HeavyHemi
Several have asked this. Is new inventory flashed with the 11gbs BIOS or not?
- Possibly YES, it might have been the case if you refer to post #195 from libneon back in June 2017 [forums.evga.com/FindPost/2680687]. His FTW2 was equipped with stock BIOS 86.04.66.00.80 and 11 GHz were already unlocked without even requiring the BIOS last digit increment 81. By the way looks like it's the most recent revision out there in comparison with 86.04.60.xx.xx or 86.04.3B.xx.xx!
- And possibly NO! While my FTW2 has the exact same commercial P/N than libneon card, it has a different "Board ID". I tried flashing it with BIOS 86.04.66.00.80 as well as 86.04.66.00.81: both were not successful throwing the impossible to override "Board ID mismatch" error in NVFlash... Yet I'm pretty sure my card was made more recently. I've just bought it in Feb 2018 from a reliable retail store, package sealed. Then checked the S/N on the support page and my warranty is starting by default from mid-Nov 2017, which should more or less be the manufacturing date.
Eventually it makes me think of all the different BIOS revisions existing for the same card P/N may be reflecting some hardware differences. Such as multiple sources of chips in the supply chain, or several manufacturing places, maybe also related to different shipment areas around the globe (I live in France).
Anyway the most important: EVGA states all the GTX 1080 models assembled with the iCX cooler do have memory chips compatible with 11 GHz! Even some guys with the ACX3 models also made it happen, either by overclocking or BIOS flashing, provided that the cooling is adequate.
So in the end there is absolutely no reason to miss out on this great BIOS upgrade available to our cards for free, IMHO 😊