• Competitor rules

    Please remember that any mention of competitors, hinting at competitors or offering to provide details of competitors will result in an account suspension. The full rules can be found under the 'Terms and Rules' link in the bottom right corner of your screen. Just don't mention competitors in any way, shape or form and you'll be OK.

*** The Official ATI Radeon HD 6970 & 6950 Reviews, Discussion and Overclocking Thread ***

crYsis said:
Using the asus bios and overclocking with asus doctor tweak software thing. I don't like overclocking like this tbh just seeing what the card can do, hoping we can get some good custom bios's or they release some overclocked cards and will grab one of those bios'. I much prefer to flash the card and forget about having to run software aswell. Got the core up to 1025 at 1.35 volts..

30860694.png
Click to expand...

That's a very nice overclock! I might have to have a go of this asus software as well, I have just been using the ATI catalyst thing for my overclocks. I may not be able to overclock too much more though, as when I did a Furmark run, the display driver crashed out :\
 
crYsis said:
Using the asus bios and overclocking with asus doctor tweak software thing. I don't like overclocking like this tbh just seeing what the card can do, hoping we can get some good custom bios's or they release some overclocked cards and will grab one of those bios'. I much prefer to flash the card and forget about having to run software aswell. Got the core up to 1025 at 1.35 volts..
Click to expand...

How stable is that? I had trouble with anything above 950MHz on my ASUS.
 
Helios1234 said:
How stable is that? I had trouble with anything above 950MHz on my ASUS.
Click to expand...

Did you add more volts? Seemed stable enough temps didn't change much either. Weirdly though when I restored my stock settings my stock benchmarks scores went down by a few thousand points on 3D Mark 06? been out most of day so PC been switched off most of day just ran it again and thankfully its back to normal!

Tried 1.5 volts but card did not like it at all, 1.3 to 1.35 volts seems to be the sweetspot. Need a nice OC Bios now, has anyone tried editing bios's yet? Card will not boot for me after editing in RBE?
 
Surely at 1025mhz and 1.35V it's just going to hit the TDP limit and throttle down all the time? or have you managed to disable the TDP limiter entirely?
 
This is a daring thing I have been thinking of, and whether or not it is possible I don't know, but I'm hoping to know as soon as new drivers come out for the 6970.

I was wandering, that since others have been saying that the 6950s shaders had not been laser cut, that's why they have been able to replicate 6970 performance with the added BIOS, does this mean that when the 10.13/11.0 drivers come out and supported by Rivatuner, we could check to see whether there are any extra shaders still to be unlocked on the 6950/6970?

I'm not 100% on the subject, but it would be great if there was some extra headroom in the shader department, so please tell me if I'm wrong in what I've been thinking. I tried using the 10.12 hotfix drivers and rivatuner 2.24c (I think, the newest one) but it doesn't give any options at the hardware level to modify, hence why I'm waiting for the new drivers and what not :).
 
Hi guys, I am looking at graphics cards for my new computer which I am building. Currently I am using a Nvidia 250gts 1GB which really isn't that great. I am either looking to upgrade to the 6970 or the Nvidia 570 GTX. I am troubled on which to pick as I don't know a whole lot about these graphics cards. The motherboard is this: Asus M4A87TD EVO AMD 870 AM3 Motherboard. In the spec it shows that it has a PCI-E 2.0 connector. Will this hinder the performance of the 6970 which uses a PCI-E 2.1?

Cheers,
MT
 
the pokemon kid said:
Hi guys, I am looking at graphics cards for my new computer which I am building. Currently I am using a Nvidia 250gts 1GB which really isn't that great. I am either looking to upgrade to the 6970 or the Nvidia 570 GTX. I am troubled on which to pick as I don't know a whole lot about these graphics cards. The motherboard is this: Asus M4A87TD EVO AMD 870 AM3 Motherboard. In the spec it shows that it has a PCI-E 2.0 connector. Will this hinder the performance of the 6970 which uses a PCI-E 2.1?

Cheers,
MT
Click to expand...

I would do a bit of investigating regarding the PCI-E 2.1, looks like the GTX 570 is PCI-2, so that's an easy decision isn't it :D
 
Last edited:
the pokemon kid said:
Hi guys, I am looking at graphics cards for my new computer which I am building. Currently I am using a Nvidia 250gts 1GB which really isn't that great. I am either looking to upgrade to the 6970 or the Nvidia 570 GTX. I am troubled on which to pick as I don't know a whole lot about these graphics cards. The motherboard is this: Asus M4A87TD EVO AMD 870 AM3 Motherboard. In the spec it shows that it has a PCI-E 2.0 connector. Will this hinder the performance of the 6970 which uses a PCI-E 2.1?

Cheers,
MT
Click to expand...

No
 
crYsis said:
Did you add more volts? Seemed stable enough temps didn't change much either. Weirdly though when I restored my stock settings my stock benchmarks scores went down by a few thousand points on 3D Mark 06? been out most of day so PC been switched off most of day just ran it again and thankfully its back to normal!

Tried 1.5 volts but card did not like it at all, 1.3 to 1.35 volts seems to be the sweetspot. Need a nice OC Bios now, has anyone tried editing bios's yet? Card will not boot for me after editing in RBE?
Click to expand...

I tried 1.35V and 1000MHz just crashed the drivers.

mmj_uk said:
Surely at 1025mhz and 1.35V it's just going to hit the TDP limit and throttle down all the time? or have you managed to disable the TDP limiter entirely?
Click to expand...

You're right. When I overclocked to 950MHz at 1.24V, the performance improvement wasn't high as I expected based on scaling with a HD6950 I also overclocked.

With the HD6950, an ~8% overclock resulted in a similar ~8% performance boost.

With the HD6970, a 7% overclock only resulted in a 4% performance increase.
 
Fx-Overlord said:
It's pretty clear in all the review that once the resolution is upped to beyond 1920x1200, the gap between the 580 and 6970 closes. IIRC the same happens with the 570 and the 6950.

I've not seen anything to believe that the 580's 1.5GB framebuffer is limited even at 2560x1600, unless somebody can point me at a review which shows otherwise? (now the 570s 1280MB might be a different story...).

For people who game at 2560x1600 + (i'm not one of them!), the 6970 is a compelling product since a) Its in stock; b) it's close to the 580 in performance; (c) has more vram; (d) is 150 quid less expensive.
Click to expand...

@ 2560x1600 the 1.28GB framebuffer of the 570 is a bottleneck. I often hit 1.4GB VRAM usage in Crysis without AA. If I had to choose between a 580 and 6970, I'd go 6970 simply because of the 2GB framebuffer. I think with AA, Crysis could eclipse the 1.5GB mark. I only have a single 6970 so I don't bother with AA in Crysis, though if I had 2 then cranking up the AA would be viable.
 
the pokemon kid said:
So still, where would my money be better off being spent? On the 570GTX or the 6970? I am a photographer/ graphics designer...
Click to expand...
As has been said, don't worry about PCI-E 2.0, 2.1 etc, they'll all work together.

I too am a photographer, Lightroom you don't need a fancy graphics card at all (I've been using an old 6600GT and my machine flies). There are other ways of speeding up performance, like spreading OS, photos and program on different drives etc. Video editing is different though, and I think CS5 allows you to use CUDA (google it, I don't use CS5) - this would allow an nvidia card to do some processing work. But basically you don't need a nice GC for picture editing (vifro is different and I don't do video).

If you want your GC for games there are threads on the 570 and 6970 (570 better for low resolution monitors, 6970 better for high). But as above, you'd be better getting a 6950 at the moment, as it can generally be flashed to 6970 levels and is a lot cheaper. If you don't do games, not much need for you to get a GC, instead make sure the rest of your system is nice - fast cpu, SSD, nice monitor (expensive for togs).
 
what utilities would people reccomend for clocking my 6970

cant find a download for trixx 3.0.2 which supposedly allows to go higher than 950/1450

tried msi afterburner but hitting the 1450 mem limit :(
 
Foxtrot26 said:
what utilities would people reccomend for clocking my 6970

cant find a download for trixx 3.0.2 which supposedly allows to go higher than 950/1450

tried msi afterburner but hitting the 1450 mem limit :(
Click to expand...


  1. Go to installed directory of MSI Afterburner, default: C:\Program file\MSI Afterburner
  2. Use notepad to edit “MSIAfterburner.cfg”
  3. Change the parameter of “EnableUnofficialOverclocking” from “0” to “1”.
 
thanks :)

got a copy of sapphire trix 3.0.2 before i read that lol

btw funny but my catalyst drivers show up as 10.11 what version of 10.12 should i be using? bit confused by the whole 10.12 and 10.12a as the amd site only lists 10.12
 
Triggaaar said:
As has been said, don't worry about PCI-E 2.0, 2.1 etc, they'll all work together.

I too am a photographer, Lightroom you don't need a fancy graphics card at all (I've been using an old 6600GT and my machine flies). There are other ways of speeding up performance, like spreading OS, photos and program on different drives etc. Video editing is different though, and I think CS5 allows you to use CUDA (google it, I don't use CS5) - this would allow an nvidia card to do some processing work. But basically you don't need a nice GC for picture editing (vifro is different and I don't do video).

If you want your GC for games there are threads on the 570 and 6970 (570 better for low resolution monitors, 6970 better for high). But as above, you'd be better getting a 6950 at the moment, as it can generally be flashed to 6970 levels and is a lot cheaper. If you don't do games, not much need for you to get a GC, instead make sure the rest of your system is nice - fast cpu, SSD, nice monitor (expensive for togs).
Click to expand...

Well im using CS5 on my computer. I use both lightroom and photoshop CS5 to process the images. the computer which i have got has a Solid state which is running the OS and photoshop and then another drive which stores the applications and some images. most of the images are backed up to both my external hard drives straight after editing usually... the computer I am running is using 8GB of RAM. the screen which I am using is a 22" hanns g which is going to be upgraded to two 22" screens... I am slightly swaying towards the 570GTX because of the cuda cores. would the 2GB on the 6970 give me a large advantage over the 570GTX's 1280mb?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom