6950 flashed to 6970

[Makaveli]

Just ordered 2 HD 6950's. Cayman may be a disappointment, but a combination of low prices, 2GB memory for eyefinity, good CFX performance, unlocking, and future driver enhancements has got me convinced.

If I can get both unlocked, there's a good chance that with newer drivers I'll have two cards with ~GTX 580 performance at only 60 dollars more cost.

Can't wait to play Metro and Crysis at eyefinity resolutions! SLI/CF virgin so hopefully I don't run into too many dual GPU issues...

I don't think Cayman was a disappointment at all.

Too many people were believing the hype spread by Fudzilla and media etc.

It a refresh card that had to stay on 40nm and couldn't be produced on 32nm there for they had to cut out some stuff.

AMD doesn't need a 580 killer I think they are fine where they are with pricing and performance. AMD needs a Highend killer on the cpu side there nehalem has been owning them for 2+ years.

I'd you skip over all the fan boy crap and post from children these cards are decent.

 

[Adul]

Well, just in case you didn't try everything.

W1zzard mentioned 2 things to people who were having trouble flashing their cards.

1, If it's an ASUS card you need to do some additional editing

2, Some people ar ehaving trouble because they have the BIOS switch on the card set to the wrong position.

Sorry I'm getting ready to leave for work and don't have time to search through the posts on TPU's forum.

This is the link to the forum thread. -> http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=137136

yeha i got it finally. I had the switch in the number 2 position. Changed that and I was finally able to flash it.

I am up and running stable at 800/1375. I was running a couple games on different monitors for kicks so far so good.

 

[Avalon]

Makes me want a 6950 when I was going to be buying a 6850...don't think I could cough up the extra money but man.... :O

This takes me back to the days of my Radeon 9500 and Geforce 6800NU. Ahh, the L shaped 128bit memory chips...

 

[MustangSVT]

from techpowerup article. "The dual BIOS feature is just an added convenience for easier recovery, it is not a requirement for this kind of modding, nor is it evidence that AMD has planned their cards with unlocking in mind."

eh? Why else would they have installed a dual bios setup and a switch if not for this purpose? I dont see any other cards with this feature. ??

Now Nvidia needs to comeback by releasing ways to unlock gtx 460 SE into a full gtx 460 1gb

 

[bryanW1995]

powercolor, in crossfire, might just be one of the cards that isnt up for it.
its ok tho, waiting for afterburner support.

flash back using the same procedure.
atiflash in bios.
easy to do if you ask me.

um, it's dual bios, right? so don't you just save one file to bios1 and one to bios0? then manually flick the switch to whichever bios you want?

 

[bryanW1995]

I don't think Cayman was a disappointment at all.

Too many people were believing the hype spread by Fudzilla and media etc.

It a refresh card that had to stay on 40nm and couldn't be produced on 32nm there for they had to cut out some stuff.

AMD doesn't need a 580 killer I think they are fine where they are with pricing and performance. AMD needs a Highend killer on the cpu side there nehalem has been owning them for 2+ years.

I'd you skip over all the fan boy crap and post from children these cards are decent.

I wasn't too impressed. 6970 is pretty strong at very high resolution, but that is probably due more to the 2gb memory than any cool new architectural features. nvidia got just as much improvement iteratively as amd did from switching to a new process. not exactly a huge win, more "meh" than great or terrible.

from techpowerup article. "The dual BIOS feature is just an added convenience for easier recovery, it is not a requirement for this kind of modding, nor is it evidence that AMD has planned their cards with unlocking in mind."

eh? Why else would they have installed a dual bios setup and a switch if not for this purpose? I dont see any other cards with this feature. ??

Now Nvidia needs to comeback by releasing ways to unlock gtx 460 SE into a full gtx 460 1gb

naw, this is more like gtx 570 unlocking to gtx 580. I don't see nvidia pushing that technology too hard in the future.

 

[HurleyBird]

um, it's dual bios, right? so don't you just save one file to bios1 and one to bios0? then manually flick the switch to whichever bios you want?

Only 1 Bios is writable. So really, you shouldn't even need to save any files. Not a bad idea though.

 

[Larnz]

I flashed both my Saphire 6950's (one in case at a time) and it worked flawlessly both detect as 6970 specs in gpu-z and catalyst and i got a nice 1k points but in 3dmark11 I went from 8450pts to 9400 points in performance mode.

No artifacts, heat increases or issues that I have noticed so far.

Very very cool. And i must say the dual bios switch is a really cool feature I have switched it back rebooted and they come up how they used to, flick switch again and back to 6970's. Very happy with the Sapphires from the big thread over at techpowerup it seems saph/asus/gigabyte seem to nearly all be unlocking fine.

 

[OCGuy]

I'm not sure if this says something good about 6950, or bad about 6970.

 

[badb0y]

I'm not sure if this says something good about 6950, or bad about 6970.

It says something good about consumers especially with the high rate of success people are having.

 

[timma]

it's works @ by taiwan's PCDVD forum:biggrin:
http://www.pcdvd.com.tw/showthread.php?t=915058&page=1&pp=10

 

[ader098]

Two more sapphire 6950's unlocked and working properly
If I had bought 6970s I would be kind of pissed right about now, seems the majority of 6950s are unlocking without artifacts. I wonder how long it will be before AMD does something about this?

 

[Skurge]

I still think for overclocking the 6970 still has some value.

 

[Makaveli]

I still think for overclocking the 6970 still has some value.

they should be higher quality chips I agree.

 

[tannat]

I'm not sure if this says something good about 6950, or bad about 6970.

You're right, it doesn't. At all.

 

[Borealis7]

wild speculation here:

what if AMD doesnt come up with a solution for this "problem" and over time sales of the 6970 decline to a point where the 6950 outsells it 20:1, AIB partners get pissed at AMD and start issuing massive rebates and price-cuts to make the card more attractive which in turn gets nVidia to lower their prices in response.


or AMD just laser-cuts their chips from now on...that seems more logical.

 

[3DVagabond]

wild speculation here:

what if AMD doesnt come up with a solution for this "problem" and over time sales of the 6970 decline to a point where the 6950 outsells it 20:1, AIB partners get pissed at AMD and start issuing massive rebates and price-cuts to make the card more attractive which in turn gets nVidia to lower their prices in response.


or AMD just laser-cuts their chips from now on...that seems more logical.

Or, the price on the 6950 goes up to compensate for the increased demand.

 

[Borealis7]

Or, the price on the 6950 goes up to compensate for the increased demand.

You and your "Common Sense"...you make me sick.

 

[3DVagabond]

You and your "Common Sense"...you make me sick.

If you only knew how often my common sense is wrong.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I still think for overclocking the 6970 still has some value.

Not enough value to warrant spending $70.00 more for an extra 3-4fps.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

The theory I developed is that the bios switch is a left over from engineering samples. The card was rushed out before the holidays that the bios switch was simply left in the reference design. It may be a far stretch but I hypothesize that the switch was in place when AMD/ATi was testing different bios on the cards and saved the time by having the ability to have a stable bios on one part of the chip and then a test bios on the other.

Just a thought.

 

[ader098]

Not enough value to warrant spending $70.00 more for an extra 3-4fps.

Not to mention the extra heat and noise associated with the overclock, these cards are already close to their limit. The 6970s might be good for those planing on water cooling and pushing clocks 1ghz+.

 

[notty22]

There is a penalty it seems in power and heat pushing the 6950 to 6970 levels, here they mention 25 watts. Definitely not a big deal for most, but heated debates have raged over as many watts, lol.
Make sure your psu is big enough, especially with 2.
http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/12/27/radeon-hd-6950-flashable-6970/

The cost saving is about $60-70 depending on which cards you're comparing and where you shop and to some, this might very well be worth it. Just be aware that performing this "soft mod" is going to void your warranty, at least if the manufacturer finds out. Also make sure you have a decent power supply, as the card will go from using about 169W at default settings to 202W with the Shaders unlocked all the way to 252W with the card overclocked to the same speeds as a 6970. That means you're actually using 24W more than what a real 6970 would do, again, not likely to be a huge concern for anyone that just wants a bit of extra performance out of their card.

 

[RaistlinZ]

I wonder if non-reference 6950 cards will also come with the dual BIOS.

 

[Gryz]

The theory I developed is that the bios switch is a left over from engineering samples. The card was rushed out before the holidays that the bios switch was simply left in the reference design.

No way.
Long time ago I used to work for a company that made both hardware and software. (I'm a software-only guy myself). The hardware guys told me they put a lot of effort into selecting the best, but cheapest components for the hardware. Shaving off dimes and quarters by changing capacitators, etc. That is one way to make hardware profitable.

I can't believe any serious hardware engineer would leave a reference design with a non-essential component like a switch that costs a few dimes. Or even worse, an extra rom-chip.