6950 2GB max overclock on MSI , Sapphire and Asus cards

[Power_user_EX]

Hi ,
I am having a really tough time deciding which card to buy. Also AFAIK (i may be wrong) the recently manufactured non-ref cards cant be unlocked coz they are laser cut or the shaders are disabled at hardware level. But still some newer cards are being unlocked so... I wanna ask that which of the card from the 3 has more chances of getting unlocked ?

I m stuck between :
1) MSI 6950 2GB twin frozr III
2) Sapphire 6950 2GB dirt 3 edition
3) Asus EAH6950 2GB DirectCU II

I am looking for a card card which overclocks really well[/B]... i mean past 950Mhz gpu coreclock and 5400Mhz mem clock after some voltage tweaks.

So which of them will overclock best and past 950mhz ? Is Asus 6950 2GB DCUII worth the extra money ?

I have seen ppl on many forums saying that MSI 6950 2GB twin frozr III overclocks best amongst the 3 and also runs very cool. What your take on that ?

Also many ppl who use sapphire 6950 dirt3 edition are complaining that it does'nt go past 840/850 Mhz ... so is it the card's fault?

I have a good experience with sapphire(gfx cards) , asus (mobo) and never used any MSI product.

I M TOTALLY CONFUSED . Please help me out guyz!

I hope to get satisfactory comments/answers from those who own any of the above mentioned cards and admins/mods

-Thx

 

[Wraithbone]

i have a Asus EAH6950 2GB DirectCU II.

I have unlocked the shaders AND overclocked it to 950 / 5400. Its furmark burnin temperature is 85 degre with a voltage of 1,275 (crancked it up, but im pretty sure i could run with 1,2 and get er cooler temp)

The card schould be able to hit 1000 mhz but havent tried above 960 yet as im messing with overclocking through the bios at the moment. (risky as i do not have a backup switch on that card!)

The card is BIG but its extreemly good for overclocking!

 

[exodusprime1337]

I just grabbed me a pair of msi twin frozr III 6950's that also both unlocked and hit 1000/1425, albeit at 1.28v.. not bad cards at all, and they don't go over 70 during heavy gaming.

 

[OneMoar]

grab the msi MSI makes a bios that allows you to unlock it to a 6970(YMMV)

 

[Bo$$]

MSI has better cooling and make really solid ATI AMD cards

 

[dragonbone]

Man get the MSI 6950 frozr ll there is a batch file on post that well unlock it in 10 min.
i am so happy with this card that a am going to crossfire in with another 6950 Frozr ll and unlock it to
for abut 500 dollors getting 2 makes it work like a 2000 dollor card
Anthony Brown

 

[OneMoar]

***not all cards unlock your mileage may vary***
don't buy the card and EXPECT it to unlock it might, it might not, It might and then blow up

 

[Power_user_EX]

leave the unlocks.... I got sapphire hd6950 2GB dirt3 edition and OCed it till 930 Mhz -gpu , 1410 Mhz -vram @ 1.15V however past 900 Mhz there were no performance gains... though i m using q6600 i had oced it till 3.4\3.8 Ghz , 1700 Mhz FSB and around 1066 mhz ram @ 5-5-5-15 but if found that bottleneck was gone after around 1400 Mhz FSB ... will post my results soon

 

[LordJummy]

I have owned five different 6950 2GB reference cards from Diamond, XFX, and one from MSI.

A couple of them are rare specimens. The single reference 6950 I have left has had the core successfully OC'd past 1070Mhz. with stock reference cooler. The memory overclocks very high as well, but I haven't bothered pushing it as high as it will go. A couple of the cards I returned died due to memory OC's way too high. I ended up killing them by pushing memory too high.

It's completely random though, as some of the cards I've tested didn't go too much higher than 1Ghz. None of these cards you listed are guaranteed to clock to any specific range.

It's 100% luck.


Oh just another thing that I have told people many times based on my experience: The core OC's make a huge difference in performance. You can see that in the 3dmark 11 single gpu thread. The memory overclock helps a TINY bit to a point. Once you hit 1400Mhz it doesn't really benefit you to go any higher. This is just my experience with using several 6950's. Your experiences may vary...

 

[OneMoar]

cut the memory down to sane speeds and dial that core out

 

[Power_user_EX]

@LordJummy ur gpu ASIC seems to be 1 in a million! Also at what voltage did u manage to push it beyond 1070Mhz ? ... i have'nt gone past 1.150 Volts ... will it be safe to pump it till 1.18V which is max (officially) without ny fatal damage?

 

[LordJummy]

@LordJummy ur gpu ASIC seems to be 1 in a million! Also at what voltage did u manage to push it beyond 1070Mhz ? ... i have'nt gone past 1.150 Volts ... will it be safe to pump it till 1.18V which is max (officially) without ny fatal damage?

It really is. I don't use this one to game with as I got myself two full 6970's now, but this one actually OC's higher than both of them lol.

Personally I don't think 1.18 is going to hurt your card at all. It depends on the cooling overall, but I bench mine up to 1.28v. Try bumping it up a tiny bit at a time to make sure everything is okay and temps don't get out of control.

The weird thing is this particular reference card has bleh idle temps, but load temps are amazing. They peak at about 60c during full load. 69 if running furmark.

 

[Ginnoskie]

how did you manage your voltage?? im using MSI AB latest version but i cant bump my voltage..any ideas?

 

[Callmeroth]

how did you manage your voltage?? im using MSI AB latest version but i cant bump my voltage..any ideas?

MSI Afterburner doesn't support voltage adjustment on 6950's flashed with a 6970 bios. It's in their patch notes.

 

[LordJummy]

Doesn't "support" it but it works just fine...

I have used after burner and trixx, as well as custom bioses. AB works perfectly for overclocking and modifying voltage on 6950 and unlocked 6950. They just don't support it, as in like, if you break it it's not their fault...

 

[Jstn7477]

I bought a Sapphire 6950 2GB Dirt3 Edition and it has a hidden BIOS switch with a shader unlocked BIOS already preloaded in the 2nd BIOS. Card stays very cool (low 70s in Heaven benchmark) and I overclocked it to 930/1300 @ 1.18v with Sapphire Trixx (written by W1zzard?)

 

[LordJummy]

I bought a Sapphire 6950 2GB Dirt3 Edition and it has a hidden BIOS switch with a shader unlocked BIOS already preloaded in the 2nd BIOS. Card stays very cool (low 70s in Heaven benchmark) and I overclocked it to 930/1300 @ 1.18v with Sapphire Trixx (written by W1zzard?)

A "hidden" BIOS switch? How is it hidden exactly? Do those use reference PCB's?

The reference cards have a switch, but I wouldn't call it hidden. They're pretty easy to get to.

 

[Jstn7477]

A "hidden" BIOS switch? How is it hidden exactly? Do those use reference PCB's?

The reference cards have a switch, but I wouldn't call it hidden. They're pretty easy to get to.

The switch is "recessed" and the cooler shroud is molded in a way that the switch is not visible in online product pictures. It's a non-reference card AFAIK since it has only a single crossfire finger, for one. I had to use a paperclip to get in there and toggle it.