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Report: Turn a GTX 680 Into A GTX 770 By Flashing Custom BIOS

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A Reddit user has managed to flash his GTX 680 into a GTX 770.

With the GTX 700 Series discrete graphics cards to be released soon, it is not surprising that a lot of people are getting quite excited about this. A user on Reddit even claims that the GTX 680 can be turned into a GTX 770, and unsurprisingly so, since the two cards are basically identical.

By flashing the BIOS (.inf) file to the GTX 680 using the 320.00 driver before doing so, the card will be recognized as a GTX 770 and will run at GTX 770 specifications. The only problem is that the clock speeds appear to be higher in the GPU-Z screenshot than the reported specifications tell us. The reported clock speeds are 950 base and 980 Boost, with memory running at an effective speed of 6 GHz. The flashed GTX 680's GPU-Z screenshot tells us that the speeds are at 1059 MHz base, 1125 MHz Boost, and memory running at 7 GHz effectively. It's possible that the user has just overclocked his card though, but be warned, if not, this might be dangerous for some of the GTX 680's out there.

If you decide to flash your GTX 680 to a GTX 770, do so at your own risk! The BIOS file can be found here.

Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • SomeNickname
    Very few hours later it was found out this is all hoax. They just modified their inf manually and inserted GTX770 as name of the card. You could just as simply name it GTX990...
    Reply
  • nino_z
    But it was a cool idea :D
    Reply
  • reyshan
    Here is your source TheCapulet: http://www.techpowerup.com/183936/geforce-gtx-680-can-be-flashed-to-gtx-770.html.
    Nvidia better have a reason why they don't release a full range of GK110 video cards instead
    Reply
  • gaborbarla
    It seems to me that the 780's specs it are virtually identical to that of a Titan (or Titan LE),
    and a 770 is virtually a 680?
    The shiny new number will probably inspire thousands of enthusiasts to upgrade their 6 series cards to the 7 series. GG okthxbye
    Reply
  • ojas
    What? I though BIOS files were .BIO or just binary files. At least Intel BIOSes are generally .BIO or .BIOS.
    Never heard of a BIOS being flashed via inf. Also what on earth does this even mean? That you can flash a bios using the regular display driver?
    By flashing the BIOS (.inf) file to the GTX 680 using the 320.00 driver before doing so, the card will be recognized as a GTX 770 and will run at GTX 770 specifications.
    Reply
  • laststop311
    the gtx 780 is a slightly slimmed down gtx titan. It has less cores and a 320bit memory channel instead of 384 bit. It's performance is very close to the titan though. The gtx 770 is an identical card to the gtx 680. The GTX 760ti is identical to a GTX 670. There is basically nothing new with the 700 series and nothing new with radeons 8000. GPU companies decided to take a break for a year.
    Reply
  • rolli59
    Whether possible or not the interesting thing is the re branding that Nvidia is doing for this upcoming generation.
    Reply
  • tlg
    As others have already commented, this has been proved fake yesterday.
    Reply
  • tomfreak
    What Nvidia should have done is to NOT release the GTX TITAN at all.
    The right way should be (*if Nvidia wants to be greedy/or assume GK110 is too exp to make.)
    GTX780 = 2688 224 TMU 48 ROP @ 915MHz @ 3GB @$799 ( I still dont agree TITAN to be price @ $1000)
    GTX770 = 2304 192 TMU 40ROP @ 915MHz 2.5GB @ $599
    GTX760ti = rebrand from 680 and price remain
    and everything below follows after that.
    but right now, it is confusing as heck. 780 is a whole diff chip while the 770 is GK104. wtf lol
    Reply
  • vmem
    10811335 said:
    What Nvidia should have done is to NOT release the GTX TITAN at all.
    The right way should be (*if Nvidia wants to be greedy/or assume GK110 is too exp to make.)
    GTX780 = 2688 224 TMU 48 ROP @ 915MHz @ 3GB @$799 ( I still dont agree TITAN to be price @ $1000)
    GTX770 = 2304 192 TMU 40ROP @ 915MHz 2.5GB @ $599
    GTX760ti = rebrand from 680 and price remain
    and everything below follows after that.
    but right now, it is confusing as heck. 780 is a whole diff chip while the 770 is GK104. wtf lol

    and here's why, however ideal your chart may be, Nvidia won't do it
    they WANTED TO CHARGE $1000 for the top GK110 model... and a price jump from $500 to $1000 for a x80 card is just too much

    so, they called it the TITAN, made it look and sound super duper uber special, priced it at $1,000, and like it or not, it's selling like hotcakes due to a very good marketing job done by Nvidia... This will continue until the general consumer market let's them know that it's wrong... and yes, I mean the GENERAL market
    Reply