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Poll: ALL 6950 and 6970 Owners, What's the current status of your card?

What is the current status of your 6950 or 6970 card?

  • My stock 6950 was defective

    Votes: 1 0.7%
  • My stock 6950 has no problems

    Votes: 17 12.4%
  • My stock 6970 was defective

    Votes: 2 1.5%
  • My stock 6970 has no problems

    Votes: 14 10.2%
  • My 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios became defective

    Votes: 5 3.6%
  • My 6950 flashed with a shader modded only 6950 bios became defective

    Votes: 2 1.5%
  • My 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios has no problems after 1 week

    Votes: 11 8.0%
  • My 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios has no problems after 2 weeks

    Votes: 17 12.4%
  • My 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios has no problems after 3 weeks

    Votes: 11 8.0%
  • My 6950 flashed with a 6970 bios has no problems after 4+ weeks

    Votes: 9 6.6%
  • My 6950 flashed with a shader modded only 6950 bios has no problems after 1 week

    Votes: 9 6.6%
  • My 6950 flashed with a shader modded only 6950 bios has no problems after 2 weeks

    Votes: 8 5.8%
  • My 6950 flashed with a shader modded only 6950 bios has no problems after 3 weeks

    Votes: 12 8.8%
  • My 6950 flashed with a shader modded only 6950 bios has no problems after 4+ weeks

    Votes: 19 13.9%

  • Total voters
    137
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I can't speak in the pole but my friend got the 6950 and modded it to a 6970 and it has been a nightmare for him with it..he changed the bios back to stock and the card still is not right..Lock ups and tearing in games..
 
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Like I said, there were 12 dead cards on my previous poll and a guy who runs a computer shop just had to RMA 17 6950s that customers had flashed with 6970 bioses... add that to your percentage and it seems like an issue to me.

12 out of what and 17 out of what?

they look like big numbers until you compare them to the total. Remember a certain amount of failures happens anyways for every gpu released.

so 12 out of over 100 still isn't that high.

when it comes to retailers you have to count that he simply may have had a bad batch being that he gets them in bulk. even at that I'll bet there was more than 100 he purchased and sold. Depending on his size it could have been more than 300.
 
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We sold them more than 100 till last week and they were from different producers. We never got such amount of failed cards in our history.
 

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12 out of what and 17 out of what?

they look like big numbers until you compare them to the total. Remember a certain amount of failures happens anyways for every gpu released.

so 12 out of over 100 still isn't that high.

when it comes to retailers you have to count that he simply may have had a bad batch being that he gets them in bulk. even at that I'll bet there was more than 100 he purchased and sold. Depending on his size it could have been more than 300.

I can count the amount of people with 2 fingers that I know that have ever flashed anything. And I have a lot of friends that are into computers. It's just a scarey though and most never felt it was worth it because of situations like this.

And I go to school for graphic design where we constantly use comps, yet seems in this town of 80,000 very little know anything about computers. I doubt 12 or 17 people in this city even own a 6950, well maybe, but I doubt more than 100 do, and out of that 100, I highly doubt 10 to 20% would be flashing them or capable of doing so if that many had owned them.

I would assume that in almost any scenario, especially from local shops even carrying those, very few sales, very large return.
 
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DJManiac

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XFX6950 @ ASUS 6970 @ 960/1500 @ 1250 mV and NEVER had any problems...

Not a single artifact or tearing while Testing, Gaming and normal PC life :)

Only "problem" was that I gave to much GPU clock one time without more VGPU... And the Driver did a self reset! But hey - that is more than normal if you want to find the max GPU clock for the given VGPU....

But if I read all the threads here (especially: How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 695...) there are many newbies in flashing and modding in the streets...
To many reviews and test in the net regarding this... So "everyone" wants to save money and go for the very first time for a flash... This is dangerous! Of course!
 
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3 weeks in, no issues, and I was working(light load 8 hours a day) and gaming (heavy load) 6 hours a day all last week working from home. Hell I even pushed one of my 6950s to 950/1400 for a 3dmark run P5500ish.
 
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3 weeks in, no issues, and I was working(light load 8 hours a day) and gaming (heavy load) 6 hours a day all last week working from home. Hell I even pushed one of my 6950s to 950/1400 for a 3dmark run P5500ish.

I just did that last night after a lot of trial and error. You can see here: NEW - 3DMark 11 Compilation

Had to use 1.265 core voltage, which seems like a lot. But I'm new to card overvolting.

What voltage did you use?
 
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Stock volts have to check when I get home..
 
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Stock volts have to check when I get home..

wow...mine doesn't want to clock that high without extra volts...going to check again later as well...
 
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I can count the amount of people with 2 fingers that I know that have ever flashed anything. And I have a lot of friends that are into computers. It's just a scarey though and most never felt it was worth it because of situations like this.

And I go to school for graphic design where we constantly use comps, yet seems in this town of 80,000 very little know anything about computers. I doubt 12 or 17 people in this city even own a 6950, well maybe, but I doubt more than 100 do, and out of that 100, I highly doubt 10 to 20% would be flashing them or capable of doing so if that many had owned them.

I would assume that in almost any scenario, especially from local shops even carrying those, very few sales, very large return.

numbers are plausible 100/80000 is probabally a good range. so a 17% failure rate does seem a bit high, but as I said that could have been explained by a bad batch, especially if your area volumes are that low.

which if you take your ratio by the valley of the sun there would be 10000 sold and I'd think I'd hear about 1700 gpu's being returned in the valley. I have more retailer freinds here than your estimated 6950's sold in duluth.
 
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current status of my card:

VTX3D HD 6950 using (W1zzards script) shader unlocked bios
Clocks are 880MHz core and 1375MHz memory, on stock voltage 1.1V
Overclocking via Sapphire Trixx
All stable so far, benchmark results 3Dmark 11, P5019, Graphics score 4869 (i7 920 @ 2.67MHz)

I wouldnt flash to the 6970 bios but I would think it safe to unlock the extra shaders, then overclock as usual
 
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manofthem

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XFX6950 @ ASUS 6970 @ 960/1500 @ 1250 mV and NEVER had any problems...

Not a single artifact or tearing while Testing, Gaming and normal PC life :)

Only "problem" was that I gave to much GPU clock one time without more VGPU... And the Driver did a self reset! But hey - that is more than normal if you want to find the max GPU clock for the given VGPU....

But if I read all the threads here (especially: How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 695...) there are many newbies in flashing and modding in the streets...
To many reviews and test in the net regarding this... So "everyone" wants to save money and go for the very first time for a flash... This is dangerous! Of course!

Those numbers look good. What programs are you using to OC and raise voltage?

I was using MSI AB with no problems with a modest OC, 900/1375@1.18v. Then I went to trixx and rbe, but thy didn't work for me. I might try what you are using; it can't be any worse than my night last night.
 
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No problems after over 3 weeks with the card overclocked to CCC limits. Stress testing in Crysis and Furmark and 3D Mark have not had any problems.
 

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Those numbers look good. What programs are you using to OC and raise voltage?

I was using MSI AB with no problems with a modest OC, 900/1375@1.18v. Then I went to trixx and rbe, but thy didn't work for me. I might try what you are using; it can't be any worse than my night last night.

I use

- RBE for VGPU - VID4 (GPU Register Button) 1250 mV (Some reported that for them VID3 was the Number!)
- Afterburner for FAN curve
- ATI Tray Tools for OC

Keep Temp always under 80°C - That was the key for me to reach higher clocks...
 

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No problems after over 3 weeks with the card overclocked to CCC limits. Stress testing in Crysis and Furmark and 3D Mark have not had any problems.

You using 6950 or 6970? Or 6950 with unlock shaders?
Btw, overclock to CCC limit need to increase voltage?
 
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Hi XFX 6970, 3 weeks old and no problems so far
 

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I use

- RBE for VGPU - VID4 (GPU Register Button) 1250 mV (Some reported that for them VID3 was the Number!)
- Afterburner for FAN curve
- ATI Tray Tools for OC

Keep Temp always under 80°C - That was the key for me to reach higher clocks...

I may need to give RBE another shot. I'd like to try to get some of your numbers. I have an XFX too. Should I try switching back to a 6970 bios and OC from there? Or is it really safer with a modded 6950 bios? Thanks man
 

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Funny that so many people voted that they have problem with 6970 bios at techPowerUp! Forums - View Poll Results yet only 2 voted they had problem with 6970 bios here..

thats because alot of people had knee-jerk reactions and voted yes because they had driver bugs
i diddnt vote yes this time in the poll because i had figured out it was driver bugs

the reason this poll was started again is because people voted wrong in the first place
 

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thats because alot of people had knee-jerk reactions and voted yes because they had driver bugs
i diddnt vote yes this time in the poll because i had figured out it was driver bugs

the reason this poll was started again is because people voted wrong in the first place

I ran the 6970 bios fine and stable for a week, but then I switched because of the reports of problems. With the 6970 bios, how far can it be OC'd without voltage increase? Anyone know? I'm going to try again with the 6970 bios.
 

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I may need to give RBE another shot. I'd like to try to get some of your numbers. I have an XFX too. Should I try switching back to a 6970 bios and OC from there? Or is it really safer with a modded 6950 bios? Thanks man

Dont know - Some reported problems - But I did not had a single prob with 6970 bios on XFX 6950...

You have to find it out for yourself and your card... Every card is different...

Most important is to keep card under load under 80°C...
 

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Dont know - Some reported problems - But I did not had a single prob with 6970 bios on XFX 6950...

You have to find it out for yourself and your card... Every card is different...

Most important is to keep card under load under 80°C...

I went ahead and flashed the 6970 bios. It runs fine for now. It's pretty much the same clocks as I was using on the other modded bios. I played Crysis for a while, and temps never got above 53*C so that's safer. I'll keep an eye on it and post later with any problems, if any
 

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My Sapphire 6950 (2GB) with 'shaders enabled only' mod is running fine after 2 weeks (GPU@840, MEM@1280, no voltage tweak)
 

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So looking at these charts, it seems, that for the most part the 6950's are pretty reliable even when flashed or shader enabled.
 
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