Unlock your ATI 6950 to a 6970 Thread

GJ02 · 15 Feb 2011 at 09:00

would i be right in assuming this would work on a HIS card and not just MSI considering afterburner is MSI ?

you would be right to assume

there are more fps gains going to an unlocked bios,

sas30uk · 15 Feb 2011 at 13:48

Would my bios be unlocked with the flash i did or is there another way to do this ?

oulton · 15 Feb 2011 at 14:23

Are we sure that a Corsair tx650 might be a bit short for the flashed 6970''s in CF - When I was ordering I asked the sales team and they said the tx 650 would be fine for my set up?

drifting · 15 Feb 2011 at 18:44

Questions:

a) Is it recommended to stick with the stock memory clocks for unlocked cards?

b) Does unlocking break the warranty?

sas30uk · 15 Feb 2011 at 21:44

I think unlocking does void the warranty but if you flash it back who would ever know

craptakular · 15 Feb 2011 at 21:48

is an unlocked 6950 faster than my current 5870?

Cream Cheese · 15 Feb 2011 at 21:53

I just got myself the OcUK 6950 and flashed it with a 6970 bios. After a reboot my default clocks had increased to 6970 speeds however the shader count was still at 1408. Anyone else had this?

tomos · 16 Feb 2011 at 12:08

maybe using an old ver of gpu-z?

C64 · 16 Feb 2011 at 18:47

So what performance levels does a 6950 with unlocked shaders only achieve ? anything better for £200 or less from nvidia ?

Anyone done this to an xfx twin fan model 6950 ?

Cream Cheese · 17 Feb 2011 at 02:25

Using the newest version, tried flash back to 6950 then back to 6970, still doesn't wanna give me the extra shaders

C64 · 17 Feb 2011 at 05:34

This only works on 2gb models ?

ACE01 · 17 Feb 2011 at 11:56

Original XFX 6950 unlocked without issue here. Batch file used. 880 & 1375 24/7 no issues since launch.

Steves1982 · 17 Feb 2011 at 16:20

Just ordered a 2nd 6950 for crossfire x.

I'm not sure how to upload images for adding to posts but here are the before flash and after results for Heaven 2.1

Before:

FPS: 94.9
Scores: 2391
Min FPS: 58.3
Max FPS: 234.3

Hardware
Binary: Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1500 Release May 21 2010
Operating system: Windows 7 (build 7600) 64bit
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
CPU flags: 3292MHz MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 SSE42 HTT
GPU model: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series 8.812.0.0 CrossFireX 2048Mb

Settings
Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1080 fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 4x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Replication: disabled
Tessellation: normal

After:

FPS: 104.4
Scores: 2629
Min FPS: 64.3
Max FPS: 256.9

Hardware
Binary: Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1500 Release May 21 2010
Operating system: Windows 7 (build 7600) 64bit
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2500K CPU @ 3.30GHz
CPU flags: 3292MHz MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 SSE42 HTT
GPU model: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series 8.821.0.0 CrossFireX 2048Mb

Settings
Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1080 fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 4x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Replication: disabled
Tessellation: normal

A decent increase for 3 mins work!

p.s. If anyone can tell me how to add photos to posts and which imagehost to use that will be great!

easyrider · 17 Feb 2011 at 18:34

C64 said:
This only works on 2gb models ?

Good question.

However they are so close in price one would be mad to buy a 1GB card

Steves1982 · 18 Feb 2011 at 01:05

Just noticed a few posts on the web about it is now not recommended to do flash a standard 6970 bios to a 6950. I have 2 6950s flashed at the moment but don't really want to damage £460 worth of hardware.

Is there a 6950 bios that has the unlocked shaders and unlocked CCC overdrive limits as well as modifying the voltage to 1.175 (6970 default voltage)?

Then it would just be a case of setting the core and memory clocks to 6970 levels in CCC.

gcaster · 18 Feb 2011 at 01:14

Thanks for the tutorial, really easy to follow.
Did have to install 6970 drivers rather than 6950 which wasn't mentioned. Have others had to do this, I assume so?

How does this work with BIOS/Driver updates?

Fillthee · 18 Feb 2011 at 01:43

What's a decent overclock on a modded 6950? currently just upped my a little to 900/1400...

Not to sure how high they can go? and dont wanna push it over the edge... temps seem to be holding at around 75-80c while under load!

Mud · 19 Feb 2011 at 15:12

I haven't read more than the last page of this thread (I followed the techpowerup guide), just thought I'd say I bought a HIS6950 from OcUK and unlocked it with the HIS6970 BIOS with no issues (other than having to do the flash from the command line). No driver reinstall, on reboot the additional shaders were there though clockspeeds remained the same. I set 880MHz in AMD overdrive and played some DIRT2 @2560x1600 on highest settings (2xMSAA), no artefacts.

gcaster · 19 Feb 2011 at 18:58

Fillthee said:
What's a decent overclock on a modded 6950? currently just upped my a little to 900/1400...

Not to sure how high they can go? and dont wanna push it over the edge... temps seem to be holding at around 75-80c while under load!

I've managed to get mine up to 1010/1535 running Unigine but wasn't stable in Furmark. Highest I've had Furmark and 3dMark stable is 998/1535 under watercooling.

sas30uk · 20 Feb 2011 at 00:49

How can you over volt the GPU guys ?

I have already flashed to the 6970 Bios im set at 880/1375 and would like to push these a bit higher if possible but cant do it with regular overclock as it just crashes on me. I have my power up to 20% in CCC is there anything more i can do ?

Any help would be appreciated.