MSI has modified PCB's with led's on there 460's
so not impossible
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gtx-460-hawk-review/5

it's quite common in industry to see samples, prototypes, etc. not to be watered down with all the bells and whistles vs the real deal
it really has no function but just because the reference does not have it doesn't mean third parties cannot come up with a solution
i read somewhere early 480 batches had translucent "GeForce" logo's to allow light out
anyways if this feature was implemented, instant buy

hmm that's interesting, Could you show me a PCB shot of the Hydro Copper card?
 
Then I wonder what them two holes were made for which sit next to C171, personally I think it's similar to that of the GTX 480 Engineering Sample cards, but it was either left optional, or that the GTX 480 PCB was re-used and gotten some fewer upgrades, which I doubt most likely, but anything is possible in this world these days.
 
Anyways If I find anything new on this subject, I'll let you guys know.

I really wished the 480's got the LED's and the transparent place for their geforce logos=/

I'm guessing the driver may let it pass but you'd get some possible race conditions or stuttering where one card having more cores than the other might throw things off.  I'd probably send an email asking them rather than potentially bust two 480's but that's just me ;)
 
p.s. nice Avatar - I worked on that film heh.

Well after looking at my GTX 480 in depth I did find out a few things, the PCB is from the first batch which is a good thing.
 
Even that the GeForce Logo is very good looking, not transluent like the Engineering Samples have, but yeah none the less it really looks nice.
 
Behind the 6pin PEG there are two quite large solder points just right from 0503 & 0504
Gold Leader - In Flight: that used to be the place where this white connector was placed:  which I circled in red


And that is where the leds were mounted on to, which you can clearly see on this GTX 480 Engineering shot photo, I circled the connector in red, as being this is of course the other side of the PCB, but, to be honest it's exactly the same spot :)


So it seemed the PCB was not changed, as where only the white connector was left aside, as where the PCB is ready for sucha  connector to be remounted if needed to be, only the shroud's GeForce logo isn't transluent so this kinda put my Geforce Led Mod to a hault, I am going to rethink this idea though, since nothing is impossible
 
Anyways here is what I seek to help me out here, is for a very experienced case modder to cut out the GeForce logo and replace it with acrylic glass, thus I seek someon that has experienced in handling with Acrylic Glass, I guess it's still a hard thing to attempt, it is doable though, but I just dunno how atm.
 
Can anyone from EVGA please post pics of this transluent logo, there by showing how it was done from the inside of the shroud and also how the leds were placed?
 
It's that I am quite sure that all NVIDIA subvendors received GTX 480 Engineering Samples with these leds , although to obtain one of these GTX 480 Engineering Samples with functional leds would be even my greater passion , but either way would be very helpful

Well it's for research for the moment, I don't plan on taking drastic moves like that yet, all I'd like to know is how it was done, I do have some people in Austria that are willing to do this, although I need more information on how these transluent GeForce logo's were placed and cut out, we do have some ways of doing, one thing is for sure this won't be easy to do.
 
The shroud is incredible consumed of hard plastic material, very complicated to work with.

yeah for example which I totally have no experience with it's just the idea that struck my mind it is doable but it's very complicated my Austrian mate told me, his friend has some acrylic expeerience with numerous case mods, but to do such a complicated small logomakes it a tad harder, just to cut out them letters them selves, like the R in geForce and the G it's self these will be very hard to do, unless there is another way to do this, so to have alook at an engineering sample by how NVIDIA did this transluent logo can help alot.
 
Well here's the good news from that Acrylic modeler from Austria
 
He just wrote, that even a perfect replacement of the letters and logo is possible. But takes time. Many hours. But it is possible, anyways it's good for the head's up so far, I will donate my Zotac GTX 480 for this job, in December I will buy a GTX 480 SC+ for use hehe, I envy GTX 480's alot even over the 580's, it's the original Fermi where it all began ya know

Have you checked to see if there's voltage where the connectors would be?
 
Good info! 

Makes me wonder if the GeForce Kepler GTX 700 series will get these leds as well The do tend to give the product a better and cooler look

well as the article reads, the GTX 480 like 580 were originally going to be shipped with leds for their Geforce logo's so the product would stand out, the GTX 590 however did get these leds, but their logo's do look more like to that of the GTX 480 and not the 580.
 
Might explain why NV went for these logo's since they may have had quite a bunch of them translucent logos laying around from their 480's.
 
The 590 leds are somewhat too dim, I would of gone for this brightness:

 
So that they stand out

future cards should have this feature
i only wish

Here the card my friend Loschwerg has from Voodooalert.de:




 
He was able to get it up and running after he fixed the led logo!

This is my favourite GeForce Logo ever made, a lot like the GTX 590's had, only this one is slightly bigger.
 
GPU-Z Clearly shows it's a GF100 with an A2 Revision instead of A3

Löschzwerg

It wasn't easy to get the logo illuminated the right way, took me about three hours to figure out the correct position. I'm using three cold white LEDs.

hah you made it to EVGA too rofl, awesums to see you here bud

So here it is!
 
Top view:

 
Rear view, PCB date shows 5009, meaning it's from Week 50, Year 2009! PCB was made in Hong Kong, but the Assembly was made in USA:

 
Headshot:

 
Top Angled view:

Top Side View; note the translucent GeForce Led Logo and the green translucent plexiglass part, kinda resembles a GTX 470 cooler or that of a GTX 580 heh.

 
Shroud removed and here is what is under the hood As you can see it still has five copper heatpipes, but the construction of the heatsink is also very different.

 
The Led Logo connector, that white two pinned connector is set to J8 as being the Led Logo Power Connector, only the Leds are missing, but I have a friend that can help me with that part

 
This is how the GeForce Led Logo is mounted or placed:

It is actually a piece of translucent plexiglass, where they coloured the NVIDIA logo Lime Green, so when a led light puts light on it, it glows up really well, as Plexiglass can spread light particles very well.
 
Here a closeup of the GeForce Led Logo, on how it's placed:

 
Here the difference between the EVGA GTX 480 Production Model and the NVIDIA GTX 480 Engineering Sample, a major difference for sure!

 
Here the rear view:

 
Here a more detailed rear view, bit of a weird photo, since I used an old pic of the EVGA GTX 480, just to compare with the GTX 480 ES:

 
Headshot of the two:

 
Sides compared, again a major difference:

The fan frame of the GTX 480 ES has an anthracite colour, over a black one xD
 
GeForce Logo's compared:

The GeForce Led Logo looks waaay cooler imo, kind of a shame this was never added, even that the GTX 590's have these same Led Logo's it seems.
 
Last but not least, the Bios post, showing that it's a GF100 Engineering Release

 
The card isn't stable in Win 7 the screen scrambles up, I think it needs a very special driver & OS layout to function to it's rights, my friend in Germany also has a GTX 480 ES and he will try to help me get more out of this card. Forceware 327.23 WHQL didn't even detect it as a GTX 480 xDDD Just as a standard VGA adapter, GPU-Z also could not detect my card, so I think this is either a late Rev.A1 or an early rev.A2 and possibly this Card has 512 Fermi CUDA Cores enabled, from what I can recall is that Chris "ChrisRay" Arthington told me that the GTX 480 Engineering Samples or say Prototypes are very unstable and seem to crash or run very awkwardly, and that special drivers are needed for them to function is some type of order.
 
If any of the EVGA or NVIDIA Engineers or Tech support have idea's to get this card running please every idea is greatly welcome!