Quote Originally Posted by m0da View Post
In the article, it states:

So, the retail "Point of View" GTX 465 they had in their hands was identical to the 470 (and had 10 chips). BIOS flash changed it into a legitimate 470, not surprisingly.

Of course, they also state, that this is clearly not profit-friendly, thus, you won't see this happening for long.

edit: they referenced pictures of a retail card, but did they flash a retail card? language barrier isn't helping.
That was probably done to get cards into the hands of reviewers. Every review I have seen uses full retail samples and they all have 8 chips as I stated above. Voila:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...5_4.html#sect0

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1317/2/

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1317/3/

I can attest to the fact that my two cards (one ASUS and one EVGA) also have 8 ICs installed.

Like I said, not enough research was done before posting this which could very well lead to some consumers wiping out their cards in one stroke. For all we know, the ONLY reason this card unlocked was because it was actually a flashed GTX 470 which was done to rush it into reviewer's hands.