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How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

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I'm now trying my card with a modified 6950 bios, instead of flashing a 6970 to it, and seeing if I have better results. I'll give an update after a day or two of testing.
 
Flashed the shaders only bios for XFX. Overclocked to the max CCC (for now) 840/1325 and running great! Thanks for the help.
 
My 2 Sapphire 6950s have been running happily with the 6970 bios for 4 days now, I have all the sliders in CCC maxed out at 950/1450 (the fan is at 50%). Benchmarks all look great and no issues after hours of Crysis, BFBC2, Metro2033, and Modern Warfare....I really like shooting stuff!

How are some of you guys taking the 6950 above 950? I can't try anything higher than that in CCC or Afterburner, and Trixx causes bluescreens for me.
 
Hi guys. Does anyone tried to change fan settings in RBE 1.26. Does it work?
could be like this
or so (recommended settings)

Just want to slow down the heat. My CrossFired cards is very hot after unlock. The top card is heated up to 96С, bottom - up to 92.
 
abirdie4me said:
..How are some of you guys taking the 6950 above 950?
Click to expand...

My cards were unable to subdue 920MHz :( Left them at the original clocks 880/1375.
 
abirdie4me said:
My 2 Sapphire 6950s have been running happily with the 6970 bios for 4 days now, I have all the sliders in CCC maxed out at 950/1450 (the fan is at 50%). Benchmarks all look great and no issues after hours of Crysis, BFBC2, Metro2033, and Modern Warfare....I really like shooting stuff!

How are some of you guys taking the 6950 above 950? I can't try anything higher than that in CCC or Afterburner, and Trixx causes bluescreens for me.
Click to expand...

You cant go higher than 950/1450 with crossfire setup at this moment.
 
For people who are concerned about not being able to hit 1375+ on the ram, it makes VERY little difference in real world performance OR benchmarks. And we already know the ram is of slightly lower quality than what they use in the 6970's. So instead of risking damaging your card, and having unstable overclocks, just set it sub-1300 and mess with core clock if you're looking for performance.

Just a thought,
Aip
 
In Crossfire the 'power control settings' seems to have disappeared, same for everyone (i.e. I cannot set a +20% as rec'd)
 
Mach1.9pants said:
Weird, I have 2 sapphires and flashed using the saphire 70 BIOS. But after doing all that and going CF it seems to have disappeared...
Click to expand...

I think the issues with options and power disappearing entirely has less to do with modding, and more to do with a new driver. Once AMD releases Catalyst 11.1 we'll probably see a lot of these issues resolved.
 
can someone explain what is the "Power Control Settings" feature?
How it should be set with those cards?
 
dom99 said:
Why would some peoples cards be able to handle the timings and some wouldnt? what is it dependant on? and also why would the timings be better?
Click to expand...

The rated speed of the memory chips may be different on some cards. HD6950 is meant to be a lower performing and less expensive part than HD6970 so some vendors might have slower, cheaper memory installed. It's the same as when the 9500 non-pro could have the pixel pipelines unlocked to make a 9700 core. The 9500's came with slower memory than the 9700's did so they didn't run quite as fast as an actual 9700 even with the core overclocked to 9700 levels. Another factor could be that some of the HD6900 cores used in the HD6950 cards might have been rejects that were binned because they couldn't handle the higher clocks of the HD6970 but were still perfectly acceptable for use as a HD6950. In either case, whether you got stuck with a card that had slow memory or a slow core, you won't be able to unlock/overclock to full HD6970 performance levels but you should still be able to outperform a stock HD6950 unless of course the unlocked shaders really are defective in which case you're stuck with a HD6950 no matter what you do.
 
by using TriXX I was able to set up my 6950 to 865Mhz stable (at 880Mhz Crysis locked after some minutes, even if the temperature was only at 60°).

Is there a way to increase the voltage to the level of a 6970? in TriXX the option is not enabled...

Besides, I'm no longer able to set the power control in CCC, now...the option has disappeared. How can I do that again?
 
i have a gigabyte 6950,and some questions
1)it seems that there are a few that choose gigabyte's card,but in Greece where i live the brands that come in stores first are sapphire and gigabytes,the others come months after the release.so i want to ask if i can flash it to the asus modded bios with the extra shaders unlocked,just to use smart doctor for the voltage control for extra o/c?

2)when it's done,will i have the same or pretty much the same texture fillrate and bandwidth of an 6970 just setting memory and core clocks with the similar to a 6970 values?

i 'd be gratefull for some help,cause i'm a noob
thanks in advance
 
span said:
i have a gigabyte 6950,and some questions
1)it seems that there are a few that choose gigabyte's card,but in Greece where i live the brands that come in stores first are sapphire and gigabytes,the others come months after the release.so i want to ask if i can flash it to the asus modded bios with the extra shaders unlocked,just to use smart doctor for the voltage control for extra o/c?

2)when it's done,will i have the same or pretty much the same texture fillrate and bandwidth of an 6970 just setting memory and core clocks with the similar to a 6970 values?

i 'd be gratefull for some help,cause i'm a noob
thanks in advance
Click to expand...

1) Yes, of course you can do that. That has been done and also suggested by a member here who is in the exact same case as you. Same card, bios and software used for voltage.

2) Sure, that is possible depending on how far you go with your OC.

Tell us how it goes!
 
is it possible to OC a modded 6950 bios (unlocked shaders only) to 6970 clocks without voltage increase?
 
daggeronebravo said:
is it possible to OC a modded 6950 bios (unlocked shaders only) to 6970 clocks without voltage increase?
Click to expand...

Most likely no. 6950 and 6970 have the same gpu, it would be the same to undervoltage a 6970 to 6950 keeping the same clock.
 
From what i can see, Asus is a good option for the unlocking, my neighbour has bought an Asus OC HD 6950, unlocked it with the flash and using Asus's own Voltage Tweak software, along with a nominal voltage increase is running his fully stable at 900Mhz, seems many without the voltage options are not getting there quite.
 
daggeronebravo said:
is it possible to OC a modded 6950 bios (unlocked shaders only) to 6970 clocks without voltage increase?
Click to expand...

possible, but not highly probable. E.g. My 6950 with modded BIOS can reach 865Mhz stable, while at 880Mhz would lock down in Crysis. I'd like to be able to overvolt it to 1.175v and see if this solves, but I don't know how to do that.

Memory is not a big issue, since it doesn't almost affect performance.
 
I contacted XFX support about this and about voiding my double lifetime warranty and they responded with this:

Message History [ 1/5/2011 8:35:09 PM] I read that there is a way to flash the 6950 with a 6970 BIOS to unlock additional shaders here: http://techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159 Does this void the lifetime warranty?
[MICHAELC_W 1/6/2011 1:11:36 AM] Hi Raymond; we don`t offer BIOS updates and something like that would end up most likely killing the card and voiding warranty coverage. If there are any available BIOS flashes those are intended for fixing very specific issues not really related to 3d performance, but more like bugs with certain other products or monitors. You have double lifetime warranty coverage for each card as long as nothing has been done to void warranty coverage. Thanks, Michael

What do you guys think?
 
rzayas28 said:
I contacted XFX support about this and about voiding my double lifetime warranty and they responded with this:

Message History [ 1/5/2011 8:35:09 PM] I read that there is a way to flash the 6950 with a 6970 BIOS to unlock additional shaders here: http://techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159 Does this void the lifetime warranty?
[MICHAELC_W 1/6/2011 1:11:36 AM] Hi Raymond; we don`t offer BIOS updates and something like that would end up most likely killing the card and voiding warranty coverage. If there are any available BIOS flashes those are intended for fixing very specific issues not really related to 3d performance, but more like bugs with certain other products or monitors. You have double lifetime warranty coverage for each card as long as nothing has been done to void warranty coverage. Thanks, Michael

What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

If you flashed the BIOS back to the original bios from a backup, can they tell it had been altered to begin with?
 
daggeronebravo said:
is it possible to OC a modded 6950 bios (unlocked shaders only) to 6970 clocks without voltage increase?
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I have done with my asus card. Works a treat @ 6970 speeds and 1.0V. I also use MSI Afterburner to gradually increase fan speed so it's quiet most of the time but as said earlier I'm going to stick a Zalman vf3000a I have on there when I get the time.

I don't know if the asus card has better components as it is OC edition (only 810MHz), and voltage tweakable so might have better memory? Once fitted with better cooling I might test further with voltage increases but tbh I'm perfectly happy with stock 6970 speeds:toast:
 
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