Enthusiast finds NVIDIA GTX/RTX 2070 engineering sample
Instead of 2304 cores, the GPU features 2176 cores. But it can still be flashed to full specs.
Jiacheng Liu recently came across an engineering sample of the NVIDIA GTX 2070 graphics card, possibly one among several prototypes NVIDIA was testing before the card’s official release in October 2018. Nearly six years later, these pre-production samples with various configurations somehow found their way into the market.
The card Liu purchased is equipped with a TU106 GPU but has fewer cores compared to the final specifications. Instead of the standard 2304 cores, this card features 2176 cores. However, other configurations remain unchanged. Liu took the initiative to restore the card to working condition by flashing the retail BIOS onto it.
GTX/RTX 2070 sample, Source: Jiacheng Lio
The attempt was successful, though not without its challenges. Initially, straight out of the bag, the card managed to score 8661 points in the 3DMark TimeSpy GPU test. However, upon maximizing the power limit, the score increased to 9552 points. It was only after forcefully flashing the uncloaked RTX 2070 retail BIOS onto this model that the card surpassed the performance of a standard retail 2070, reaching an impressive 10064 points. It’s worth noting that overclocking was involved in achieving this result, but it definitively demonstrated that the 2176 core configuration was not merely a software lock, but rather a physically disabled core count.
RTX 2070 ES 3DMark TimeSpy results:
- ES Stock: 8661
- ES BIOS with max power limit: 9552
- 2070 BIOS with max power limit: 10064
Indeed, one of the most interesting aspects of this leak is that the sample still bears the old GeForce GTX logo , while the final model adopted the RTX branding instead. This detail suggests that NVIDIA may have been initially considering sticking with the GTX branding, at least during the validation stage of these cards.
GTX/RTX 2070 sample, Source: Jiacheng Lio
Leakers often present different specifications for the same upcoming model, but the differences in the information don’t necessarily invalidate the leak. Instead, it could indicate that the leaker had access to different engineering samples. This had happened before, just look up RTX 3080 Ti 20GB models, which were never released by NVIDIA despite reports, but later showed up on Russian second-hand market.
Source: Jiacheng Lio