This means that you can flash the BIOS of the GTX465 to attempt to "unlock" it into a GTX470. Basicallly, it will improve the performance of the Graphics Card.
However.... doing so voids the manufacturers warranty on the graphics card you will be doing it at your own risk. If you read further down the page in the link you posted above, there is a post which gives you an insight of how succesful (or unsuccesful) this can be;
"I will pop in a word of caution here.
Some of us have been trying this with the cards released to reviewers prior to launch which ARE retail samples. Of the 12 cards we have tested, 4 "unlocked", 3 recognized the BIOS but didn't "unlock" and 5 are now paper weights. Nothing was going to be published for several days until we found a way to successfully flash the dead cards back to their original state. Seems like caution has once again been thrown into the wind though.
Yep apart from the memory on the card it is identical to a 470 and given slower clocks by firmware to make it a 465.
The GPU's in the 465's would also, i presume, be the batches that were not upto spec to make it into the 470. So no doubt you can get some performance increase from this it will never truly be a 470.
And as meds points out, you have a high chance of aquiring a nice new paper weight.
That makes no sense. I've seen people do this on youtube. Just because your computer thinks it's a GTX 470, doesn't suddenly mean the computer will now run the GTX 465 as a GTX 470. It's like making someone think water was petrol, and the person being able to set the water alight.
A bios is like set of instructions that tell a graphics card what model it is, and what its default clocks and speeds/volts are. At least, that's what i understand. Similar to how graphics drivers are instructions for a graphics card on how to display/optimize 3d applications etc.
Physically there is little difference between the 470 and the 465 its the same gpu thats mass produced, the firware dictates the behaviour of the chip as matt suggests.
So it can be done and it does work sort of if you dont brick the card. Used to be able to do it with a few old school cards too.
hey, found some pages saying that gtx460 is more powerful than gtx 465 (performance). the only thing that 465 can be better than 460 is when u unlock it. Is it true?
Its a bit like comparing apples to oranges. The 460 is based on a different GPU with different strengths and weaknesses.
465, gf100 = Great at tesselation, overclocks well, performs great with a lot of heat
460, gf104 = Revised gf100, not so strong on tesselation but is a good performer, overlclocks well and runs cooler.
On paper the 465 beats the 460 but both can be tweaked. Find the games your most likely to play and the benchmarks for each card, then factor in price and im sure you can make the decision thats best for you.
if you get a good case heat really isnt a problem. I'm not lieing when I say that im kneeling next to my HAF 932 right now and feeling cold air blowing out from exhausts..(i've been folding for 3hrs now on CPU + GPU). Even though folding really only makes use of teh shader cores, its still a good stress test..I reallyd ont find the Fermi cards run hot because they have good cooling imo.
EDIT: Anyway it still doesnt become a proper 470, bus width is still 256 bit instead of 320 bit, and shader cores: 352, not 448 like on 470..
EDIT EDIT: This reminds me of those san disk memory stick pro duo's the 256MB ones or something that could be reformatted to 1GB? Dono if anyone remembers that.