
After powering on the graphics card once again and confirming the temperatures have improved with the fresh thermal pastes and thermal pads change, I then decided to do several benchmark tests with it.
When I first started to test the video card with 3DMark Vantage, I have noticed an unusually low score compared to what regular GTX280\'s were getting, so I decided to go and test Crysis afterwards. Upon testing I had also found that the results were unusually low for a GTX280, almost on par with a 9800GT. Well as you would expect, I seemed a bit puzzled and confused at first and thought to myself, is this really all the card could handle? No way.
So I decided to think of several reason for my terribly low performance and I had come to the conclusion that either the updated drivers lacked proper support for earlier revisions of this card (since they were never release) or, the BIOS might be some kind of primitive \"debugging BIOS\" used in NVIDIA labs for testing and diagnosing purposes. So I decided to give it a shot and find the latest NVIDIA-branded GTX280 BIOS on MVKTech.net (at that time in 2009).
Updated BIOS Testing Results and Comparison
When I first came up with the idea, I thought there is no way the hardware would be similar enough to make this work, but I decided to try it anyways and see if it might just work and if it didn\'t I would just reflash back to the original. So I first saved a copy of the original BIOS (since I knew there was no where I could find it online again if anything went wrong) and I then proceeded to flash the updated BIOS. And sure enough, upon reboot, I was ecstatic to see that BIOS splash screen and Windows logo!
After booting to Windows I was able to check and found the updated BIOS details as follows:
Updated BIOS Details
Version: 62.00.0E.00.01Core Clock: 602 MHzShader Clock: 1296 MHzMemory Clock: 1107 MHzStock Voltage: 1.18 V
Even though I was able to flash the BIOS successfully, I decided to use NiBitor to compare the two BIOS\'s before further testing. And from what I saw (aside from version, clocks, and voltages) there wasn\'t a single other thing different that should make the card operate any differently.Regardless of my findings, I decided to test it anyways and see if there might be some miracle and it actually performs properly.
As soon as that Crysis benchmark loaded and started going, I noticed a drastic difference in FPS. Everything start moving much quicker and far more smoothly. I decided to wait for the results before making any assumptions. And sure enough, as soon as the results came up, I saw a near 50% increase in performance all around!
At this point, I decided to flash back to the previous BIOS and start testing and recording my results. Soon as I was finished I reflashed back to the newer BIOS and tested again to compare my findings.
And yet again I was able to find and confirm the vast performance increase of the updated BIOS.
Basic Overclocking Potential Testing and Results
I decided to follow my testing up with overclocking on both BIOS versions to see if one overclocked better than the other as well as testing the temperatures. Just testing a little bit of overclocking this is what I was able to achieve with both BIOS versions.
Original Unreleased BIOS Max Stable Overclock
Core Clock: 650 MHzShader Clock: 1400 MHzMemory Clock: 1200 MHz
Updated BIOS Max Stable Overclock
Core Clock: 675 MHzShader Clock: 1400 MHzMemory Clock: 1200 MHz
Soon as I completed all my tests, I was able to find that the performance on the updated BIOS was far greater. The overclocking potential of the older BIOS was quite limited due to the fact that the voltages on the original BIOS were lower which in effect limited the stability at higher clocks.
After all my testing, I had decided to stay with updated BIOS due to the fact that, even with overclocked clocks, the original BIOS couldn\'t achieve anywhere near the performance of the updated BIOS.***Everything Included In This Listing***
Ever since I purchased this graphics card and done all the testing back in 2009, it has been with me in my closet completely unused all this time. I had completely forgotten about it and after cleaning out a bunch of old items I discovered I still had this and I decided that (as I had not used it all this time and do not plan to), I am sure someone that could be a collector of rare graphics cards might be interested to acquire this instead.
With this listing I am including the graphics card itself packed safely in a retail GTX280 box, along with that I am including a copy of the original unreleased BIOS that came with the graphics card and also a copy of the one I have updated to. I am including them on a flash drive with the package but I can e-mail you as well if you would like, please feel free to message me after purchasing this listing.
I am providing FREE SHIPPING for this package to anywhere in the 48 continental US states and I will be sure to provide you a tracking number as well.
If you happen to have any other questions about this graphics card, please do feel free to message meany timeand I will be happy to answer them for you.

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NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 ***VERY RARE ENGINEERING SAMPLE COLLECTORS ITEM*** For Sale

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 ***VERY RARE ENGINEERING SAMPLE COLLECTORS ITEM***: $750.00

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 VERY RARE ENGINEERING SAMPLE COLLECTORS ITEM For Sale

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 VERY RARE ENGINEERING SAMPLE COLLECTORS ITEM:
$750.00