Reddit is definitely a goldmine when it comes to finding forgotten cards. This time, a user has posted photos of an RTX 2000 labeled GeForce GTX. It appears to be a GTX 2080 Ti, a card that never officially saw the light of day. Remember, with this 2000 series, the Chameleon offered two series: RTX 2000s with ray tracing and tensor core for DLSS support, and GTXs, less high-end cards, without these elements that don’t support ray tracing or DLSS at hardware level.
GTX 2080 Ti: you can’t make it spit out a display!
Broadly speaking, the card takes up the classic design of an RTX 2000 Founders Edition. We find a gray fairing surrounding two axial fans, with a black section in between. However, the edge displays a GeForce GTX rather than an RTX. The task entrusted to this redditor was to repair the card, since it displays nothing but its version of the bios, and that’s all.
Of course, the person tried to flash different versions of RTX 2080 Ti vbios, but without success. From there, we can make assumptions about what’s blocking the flash, such as a sub-ID that doesn’t match or technical differences with the final card that make flash impossible. So we end up with a functional card, but one that doesn’t output any display other than its BIOS version. What a pity. What’s more, this display mentions the card number: PG150 SKU 30, which corresponds to that of the RTX 2080 Ti.
In short, it’s yet another indication that the name change from GTX to RTX was decided at the last minute… Indeed, this is an advanced prototype, given the state of the card. Yes, as the vbios displays, it’s an engineering copy!