AMD Radeon HD 6950 Can be Unlocked to HD 6970

[jimmyz]

Originally Posted by vvulture

Would anyone here be able to speculate as to when we could expect an updated RBE with 69xx support ?

Getting very itchy here... lol

I have been working with Baggzlash to get it working. He will have progress very soon, like by friday I am betting.

[vvulture]

Awesome ! Good to hear.

[trt740]

Originally Posted by trt740

Anyone with a 6950 when flashed to a 6970 is this card loud under load.

anyone?

[PopcornMachine]

Originally Posted by trt740

anyone?

Depends on your overclock and fan settings. But yes, mine gets very loud at > 50% whether or not I'm using the 6970 bios.

[horik]

Originally Posted by trt740

Anyone with a 6950 when flashed to a 6970 is this card loud under load.

compared to my old HD4890 i can tell you the 6950 is more silent,but strange thing is that at full load temps go arround 87 degrees but the fan speed is under 40%.

[PopcornMachine]

Originally Posted by horik

compared to my old HD4890 i can tell you the 6950 is more silent,but strange thing is that at full load temps go arround 87 degrees but the fan speed is under 40%.

You can adjust that to increase fan speed so that it won't reach those temps, but at the cost of being a bit louder.

87C is too high for my tastes.

[gumpty]

Originally Posted by trt740

Anyone with a 6950 when flashed to a 6970 is this card loud under load.

Given that they seem to be pretty much the same card, and that it would be using the 6970 bios, I'd guess it'd be pretty much the same as the 6970 in terms of noise.

My 6870 is loud. It annoys me. I'm not anticipating that the 6950 I have on the way will be any better.

[PopcornMachine]

I have an idea on how to improve these default coolers, but it would require me taking my card apart.

The heatsink itself is very good. It's the paddle wheel fan that is the problem.

My thought is to remove that fan while leaving the heatsink in place, and put a 120 fan at the rear blowing down the length of the card, using shroud of some sort to funnel the air to the heatsink.

This would be both quieter and I think cooler.

My worry is getting the cooler back together in case I'm wrong!

[trt740]

thx

[Dj-ElectriC]

Originally Posted by PopcornMachine

I have an idea on how to improve these default coolers, but it would require me taking my card apart.

The heatsink itself is very good. It's the paddle wheel fan that is the problem.

My thought is to remove that fan while leaving the heatsink in place, and put a 120 fan at the rear blowing down the length of the card, using shroud of some sort to funnel the air to the heatsink.

This would be both quieter and I think cooler.

My worry is getting the cooler back together in case I'm wrong!

Well... it might improve overall temps but IDK about disassembling the fan. and add the fact that the card is gonna take 2.5 slots and not 2.

[PopcornMachine]

Originally Posted by Dj-ElectriC

Well... it might improve overall temps but IDK about disassembling the fan. and add the fact that the card is gonna take 2.5 slots and not 2.

Yeah, uh, I didn't say it was a perfect plan.

[DanishDevil]

W1zz's reviews say that the 6870 is louder than the 6970 and the 6950, so I'm hoping that my flashed 6950 is going to be a bit quieter than this card. Not that the 6870 is a very loud card. If you're really sensitive to fan noise, it can be a both bothersome if doing something quietly without headphones on. I'll let you guys know how they compare later this week.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Originally Posted by DanishDevil

W1zz's reviews say that the 6870 is louder than the 6970 and the 6950, so I'm hoping that my flashed 6950 is going to be a bit quieter than this card. Not that the 6870 is a very loud card. If you're really sensitive to fan noise, it can be a both bothersome if doing something quietly without headphones on. I'll let you guys know how they compare later this week.

IT's not especially if you want reasonable temps. I have noticed that 40% fan speed is louder on the 6870 than on the 6950 but I never needed that much with the 6870. That isn't the case with the 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios.

[TheGuruStud]

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

IT's not especially if you want reasonable temps. I have noticed that 40% fan speed is louder on the 6870 than on the 6950 but I never needed that much with the 6870. That isn't the case with the 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios.

I hit a max of mid 70s at around 41-42% fan (controlled with MSI Afterburner). That's with BC2 pretty much maxing the card out (such a disastrously optimized game).

[Digital Dissent]

Well +1 to the mix here. Just unlocked my gigabyte 6950 into a 6970. It took some work mind you. Had to go through dos prompt, and then got some artifacts that have since gone away, after I raised the tdp, lowered it, and then reinstalled the drivers. I am now at +2% tdp, and have my clocks at 900 core and 1390 memory. Yes, thats OVERCLOCKED. I also had some slowdowns in crysis and assassins creed before I reinstalled the drivers...so Im guessing its a good idea for anyone who flashes to kick the drivers and reinstall them. So far its fully stable and Im getting fairly good results across the board, including 3dmark (not as high as I had hoped but thats likely due to a minor bottleneck somewhere) and unigine heaven. I can post them up if anyone is interested. Temps top at about 75C. Oh! This is my first post in the forums..so hi!

[turbobeta]

Thoughts: You're almost guaranteed to take your $300 6950, and turn it into an equivalent of a 6960, or a 6965. The chances of you turning your 6950 into a perfectly stable, flawless $370 6970? Slim.

More thoughts: I think if more people tested thier oc's/mods throughly, they'd notice instability as well. I don't think this is a manufacture specific issue. I think 99.9% of the 6950 gpus out there can do full shaders at 800mhz, but most can't do full shaders at 880. Also, these 6950 cards are built with slower ram chips as well based on the info we've seen from the ram product numbers. Expecting your ram to go from 1250 to 1375 is unrealistic.

Conclusion: Buyer be educated, buyer beware. Go into this knowing that if you have a reference card, you're getting a great deal. Have realistic expectations.

[Digital Dissent]

Well what do you suggest for proper testing to verify if its stable?

[turbobeta]

Originally Posted by Digital Dissent

Well what do you suggest for proper testing to verify if its stable?

I really wish I had the answer to that. Most people say Furmark, but I've used Furmark stably for hours, only to have Borderlands throw artifacts, and WoW crash on startup. I don't think there really is a good tool or testing methodology out there at the moment.

[Digital Dissent]

Originally Posted by turbobeta

I really wish I had the answer to that. Most people say Furmark, but I've used Furmark stably for hours, only to have Borderlands throw artifacts, and WoW crash on startup. I don't think there really is a good tool or testing methodology out there at the moment.

I cant really think of anything either except extended testing on various games.

[Digital Dissent]

I am seeing pixel artifacts that appear at boot on the windows loading screen, and then vanish after it has started up (they were around once windows had loaded when I first flashed). Has anyone else encountered this and what might cause it? I have set the tdp to 0%, the core clock to 840 and the memory to 1375, the lowest.

[sirbaili]

I have 2 sapphire HD6950 cards - at first I flashed them with Asus EAH6970 bios - one of them was giving me artifacts at Bad company 2. Also I did'nt like increased temperatures/].
I had to set for Asus HD6950 bios that unlocks shader cores - Asus Smart doctor recognizes them also not like HD6970 bios. I increased Vcore to 1.170 on both cards and had 940Mhz stable withb 1300 Mhz memory.
That's te way to go for those with artifacting cards.

[Digital Dissent]

I think Im just going to return it since I still have time to do so. I might get a 6970 because I want the option to do eyefinity and crossfire. Thing is amd hasnt released any 6900 series linux drivers, which I find very annoying. Im very close to just going ahead and getting a gtx 570 for this very reason, even though I wont be able to sli it on my current psu due to it being 750w rather than 850... Honestly I love all this stuff and Id like to experiment with the voltages and bios's more but it voids warranty and no one knows yet how long these cards will last the way we are pushing them...so if its not working perfectly now I think its best for me (I cant afford to blow this thing and have to buy something else in a few months) to just buy a straight up 6970 and have done with it.

[Digital Dissent]

An interesting note is that when the card heats up it no longer artifacts, even on restart. Its only on cold (literally cold) boot that it artifacts. I wonder if I used a 6970 bios from anyone other than gigabyte if it would work better? I think for my uses a reflash to 6850 is the best idea though.

[fullinfusion]

Originally Posted by Digital Dissent

An interesting note is that when the card heats up it no longer artifacts, even on restart. Its only on cold (literally cold) boot that it artifacts. I wonder if I used a 6970 bios from anyone other than gigabyte if it would work better? I think for my uses a reflash to 6850 is the best idea though.

Sapphire bios works the best imo.

[crazyeyesreaper]

Hurray i can post again!!!!!!

more on topic

i wonder if anyone as tested the performance difference between 6950 ram speeds and 6970 speeds on there cards after flashing to see if theres a performance gain or loss since if the rams clocked to high the gpus will just work around it but at a penalty to performance.