Unlock your ATI 6950 to a 6970 Thread

shea1980 · 3 Feb 2011 at 12:07

Can a msi hd 6950 be unlocked to a hd 6970 if it has a red PCB?

siclilmonkey · 3 Feb 2011 at 17:29

Does this score look ok for a flashed 6950 @ 900mhz core 1400mhz mem?

3dmark 11

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/574855

3DMark Score P3860
Graphics score 5008
Physics Score 2446
Combined Score 2086
GraphicsTest1 22.55 FPS
GraphicsTest2 26.21 FPS
GraphicsTest3 31.85 FPS
GraphicsTest4 14.33 FPS
PhysicsTest 7.77 FPS
CombinedTest 9.71 FPS

Thanks

NinetyOne · 4 Feb 2011 at 11:37

Flashed my 6950 to a 6970 shaders+clocks and was getting heavy artifacts in 3dmark and heaven so i flashed back and they seem to be gone, now i only want the extra shaders but keep the 6950 stock clocks, how can i do this?

Ezyryder · 4 Feb 2011 at 11:40

Go and read Techpowerup, there is a way to mod your bios so it has the unlocked shaders. Then you can overclock manually to whatever the card limit is.

NinetyOne · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:00

Ezyryder said:
Go and read Techpowerup, there is a way to mod your bios so it has the unlocked shaders. Then you can overclock manually to whatever the card limit is.

I have been but found nothing on a shaders only mod, or maybe im just blind

J.D · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:11

Jonnycakes said:
Flashed my 6950 to a 6970 shaders+clocks and was getting heavy artifacts in 3dmark and heaven so i flashed back and they seem to be gone, now i only want the extra shaders but keep the 6950 stock clocks, how can i do this?

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=2137760&postcount=381

Download the above and extract to a folder somewhere easily accessible like Desktop, My Documents etc. Now copy your original backed up BIOS and paste the copy in the extracted folder above. You should see a folder called "php" a file called "mod.php" and a batch file called "run.bat". This is where you place the copy of your backed up BIOS that you should have backed up when flashing the 6970 BIOS over. Once you have put it there, rename it to "original.bin" and now double click the run.bat.

The DOS screen will tell you it has been successful and that it has created a file called "modded.bin" this is your original BIOS with unlocked shaders. Now use either MSI Afterburner or Radeon BIOS Editor to raise the voltage. If you want the stock 6970 voltages then it's 1.175v. When you go back to 6950 BIOS you end up with 1.100v and 880-900Mhz core clock is achievable. Bump this to the stock 6970 voltages of 1.175v and you'll be hitting roughly 940-975Mhz on the core.

If you don't want to overclock the card but just have the unlocked shaders then just rename the modded.bin to unlock.bin and flash back. If you want higher than 890-900Mhz then you need extra voltage.

Good luck and if you need any help post back.

NinetyOne · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:34

Worked perfectly thanks im not going to bother overclocking just yet but is it worth increasing the power controll settings in CCC?

J.D · 4 Feb 2011 at 12:59

Jonnycakes said:
Worked perfectly thanks im not going to bother overclocking just yet but is it worth increasing the power controll settings in CCC?

No problem matey. Good job.

It's meant to only be of use in Heaven 2.1 benchmark. Funny thing was it gave me a very slightly less score with 20% than with it at 0% so I just leave it at 0% all the time. Others did see differences so test it in Heaven benchmark and see what you get.

You will only still have the 840Mhz max in the CCC to overclock to but you can use MSI AfterBurner to reach higher. Remember though that you're at 1.100v so you'll only get about 880-900Mhz on the core clock at this voltage. If you want 950+ you'll need 1.175v+.

1.175 is the default 6970 voltage but I've read it's recommended to stay within 1.100 - 1.300v. I used 1.225 to reach 1000Mhz on the core but for what I'd have to run the fan at to keep that stable I just went back to 1.175.

NinetyOne · 4 Feb 2011 at 13:22

J.D said:
No problem matey. Good job.

It's meant to only be of use in Heaven 2.1 benchmark. Funny thing was it gave me a very slightly less score with 20% than with it at 0% so I just leave it at 0% all the time. Others did see differences so test it in Heaven benchmark and see what you get.

You will only still have the 840Mhz max in the CCC to overclock to but you can use MSI AfterBurner to reach higher. Remember though that you're at 1.100v so you'll only get about 880-900Mhz on the core clock at this voltage. If you want 950+ you'll need 1.175v+.

1.175 is the default 6970 voltage but I've read it's recommended to stay within 1.100 - 1.300v. I used 1.225 to reach 1000Mhz on the core but for what I'd have to run the fan at to keep that stable I just went back to 1.175.

Ok nice one i might try bump up the clocks a little later on when i have time, thanks.

J.D · 4 Feb 2011 at 13:24

Jonnycakes said:
Ok nice one i might try bump up the clocks a little later on when i have time, thanks.

No problem at all, now go and enjoy some gaming

.

MikeHiow · 4 Feb 2011 at 18:41

In response to this in another thread;

Farooq said:
so asus 6950 seams to be the consenus. i have never changed bios on a gfx card is it hard to do and what are the dangers to long term life.
I have vast experiance with cpu overclocking and gfx card just not bios changes in gfx cards. could you give me the idoits guide those lads who have already unlocked them to 6970's im running windows 7 64 bit on a x 48 mo bo

Ensure your BIOS switch is in position 1 before anything else.

Avoid the 6970 Bios. What you want to do is modify your own BIOS to unlock the extra shaders.

First you'll need GPU-Z and this: http://www.techpowerup.com/wizzard/Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip

First you need to dump your BIOS in GPU-Z - there is a little icon next to the bios version, click this to save your bios.

Extract the 'Mod_BIOS_HD_6950.zip', put your bios in that folder and rename it to 'original.bin'. Run the run.bat, follow the instructions and you will end up with another file called 'modded.bin'.

Now download an extract this: http://uk2-dl.techpowerup.com/Tweaking/HD_6950_to_HD_6970_mod.zip

Ignore all the bat files, all you want is winflash. So copy the winflash directory somewhere easy, I'll use c:\ as an example. Also place the 'modded.bin' you generated in the previous step in the winflash directory.

Now open up command prompt as administrator, and type 'cd \winflash'.

Now you want to do;
atiwinflash -unlockrom 0
atiwinflash -f -p 0 modded.bin

Follow any instructions and reboot when it's done.

Once complete you should have 1536 shaders (you can check this in GPU-Z).

Just note that you do all this entirely at your own risk. That said, if you run in to problems, you should be able to just flick the switch back to position 2, and you're all good.

[TW]Fox · 4 Feb 2011 at 22:45

So if I was to buy a card to do this with, which is the best brand to go with? I noticed in another post somebody was saying the fan speeds/noise on the Asus were higher.

I've been happy with my XFX GTX280 so for some reason seem inclined to favour the XFX 6950. Is this flawed logic?

GJ02 · 4 Feb 2011 at 22:52

i cant fault the 2 HIS i have

J.D · 5 Feb 2011 at 00:41

[TW]Fox;18394350 said:
So if I was to buy a card to do this with, which is the best brand to go with? I noticed in another post somebody was saying the fan speeds/noise on the Asus were higher.

I've been happy with my XFX GTX280 so for some reason seem inclined to favour the XFX 6950. Is this flawed logic?

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=137136

Have a read there, XFX are the most cards flashed going by the table on the first page so there must be a lot of users posting what they have overclocked with their cards. 73 pages is a long read so maybe jump into the thread midway and go from there.

Like GJ02, HIS have been decent for me.

MikeHiow · 5 Feb 2011 at 00:54

Just buy the cheapest. I have the OcUK one, which is Powercolour and its quiet enough, although I believe they are all reference cards so should, in theory be the same.

J.D · 5 Feb 2011 at 01:19

MikeHiow said:
Just buy the cheapest. I have the OcUK one, which is Powercolour and its quiet enough, although I believe they are all reference cards so should, in theory be the same.

Could you do me a favour and have a look at this thread please?.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18238293&page=2

This guy has a Powercolour like you but can't hit 880Mhz on stock 1.100v. He can't hit it on 1.175v either. Could you post your clocks, what BIOS you're using, voltages used etc in there please?.

Emlyn_Dewar · 5 Feb 2011 at 16:31

Maybe he just has a "bad" card that can't OC as well?

J.D · 5 Feb 2011 at 18:06

Emlyn_Dewar said:
Maybe he just has a "bad" card that can't OC as well?

It can run stock, it can unlock the shaders and is fine. At 1.100v and at 1.175v it can't overclock at all, even up to 1.250v with no OC being allowed with artifacting/freezing. I can hit 890Mhz with 1.100v and I can hit 975Mhz with 1.175v.

I've not heard of any 6950 that can't overclock at all. So would you say still that it's just the card?. You said "can't OC as well" when it's a case of it won't OC at all.

I think something else is wrong but I don't know what. I just wish I could get my hands on the card and test it on my system.

gareth170 · 5 Feb 2011 at 18:52

maybe psu?

Jamous · 6 Feb 2011 at 01:17

Hmm, been reading around and there's stories of flashed 6950's failing, not sure if its just the "normal" amount of faulty cards or if its just due to the flashing. Story goes that its the memory at fault, doesn't like the voltage and clocks.
Now my Powercolor card flashed to Powercolor 6970 has been running fine, no probs at all, but in light of this I've "downgraded" to the 6950 bios with unlocked shaders and will see how that performs until more info comes out on the failing flashed 6950's

Edit- is there a way to reduce the memory speed when using the 6970 bios? CCC has a min of std 6970 @ 1375Mhz.