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XFX 5870 1GB to MSI Twin Frozr 6950 2GB

PapaLazaru

PapaLazaru

PapaLazaru

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Joined
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I have just taken this upgrade path, mainly due to the 2GB of VRAM on the 6950 which will help make BF3 run smoother.

I bagged the MSI Twin Frozr III off the MM for £180 with Deus X / Dirt 3 an I have a mate who wants my 5870 and will pay £130. £50 less sale of games (£20 / £25) means the upgrade will set me back a maximum of £30 so I am pretty happy with how it has panned out.

My question is, how easy are the MSI cards to clock? I am not sure if it a dual BIOS version and having seen minimal FPS increases on BF3 between 6950's and 6970's (about 3 I have read), I am not too bothered about flashing it. A nice little overclock on an already overclocked card should be nice though.

Are there any failsafe overclocks anyone has just increased these card to?

Ta :)
 
If you go for a single card then I'm afraid there's gonna be insufficient GPU power to play BF3.

Also keep in mind that this game has been polluted by NVIDIA and the performance of AMD cards in this game sucks.
 
harmony said:
If you go for a single card then I'm afraid there's gonna be insufficient GPU power to play BF3.
Click to expand...

Not true.

I have a 6950 twin frozr ii and i can run the game at ultra 1080p with 2xaa and stick around 60fps dropping into 50's during intensive scenes. This is with motion blur and HBAO disabled, vsync on. It feels super smooth. Using latest ati drivers.
 
harmony said:
If you go for a single card then I'm afraid there's gonna be insufficient GPU power to play BF3.

Also keep in mind that this game has been polluted by NVIDIA and the performance of AMD cards in this game sucks.
Click to expand...

My HD6970 obviously didn't get that message then.....

In terms of overclocking, it is very simply with MSI afterburner - assuming of course that the overclock limit is removed (limits to 840mhz otherwise) and you can adjust the voltage.

It is a simple case of increasing the sliders / voltages and checking stability as you go.

As a general rule of thumb HD6970 clocks should be stable on a HD6950 with a bit of extra voltage.

If you overclock too far the driver will just crash (well, assuming you arn't pumping stupid levels of voltage or expecting stupidly high overclocks right off the bat). It will either recover itself or it will require a quick reset.
 
Thanks for that. Will certainly look to squeeze a bit more out of it. I think the clocks are already at 850Mhz out of the box (it is version 3) so will see what I can get. :)

As for a single card being unable to play BF3, well that is total rubbish. My 5870 can play it with high settings with a few bits of eye candy turned down and with V-Sync on, it is usually sitting at 60FPS.

I am hoping I might be able to play with Ultra settings now, albeit with a few things turned down a little.
 
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Wait for next gen...not worth going from the 5870 to a 6950 2GB considering the cost and with only little improvement on performance.

For BF3, just don't use MSAA and use only FXAA and you should be fine.
 
The 6950 TFIII Power Edition clocks like crazy, just make sure you use MSI Afterburner and enable the unofficial overclocking. this will allow you to bypass the usual clock limits set by AMD in the drivers.

harmony said:
Also keep in mind that this game has been polluted by NVIDIA and the performance of AMD cards in this game sucks.
Click to expand...
part true & part soooo wrong!
The game has been polluted by Nvidia but AMD have done an indepth analysis of performance and it is only the Multi Sampling Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) that causes poor AMD performance.

AMD's recommended settings for a stock 6950 are:

Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Graphics Quality: Ultra
Anti-Aliasing Deferred: None
Anti-Aliasing Post: High
Motion Blur: On
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Ambient Occlusion: HBAO

obviously with a massively overclocked card & possibly a lower resolution you can go even higher than this and still maintain good FPS
 
ScottiB said:
The 6950 TFIII Power Edition clocks like crazy, just make sure you use MSI Afterburner and enable the unofficial overclocking. this will allow you to bypass the usual clock limits set by AMD in the drivers.


part true & part soooo wrong!
The game has been polluted by Nvidia but AMD have done an indepth analysis of performance and it is only the Multi Sampling Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) that causes poor AMD performance.

AMD's recommended settings for a stock 6950 are:

Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Graphics Quality: Ultra
Anti-Aliasing Deferred: None
Anti-Aliasing Post: High
Motion Blur: On
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Ambient Occlusion: HBAO

obviously with a massively overclocked card & possibly a lower resolution you can go even higher than this and still maintain good FPS
Click to expand...

I game at 1080p (24'). Thanks for the input am looking forwards to seeing what it can do. What do you reckon are the upper limits for the card on afterburner? :)

I mainly play BF3 and as it is out and I can run it sweet my upgrading is done for a considerable period of time now.
 
@ Harmony could you please post us all out a 3Gb 580 please as most of us can't afford 1 never mind 2!

ScottiB said:
The 6950 TFIII Power Edition clocks like crazy, just make sure you use MSI Afterburner and enable the unofficial overclocking. this will allow you to bypass the usual clock limits set by AMD in the drivers.
Click to expand...

Or you can do this:

tommybhoy said:
A simple reg entry to increase CCC limits.

Remember to back up the entry first, keep the moded reg entry handy as most driver updates remove the higher limits.

save below to notepad(remember to save as .reg):





Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4D36E968-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000]

"PP_PhmSoftPowerPlayTable"=hex:6f,01,05,01,00,04,04,10,18,58,00,68,00,b8,00,e8,\
03,e8,03,58,00,00,80,01,00,0f,00,00,02,08,3c,00,00,68,00,b8,00,00,18,01,09,\
00,18,01,26,01,83,01,00,00,a0,0c,00,00,30,01,40,01,4b,01,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
aa,00,00,00,78,00,00,00,60,ea,00,00,56,01,0a,00,00,00,14,00,00,00,00,00,00,\
00,01,01,02,03,02,02,02,04,03,02,02,04,80,38,01,48,e8,01,01,ff,7e,04,00,00,\
01,00,00,00,a8,61,00,98,3a,00,84,03,b6,03,00,00,01,00,00,00,50,c3,00,48,e8,\
01,e8,03,7e,04,00,00,01,00,00,00,80,38,01,48,e8,01,01,ff,7e,04,00,00,01,00,\
00,00,34,1b,01,48,e8,01,01,ff,7e,04,00,00,01,00,00,00,08,00,00,00,78,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,05,00,00,00,78,00,00,00,\
00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,04,00,00,7a,00,00,00,00,\
00,00,f0,d2,00,00,40,9c,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,7a,00,00,00,00,04,\
00,70,11,01,00,c0,da,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,06,94,11,c4,22,54,24,60,09,3c,\
0f,88,13,0a,00,d0,78,02,00,90,d0,03,00,03,40,9c,00,84,03,50,c3,00,e8,03,68,\
3c,01,01,ff,02,98,3a,00,b6,03,48,e8,01,7e,04,02,98,3a,00,84,03,48,e8,01,e8,\
03,04,84,03,11,00,00,00,e8,03,1a,00,00,00,4b,04,28,00,00,00,4c,04,28,00,00,\
00
Click to expand...

@ScottiB, Offtopic but can you tell me the eta with the new bios for the Z68A-GD55-G3 that will let me use lucid virtu?
 
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ScottiB said:
The 6950 TFIII Power Edition clocks like crazy, just make sure you use MSI Afterburner and enable the unofficial overclocking. this will allow you to bypass the usual clock limits set by AMD in the drivers.
Click to expand...

I've had nothing but troubles when overclocking this card with the official unlocked BIOS that you posted. No matter what voltage I set in Afterburner, I can't make the card 100% stable at 900 MHz and above.

And memory at 1375-1400 MHz starts to throttle up too.

So no, it doesn't overclock like crazy. At least not for everyone.


part true & part soooo wrong!
The game has been polluted by Nvidia but AMD have done an indepth analysis of performance and it is only the Multi Sampling Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) that causes poor AMD performance.

AMD's recommended settings for a stock 6950 are:

Resolution: 2560 x 1600
Graphics Quality: Ultra
Anti-Aliasing Deferred: None
Anti-Aliasing Post: High
Motion Blur: On
Anisotropic Filtering: 16x
Ambient Occlusion: HBAO

obviously with a massively overclocked card & possibly a lower resolution you can go even higher than this and still maintain good FPS
Click to expand...

2560x1440 and Ultra settings (no AA) cause my graphics card to choke up, zoom up with a scope on a larger map or in a vehicle and the fps goes down well into 20s. That's not playable for an FPS and you need to turn quite a few settings down to find it OK for multiplayer gaming. The card is nowhere near powerful enough for the settings you posted unless you enjoy stuttering in games.

That's on a 6950 @ 875/1350.
 
harmony said:
If you go for a single card then I'm afraid there's gonna be insufficient GPU power to play BF3.

Also keep in mind that this game has been polluted by NVIDIA and the performance of AMD cards in this game sucks.
Click to expand...

The only thing that sucks are your stupid posts.
 
Its not a massive clock , but my old gaming pc has a tf III 6950 and i just smacked the clock to 900 and left it, effortless small overclock , im sure there was plenty room for more with upping voltage etc but i didnt do anything else.
 
The minimum it will be able to do will be to at least match 6970 speeds id imagine. So you will be looking at a core of 880 and a memory of 1375. Increase volts to 1.187 to match the 6970 specs and test it out. I'm sure it will go further though if you add more voltage.
 
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