Rumour: AMD preparing "revision" for HD 6950/6970?

Final8y · 31 Dec 2010 at 17:20

Gabriel Rouchon, CEO of water-cooling experts Swiftech, has revealed that AMD is planning to release a revised PCB for the Cayman cards HD 6950 and HD 6970. Following a delay of 3 weeks, AMD rushed "initial release" products to the market, with a "revision" coming shortly. The changes are hinted to be related to VRM and power components, being major enough to warrant a redesign for Swiftech's waterblock.

Interestingly, it is suggested that the TI DrMOS shortage we reported in November might have forced AMD to opt for Volterra DrMOS. Rumours suggest that AMD will revert back to the TI DrMOS for the "revision" PCB.

This revision might also give AMD the opportunity to hard disable BIOS unlocking of SIMDs from 6950 to 6970.

Exactly how major (or minor) this revision is, and how it will benefit the end user, remains to be seen.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/rumour-amd-preparing-revision-for-hd-6950-6970-/10569.html

jak731 · 31 Dec 2010 at 17:23

I was hoping they were going to release cooling running higher clocked cards. Seems like the current ones are very hot for their size, maybe due to bad leakage levels.

GJ02 · 31 Dec 2010 at 17:30

well if they do, i will not be happy !

mmj_uk · 31 Dec 2010 at 18:08

I guess they'll be moving the PCI-E connector instead of having to sand them down by hand.

Skyrocket · 31 Dec 2010 at 18:16

New changes include:-

A) No further hand crafting of power connectors.
B) unlocking will be stopped. They are losing some serious £ due to 6970 no selling well
C) reduction in power and load and possibly heat

Freddie1980 · 31 Dec 2010 at 18:19

Before the FUD gets out of hand I would wait and see what happens, it looks like these new cards should be out shortly.

Nelly · 31 Dec 2010 at 18:32

Skyrocket said:
B) unlocking will be stopped. They are losing some serious £ due to 6970 no selling well

I doubt it, their is probally loads of people out there that woudn't of even upgraded to the 6950 let alone the 6970 if it wasn't for the fact they can be flashed to 6970.

I would have happily kept my 5850, untill the next generation of cards.

kitch9 · 31 Dec 2010 at 18:35

jak731 said:
I was hoping they were going to release cooling running higher clocked cards. Seems like the current ones are very hot for their size, maybe due to bad leakage levels.

8 256MB memory chips giving off over 15 watt of heat each.

Leakage will not be a problem by now ffs.

kitch9 · 31 Dec 2010 at 18:40

Skyrocket said:
New changes include:-

A) No further hand crafting of power connectors.
B) unlocking will be stopped. They are losing some serious £ due to 6970 no selling well
C) reduction in power and load and possibly heat

Why don't you dig deeper, you might pull something out your ass that's actually true and relevant.

sadbuttrue · 31 Dec 2010 at 18:43

IMO the unlocks will stay. I'm sure AMD are selling more 6950s due to the unlock than they would have 6970s without. It also puts nVidias gtx560 in somewhat of an awkward position. Do they compete with a stock 6950 or an unlocked one?

mattjd · 31 Dec 2010 at 19:03

Better ask for a 6950 for my birthday quickly then

Monkey Puzzle · 31 Dec 2010 at 19:13

sadbuttrue said:
IMO the unlocks will stay. I'm sure AMD are selling more 6950s due to the unlock than they would have 6970s without. It also puts nVidias gtx560 in somewhat of an awkward position. Do they compete with a stock 6950 or an unlocked one?

Depends whether the 6970 are going to hit higher clocks than the 6950s or if AMD had great yields and just randomly flashed some cards to be 6950s. Also, I'd guess a lot of people won't flash the bios to 6970 anyhow. I reckon they'll leave the cards capable of unlocking.

malachi · 31 Dec 2010 at 22:39

Hope this stays as a rumour as Ive just brought a 6970!!!

kylew · 31 Dec 2010 at 22:51

GJ02 said:
well if they do, i will not be happy !

You'll only be happy if they stopped producing any new graphics cards for 2 years after what ever you've bought, you're so indecisive!

kylew · 31 Dec 2010 at 22:52

malachi said:
Hope this stays as a rumour as Ive just brought a 6970!!!

You "bought" it, not "brought" it.

benskia · 31 Dec 2010 at 23:56

where did he brought it to?

Si105 · 1 Jan 2011 at 00:34

benskia said:
where did he brought it to?

You failed at taking the ****.

james.miller · 1 Jan 2011 at 00:40

kitch9 said:
Why don't you dig deeper, you might pull something out your ass that's actually true and relevant.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 1 Jan 2011 at 01:52

Pardon my MASSIVE ignorance (which seems to grow larger the more I read on here) but what does this mean in laymans terms?

I know it's just a rumour on a website but to me it reads:

That the initial 6950s and 6970s were rushed out and they are going to change some of the actual hardware to something better?

Would, any of the rumoured revisions be doable via an update or is it physically changing parts in the cards?

If someone could explain to an 8year old basically that will probably help

Cheers,

Wu

chaotic_uk · 1 Jan 2011 at 02:20

http://www.techpowerup.com/137448/AMD-Revising-Radeon-HD-6900-Series-PCB.html