Unlock your ATI 6950 to a 6970 Thread

easyrider · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:03

*Do at your own risk - Mods*

Looks like the 6950 card CAN BE UNLOCKED to a Full 6970

I have done his myself from this

to this

Unlock the clock limitation in CCC too

You can keep track of the cards that have flashed here

for 128 extra shaders

From Windows (this is how I did the flash)

For the people who need to unlockrom and fail at command line:

- Unpack the Winflash download onto your desktop in a folder called "winflash"
- Save the 6970 BIOS in your Winflash folder and name it unlock.bin
- Click Start Button
- Type "cmd"
- Right click the entry and select "Run as Administrator"
- Black command prompt windows opens
- Type "cd %USERPROFILE%\desktop\winflash"
- Type "atiwinflash -unlockrom 0" <-- the 0 means first adapter, if you have multiple cards, physically uninstall all but the one you want to flash
- Type "atiwinflash -f -p 0 unlock.bin"
- It should complete the flashing process with a message saying something with "verified".

Automated Batch file flashing

Follow this link for info and this one to download all the files ready to go.

It works perfectly and even runs a backup of your original bios.

Big thumbs up to Techpowerup

EDIT: Updated info here

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

We can see that enabling the shaders without any clock increases improves performance. Once the clock speeds are adjusted to match the HD 6970, the card effectively performs just as well as a full blown Radeon HD 6970.

Link to reference Bios here

Bios Tools here

Thanks W1zzard for your excellent Article

GJ02 · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:12

Nice find easy

Do it, do it, do it !

easyrider · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:14

GJ02 said:
Nice find easy

Do it, do it, do it !

kitch9 linked to it so thanks go to him. I just documented here for others.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:15

Will this work for the 6970 too?

stulid · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:19

[WU-TANG]GZA;18081569 said:
Will this work for the 6970 too?

and turn it into what exactly?

GJ02 · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:21

stulid said:
and turn it into what exactly?

A 6970 x 2 Lolz

easyrider · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:23

Juts remembered too. We have two Bios and the bios switch so really the risk is small

[WU-TANG]GZA · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:26

stulid said:
and turn it into what exactly?

TBPH I didn't exactly know wtf the flashing was doing.

I was thought it was just boosting the performance into a 6970 level performance like overclocking but it seems that it's actually turning it into a 6970 !! ??

So my answer to that would be: 6990?

My other answer would be: ffs I've just ordered a 6970 and wtf is the point if the 6950 can be turned into a 6970?

Should I cancel my order do you think?

Wu

cainer · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:31

stulid said:
and turn it into what exactly?

a 1920sp version! would be nice

easyrider · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:33

I can't believe that AMD had no lasercutting going on. That's very nice of them.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:35

Seriously - this is sounding like I should cnacel my 6970 order and get a 6950 and 'simply' turn it into a 6970? Right?

easyrider · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:37

[WU-TANG]GZA;18081723 said:
Seriously - this is sounding like I should cnacel my 6970 order and get a 6950 and 'simply' turn it into a 6970? Right?

Its up to you. I'm waiting a few days until more results come in of any issues this may cause to the cards before I flash mine.

TBH i'm getting stock 6970 pseeds when overclocking anyway. I am pleased with the 6950. If these do unlock without issue then that's great.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:42

easyrider said:
Its up to you. I'm waiting a few days until more results come in of any issues this may cause to the cards before I flash mine.

TBH i'm getting stock 6970 pseeds when overclocking anyway. I am pleased with the 6950. If these do unlock without issue then that's great.

Yeah I always knew that the 6950 can clock to 6970 stock speeds but I was thinking that the 6970 will clock beyond that but this flash seems to a layman that the 6970 (as called upon release) is a bit of a lemon! I did fear this but thought 'meh it's christmas get the slightly better one'

Maybe I'll just stop reading the forums and plug and play

kitch9 · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:46

easyrider said:
Looks like the 6950 card CAN BE UNLOCKED to a Full 6970

for 128 extra shaders

USE ATIFLASH

USE THESE COMMANDS IN DOS

ATIFLASH -S 0 BACKUP ROM in order to backup

then

ATIFLASH -UNLOCKROM 0 it will say ok

then

ATIFLASH -F -P 0 (BIOS NAME).BIN

bios can be found here
http://www.mediafire.com/?em9vt1j4vk48g9r

atiflash is here

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...35&postcount=9

hp usb boot files here

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport...X-UNITY-I23839

disk format tool here

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com...fb321d0152b482

I'm to scared to do it first. Mines a Sapphire so please Any takers

Thanks kitch9

Dude, your main flash can't be changed, just flick the switch n flash. If it fails flick the switch back and all will be back as it was.

No risk at all, compared to every other card on the market. If I had a 6950 instead of a 6970 it would have been done already.

[WU-TANG]GZA · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:48

kitch9 said:
Dude, your main flash can't be changed, just flick the switch n flash. If it fails flick the switch back and all will be back as it was.

No risk at all, compared to every other card on the market. If I had a 6950 instead of a 6970 it would have been done already.

Can I ask you - if you hadn't already bought and used ur 6970 - in light of ur recent find, would you still go for the 6970? Is there any reason to go for the 6970 over the 6950 at this point in time? I'm just worried I've wasted £50

easyrider · 26 Dec 2010 at 19:55

kitch9 said:
Dude, your main flash can't be changed, just flick the switch n flash. If it fails flick the switch back and all will be back as it was.

No risk at all, compared to every other card on the market. If I had a 6950 instead of a 6970 it would have been done already.

People are saying to flash bios 1 as bios 2 is the backup bios.

tomos · 26 Dec 2010 at 20:00

[WU-TANG]GZA;18081821 said:
Can I ask you - if you hadn't already bought and used ur 6970 - in light of ur recent find, would you still go for the 6970? Is there any reason to go for the 6970 over the 6950 at this point in time? I'm just worried I've wasted £50

afaik, the 70 has better everything (mem chips especially) and possibly binned higher. if yuo're willing to do this flash, i presume you're willing to OC anyway. you'll get higher with the 70 afaik. whether that's worth the difference is up to you

[WU-TANG]GZA · 26 Dec 2010 at 20:19

tomos said:
afaik, the 70 has better everything (mem chips especially) and possibly binned higher. if yuo're willing to do this flash, i presume you're willing to OC anyway. you'll get higher with the 70 afaik. whether that's worth the difference is up to you

OK fair enough.

I've haven't read into the cards properly tbph - just looked at the benches and just thought the minimum fps in the games I'll be playing is worth the extra money. Not like I buy new gfx card every week and a night out in London ends up costing me £200 anyway so I'll just stay in next time I'm going on a large night out

kitch9 · 26 Dec 2010 at 20:33

[WU-TANG]GZA;18081821 said:
Can I ask you - if you hadn't already bought and used ur 6970 - in light of ur recent find, would you still go for the 6970? Is there any reason to go for the 6970 over the 6950 at this point in time? I'm just worried I've wasted £50

The 6970 will be higher binned chips.... not every 6950 will properly unlock I think, but I've heard rumors are yields are very high, so I'd not be surprised if success rate was very good if Amd haven't lazered everything.

The dual bios switch means there's no risk anyway.

kitch9 · 26 Dec 2010 at 20:35

easyrider said:
People are saying to flash bios 1 as bios 2 is the backup bios.

One bios is not writable at all, the other is flick the switch n crack on.