How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[JimmyJump]

Canada gets the best cpu and gpus for clocking lol
How about using the HIS bios... The one that just opens up the shaders and not the volts?

Then use the newest beta ver of MSI Afterburner and up the core clocks as well as the mem clocks using the opened up voltage control...

Your going to need to edit the .CFG file in Afterburner using Note pad, but I think you should try it and see how it works...

I'll have ago at that. But I fear it's my CPU which for some reason doesn't like what I do. I had it before with other cards too, but those other cards, I could overclock pretty easy on a Gigabyte UD2 mobo with an i5 750...

Also, my current Asus Maximus III Gene is a great board, but not really fit for CFX/SLI, because of the µATX form and the cards sitting smack atop each other... I was gonna buy a new Asus board, but I think it's not worth it buying a new LGA1156 board. Gonna have a talk with the swine running my piggybank and see if there's a Sandy Bridge set-up in it...

But thanks for the advice, Fullinfusion. I have taken note of it and will look into it

 

[fullinfusion]

I'll have ago at that. But I fear it's my CPU which for some reason doesn't like what I do. I had it before with other cards too, but those other cards, I could overclock pretty easy on a Gigabyte UD2 mobo with an i5 750...

Also, my current Asus Maximus III Gene is a great board, but not really fit for CFX/SLI, because of the µATX form and the cards sitting smack atop each other... I was gonna buy a new Asus board, but I think it's not worth it buying a new LGA1156 board. Gonna have a talk with the swine running my piggybank and see if there's a Sandy Bridge set-up in it...

But thanks for the advice, Fullinfusion. I have taken note of it and will look into it

Your welcome, But as for the Intel hardware... Im knowledge less

 

[Loosenut]

~snip~

Gonna have a talk with the swine running my piggybank and see if there's a Sandy Bridge set-up in it...

~snip~

If I said something like that, my wife would me so hard, I'd end up with an extra set of tonsils

 

[fullinfusion]

If I said something like that, my wife would me so hard, I'd end up with an extra set of tonsils

whats saying Jimmy isn't a lady and the swine is her hubby?

 

[JimmyJump]

If I said something like that, my wife would me so hard, I'd end up with an extra set of tonsils

Do not fear for my tonsils, Loosenut, I live on my own. It was also a figure of speech: since I have a piggybank, I presumed it would be run by a, well, pig :lol:

 

[Loosenut]

whats saying Jimmy isn't a lady and the swine is her hubby?

Do not fear for my tonsils, Loosenut, I live on my own. It was also a figure of speech: since I have a piggybank, I presumed it would be run by a, well, pig :lol:

 

[manofthem]

"Somewhere" and "They" are too vague to take into consideration. From what I've read on youtube, Gamespot, Guru of 3D and here, there's but a fraction of the people who flashed their cards to whatever BIOS wha have issues. And those issues are mostly due to wrong drivers or bad luck that the card doesn't accept the flashing...
ll:

I'm not saying that's not true, but I've been in this thread for a while and following a bunch of guys posts. Recently a guy posted that after a month of running 690 bios with No problems, he started getting artifacts in 2D profiles without any warning. After switching to
Modded bios, they stopped. It seems somewhat coincidental thy many posters on this thread had problems with the 6970 bios while not the same problems with the modded one. it's something to think about.

I just don't know though. When I ran the 6970 bios, it was fine and scored better in benchmarks than an OC'd 6950 modded bios.

 

[fullinfusion]

A Mark11 run with the Sapphire 6970 over volt bios.

This was just a test, but for my 24/7 gpu setting it's going to be just the shader unlocked version - without the volt increase

Plus i ave a second HIS 6950 on the way I hope it clocks as well at this one.

I cant wait to see some serious mark numbers in X-Fire mode

 

[JimmyJump]

I'm not saying that's not true, but I've been in this thread for a while and following a bunch of guys posts. Recently a guy posted that after a month of running 690 bios with No problems, he started getting artifacts in 2D profiles without any warning. After switching to
Modded bios, they stopped. It seems somewhat coincidental thy many posters on this thread had problems with the 6970 bios while not the same problems with the modded one. it's something to think about.

I just don't know though. When I ran the 6970 bios, it was fine and scored better in benchmarks than an OC'd 6950 modded bios.

I'm not saying that what you're sayting isn't true either (this is getting confusing), but the few who had issues are a minority. Besides, when you have issues, hey, simply revert back to the original BIOS. That's the beauty of it: you can't go wrong, even when you go wrong

I've only tried a overclocked 6950 BIOS (the Asus one -but with 10MHz more on the clock, that's hardly an OC) and after 5 minutes reflashed to the original BIOS and then to the Sapphire 6970 one, just because of it being silly (to me) of flashing a 6950 with another 6950...

A Mark11 run with the Sapphire 6970 over volt bios.

http://img.techpowerup.org/110129/testshaders.png

This was just a test, but for my 24/7 gpu setting it's going to be just the shader unlocked version - without the volt increase

Plus i ave a second HIS 6950 on the way I hope it clocks as well at this one.

I cant wait to see some serious mark numbers in X-Fire mode

Hey, that's a beautiful score you have there, Fullinfusion...

I didn't get higher than this:

CPU is absolutely the weakest link in my system...

In CFX I got to a better result, also because this time I upped the power to that of a 6970 (+12% in CCC):

 

[fullinfusion]

I'm not saying that what you're sayting isn't true either (this is getting confusing), but the few who had issues are a minority. Besides, when you have issues, hey, simply revert back to the original BIOS. That's the beauty of it: you can't go wrong, even when you go wrong

I've only tried a overclocked 6950 BIOS (the Asus one -but with 10MHz more on the clock, that's hardly an OC) and after 5 minutes reflashed to the original BIOS and then to the Sapphire 6970 one, just because of it being silly (to me) of flashing a 6950 with another 6950...




Hey, that's a beautiful score you have there, Fullinfusion...

I didn't get higher than this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/JimmyJump/Gamespot/6950_Flashing_002_single_3DMark11.jpg

CPU is absolutely the weakest link in my system...

In CFX I got to a better result, also because this time I upped the power to that of a 6970 (+12% in CCC):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ashing_004_Crossfire_3DMark11_Catalyst_11.jpg

Nice! But I havent touched the power in the cpu setting.... it's still at ZERO!

WTH does it do any way?

 

[JimmyJump]

Nice! But I havent touched the power in the cpu setting.... it's still at ZERO!

WTH does it do any way?

You can slide the power from -20% to +20%... The +20 would make the card able to use a maximum of 252Watt under full stress. At +12% you more or less pull up the available power from the level of the 6950 to that of the 6970 (roughly 227Watt)...

The addition of the extra 12% made my score in 3DMark11 go up from P8800 to P9200...

 

[manofthem]

Nice! But I havent touched the power in the cpu setting.... it's still at ZERO!

WTH does it do any way?

The powertune option in CCC let's the GPU have more wattage. If you try to OC too high and the powertune is set to 0 (default), the GPU will throttle back the clock speeds. It's happened to me when I tried my 950/1450 OC. Instead of holding at 950, it was all over the place from 550 to around 900. But with the +20%, it held steady at 950. You can notice if you have GPU-Z open and do a furmark run, for example. If it's too high OC, you'll see it.

Thts why some overclocking utilities that disable power control aren't as useful since it limits your OC.

 

[fullinfusion]

The powertune option in CCC let's the GPU have more wattage. If you try to OC too high and the powertune is set to 0 (default), the GPU will throttle back the cool speeds. It's happened to me when I tried my 950/1450 OC. Instead of holding at 950, it was all over the place from 550 to around 900. But with the +20%, it held steady at 950. You can notice if you have GPU-Z open and do a furmark run, for example. If it's too high OC, you'll see it.

Thts why some overclocking utilities that disable power control aren't as useful since it limits your OC.

I tried both settings and monitored Gpu-z. Results were non changing for me, luck of the draw im thinking

 

[manofthem]

I tried both settings and monitored Gpu-z. Results were non changing for me, luck of the draw im thinking

What are your settings at for your GPU? You'll notice more of a result as you push your card higher and faster? I tried a couple of runs just for the sake of it at different levels, and it made no real difference with the extra power until it came to higher clock speeds, since it didn't need extra power at the lower settings. Keep an eye as you go and you'll notice some differences.

 

[manofthem]

A Mark11 run with the Sapphire 6970 over volt bios.

http://img.techpowerup.org/110129/testshaders.png

This was just a test, but for my 24/7 gpu setting it's going to be just the shader unlocked version - without the volt increase

Plus i ave a second HIS 6950 on the way I hope it clocks as well at this one.

I cant wait to see some serious mark numbers in X-Fire mode

And these here are pretty numbers. My 3DMark 11 runs have only
Managed to pull off like around 5200 max! I'm a little jealous. I haven't gone that high on the GPU clock yet though. That'll be really nice with the cfx setup soon!

 

[manofthem]

In CFX I got to a better result, also because this time I upped the power to that of a 6970 (+12% in CCC):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...ashing_004_Crossfire_3DMark11_Catalyst_11.jpg

That looks like it must be an awesome setup; I really want to get another card for crossfire. How does in perform in really demanding games, like Crysis or Metro? Well done!

(Edit: sorry for 3 posts in a row. It sucks to try to multiquote with my phone. Plus I'm tired)

 

[yonef]

...
I didn't get higher than this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v326/JimmyJump/Gamespot/6950_Flashing_002_single_3DMark11.jpg

hmm, I didn't get higher than this:

No matter what drivers I use, all do prety much the same result. Especially graphic score seems to be too low if we leave alone cpu score

P.S.
can someone post some results with stock clocks 6950, unlocked shaders on unigine 2.1 (dx11/shaders:hi/tess:extreme/anisotropy:4/AA: off/1680x1050) so I can make a comparision on pure GPU score?
It seams that my 6950 performs ok on other benches and games but not damn 3Dmark11.

 

[manofthem]

hmm, I didn't get higher than this:
http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/3413/capturefbi.jpg
No matter what drivers I use, all do prety much the same result. Especially graphic score seems to be too low if we leave alone cpu score

P.S.
can someone post some results with stock clocks 6950, unlocked shaders on unigine 2.1 (dx11/shaders:hi/tess:extreme/anisotropy:4/AA: off/1680x1050) so I can make a comparision on pure GPU score?
It seams that my 6950 performs ok on other benches and games but not damn 3Dmark11.

Your GPU score isn't bad, but the physics is low, which is based on CPU, right? Looks like CPU is bringing it down.

 

[yonef]

Your GPU score isn't bad, but the physics is low, which is based on CPU, right? Looks like CPU is bringing it down.

my GPU score is ~4200 , usualy 6950 is ~4900
I know my phisyx score is low but if you look at Combited test score it is much higher than JimmyJump socre who scored 2099 and mine is 3502, which is weird ? But mostly gpu score is bothering me, gpu score shoud not be dependable on the CPU, or I'm wrong?

 

[manofthem]

my GPU score is ~4200 , usualy 6950 is ~4900
I know my phisyx score is low but if you look at Combited test score it is much higher than JimmyJump socre who scored 2099 and mine is 3502, which is weird ? But mostly gpu score is bothering me, gpu score shoud not be dependable on the CPU, or I'm wrong?

I'm not sure. I just remember my stock 6950 usually had an overall score in 3DMark 11 of like P4200-P4400.
http://www.pureoverclock.com/review.php?id=1198&page=10
Looks like we are both a little low...ha

 

[JimmyJump]

my GPU score is ~4200 , usualy 6950 is ~4900
I know my phisyx score is low but if you look at Combited test score it is much higher than JimmyJump socre who scored 2099 and mine is 3502, which is weird ? But mostly gpu score is bothering me, gpu score shoud not be dependable on the CPU, or I'm wrong?

I find it even more weirder, considering my Physics (CPU) score is way higher than yours. The combined score should be higher for me then as well, since it's a combination of GPU and CPU...

By the way, not to get all nitpicking, but doen't confuse PhysX (NVidia) with Physics (quantum mechanics)...

 

[yonef]

oh maan, I knew 3Dmark11 is idiotic benchmark, but never think it is that much stupid!
Strangely I was able to run Xtreme bench on my monitor which is NOT supporting fullHD, it is 1680x1050, and cannot display 1920x1080 resolution! Then I checked the OSD on the monitor and it says that is running on 1280x960!?!? for some reason.
Then I tried Performance mode, and ...same resolution 1280x960
then I run it on performance settings, but choose resolution 1280x960 and it scores absolutely the same.Then I run it on perf.settings, but resolution 1024x768 ... same score!
...Something realy sucks with futuremark!


edit:

I find it even more weirder, considering my Physics (CPU) score is way higher than yours. The combined score should be higher for me then as well, since it's a combination of GPU and CPU...

By the way, not to get all nitpicking, but doen't confuse PhysX (NVidia) with Physics (quantum mechanics)...

Yep, I noticed Combined score difference !?! (idiotic)
And yes, I meant physics (It is bulet physics)

 

[trt740]

Worked like a champ on my Gigabyte 6950, the shaders unlocked but the clock remained the same . Is that how it was intended? I should just overclock it to 6970 specs and set the power to +20? or were the clocked supposed to be flashed to 880/1375?. They default to 800/1275 and I betting thats how it was intended but I didn't read it in the posts.

 

[JimmyJump]

Worked like a champ on my Gigabyte 6950, the shaders unlocked but the clock remained the same . Is that how it was intended? I should just overclock it to 6970 specs and set the power to +20? or were the clocked supposed to be flashed to 880/1375?. They default to 800/1275 and I betting thats how it was intended but I didn't read it in the posts.

It depends on which BIOS you used to flash your 6950... I used the one from the Sapphire 6970 (which works on most other cards as they're all basically the same cards with just another brand sticker on them, except for the Asus one which is a factory overclocked GPU)...

The power-up has to be set to +12 to attain the same power as the 6970 (approx 227Watt). At +20 the card can go as high as approx 255Watt...

With me, the flashing automatically set my speeds to 900MHz/1375MHz... The 900MHz thing could be because my Asus Matrix 5870 was running at that speed. is just a guess tho, as I don't see another reason for the clock setting itself to 900 instead of 880MHz...

 

[dulemk]

RBE voltage

I found that my voltage is actually the vid3, but for some reason sapphire bios can't increase the voltage at all.
So now I use assus bios.


One strange thing i notice is that if i use 1.15v on vid3 i have small amount of artifact for the first seconds in 3d, and after that it is all ok.

Than i'v tried 1.175, and i notice that i had more artifact and lasts more seconds(about 10-15), and than everything is clear again.

But if i try 1.2v i have lots of artifact and i did not waited long enough to clear, but my prediction is that they will to clear eventually.

So is this normal?? Does voltage need to lie down somewhat, so i wait for the artifact to run out, or my core voltage just wont work(1.2v is not a problem for all others cases that i know).

I use 11.1 hotfix.