ATI/AMD HD6950 unlock potential intentional?

[Andrei23]

wonder if this means flashing a 6950 to a 6970 is risk-free or if it's something else

[sliderider]

Originally Posted by dom99

I dont know who else knows this but the powercolor hd 6950 PCS+ will ship with a stock 6950 bios and a 6970 switchable bio.

link: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=28578

Im sure they wouldnt do this unless they got the OK from AMD

I read another review where the reviewer got a card with both BIOS and was told that the cards that will ship will NOT have both BIOS for 6950 and 6970. The card being reviewed was so the writers could test the performance levels of both 6950 and 6970 with a single card instead of two. The card in that review was a different brand, though. I wouldn't count on this one shipping with an unlocked BIOS.

[mythokia]

Originally Posted by badb0y

intentional because the unlocking BIOS not only causes higher sales for the 6950 but also because there is a lot of buzz about the card. Just look nearly every major technical forum has discussion about this and it has been covered extensively. How does this help AMD? To answer that simply, there is no amount of money they could have spent in marketing that would beat the hype this unlocking method has created. Win/Win for everyone in my opinion.

I don't think it was intentional, but the hype surrounding the card sure has done wonders for their sale. For one, this card was not on my planned upgrade cycle, but an impulse purchase after reading about the hype.

This is unintentional viral marketing at its best.

[Ulysses]

It would indeed make sense that it be intentional: 69x0 turned out a bit short of AMD's expectations (since they had planned on it to be a 32nm chip), and instead of competing against GTX 4x0 cards it now has to contend against the 5 series. Even within AMD there might not have been a consensus about this, and maybe the unlocking is a result of missed deadlines, cost cutting, oversight, unexpectedly high chip yield... How knows ?