How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 6950

[hajabooja]

As Bystander said, did you try the 6950 bios just with shaders unlocked?

If you have an XFX you can use the already unlocked bios from this post:

How to enable additional shaders on Radeon HD 695...

Has anyone used these? No doubting the poster, just trying to be careful. Thanks

 

[tecnoworld]

tomorrow I should finally get my Powercolor 6950. I hope everything will be fine, since I indend to flash it to 6970 immediately. Since I'm going to keep this system on just for gaming (I have a nettop for everything else) it wouldn't be a problem for me to have a loudy system.

Which kind of settings do you suggest to keep, in the control panel?

 

[Eluder]

Everyone keeps mentioning MSI Afterburner, just wondering, what version are you guys using and does it work with non MSI 6950's? The only one I found on the MSI site is from September, so can't be the right version. Thanks.

 

[bystander]

Has anyone used these? No doubting the poster, just trying to be careful. Thanks

Yes, a few people used it further back in the thread. I also used it to see how it worked. It definitely worked.

 

[bystander]

Everyone keeps mentioning MSI Afterburner, just wondering, what version are you guys using and does it work with non MSI 6950's? The only one I found on the MSI site is from September, so can't be the right version. Thanks.

I'm using MSI afterburner 2.0.0. It works with all brands.

 

[Beany]

Why do you think 2x6970 would be quieter? Have the same TPD once you canhe the bios and the PBC has only 3 different resistors.

Not sure on this, but i thought the 6970 has improved cooling? i was under that impression.

 

[Beany]

Heres a few benches i done for anyone interested, before and after flash, and with single card and crossfire...

Heaven

1920x1200

6950 Crossfire:
FPS: 89.8
Scores: 2262
Min FPS: 57.3
Max FPS: 216.8

6950 Crossfire flashed to 6970:
FPS: 99.4
Scores: 2505
Min FPS: 59.4
Max FPS: 243.8


2560x1600

Single 6950:
FPS: 32.7
Scores: 823
Min FPS: 17.6
Max FPS: 67.5

Single 6950 flashed to 6970:
FPS: 37.1
Scores: 936
Min FPS: 19.2
Max FPS: 77.1

6950 Crossfire:
FPS: 64.5
Scores: 1624
Min FPS: 24.6
Max FPS: 137.1

6950 Crossfire flashed to 6970:
FPS: 72.0
Scores: 1815
Min FPS: 25.9
Max FPS: 153.5


Heaven + extreme tesselation:

2560x1600

Single 6950:
FPS: 22.4
Scores: 565
Min FPS: 9.9
Max FPS: 60.8

Single 6950 flashed to 6970:
FPS: 25.3
Scores: 638
Min FPS: 11.5
Max FPS: 69.3

6950 Crossfire:
FPS: 44.6
Scores: 1123
Min FPS: 18.4
Max FPS: 123.9

6950 Crossfire flashed to 6970:
FPS: 49.9
Scores: 1256
Min FPS: 18.7
Max FPS: 139.3

...all the above is with +20% power setting in CCC.


Lightmark (crossfire has no effect with this)

2560x1600 + 4xAA

6950: 514 FPS
6950 flashed to 6970: 551 FPS
6950 flashed to 6970 with +20% power setting: 575 FPS

 

[The_Ish]

What speeds are 'safe' to overclock to with stock cooler and auto fan control?

 

[afroball]

Hey guys i'm from norway i can announce that my powercolor card was sucessfully flashed to 6970 but it took me about 2 days tweaking (I finally found out that this 10.12a hotfix shit was the problem) now everything works fine with stock 6970 clocks an 20%+. thanks for the thread!

 

[GSG-9]

My 6950 is in the mail

Hey guys i'm from norway i can announce that my powercolor card was sucessfully flashed to 6970 but it took me about 2 days tweaking (I finally found out that this 10.12a hotfix shit was the problem) now everything works fine with stock 6970 clocks an 20%+. thanks for the thread!

So for you NOT using the hotfix made your rig more stable?

 

[afroball]

My 6950 is in the mail



So for you NOT using the hotfix made your rig more stable?

yeah. I think that was the problem. I installed the 10.12 driver (normal). then both bfbc2 and crysis warhead could run for hours.. but you never know. and i found out that if you use ATI overdrive and MSI afterburner at the same time it could be more unstable EDIT: ended up using only ati overdrive (i thought MSI aftrburner was god becauce of their fan tweaking abilities)

 

[bobbavet]

Here are the benches I did between the 5850 and 6950 16A @ 2560x1600

Im impressed that single 6950 is only 300 behind my 5850xfire.

Once I added 20% power my scores actually went backwards. Close to 300 on the xfire.

WTF is that about?

Is it bottling an i7 920 cpu or do I need to start an OC?

 

[Bensam123]

You know, it's kind of curious, anyone who has had experience with overclocking could easily tell you that the higher memory temps in the 6970 bioses is what is causing everyone grief. It would cause hard locks, artifacting, BSoDs, and other BS. The bios's everyone is referring them to have the higher clocks. Stock for 6950 is 1250 and for a 6970 it is 1375. While it may not seem like much, it is more then enough to cause issues if the memory isn't rated at that speed.

A lot of graphics card makers pick different memory and don't use the same stuff (something no one has looked into in here), that all depends on who their supplier is.

I'd suggest anyone having issues to downclock the memory speeds to the default speeds (1250). I'm surprised there aren't bios's up with just the GPU increase and shader unlock yet.

 

[tony849]

I went ahead and did this, but I'm constantly getting blue screens/crashes even going back to the 6950 bios, I think it's the drivers but I've reinstalled them a couple times. Any insight would be helpful.

 

[Torello]

I went ahead and did this, but I'm constantly getting blue screens/crashes even going back to the 6950 bios, I think it's the drivers but I've reinstalled them a couple times. Any insight would be helpful.

If you have Daemon Tools/Alcohol 120% installed, try uninstall SPTD driver.
(that works for me, same problem).

 

[pantherx12]

Here are the benches I did between the 5850 and 6950 16A @ 2560x1600

http://i54.tinypic.com/2yyb1x2.jpg

http://i55.tinypic.com/k4i61y.jpg

Im impressed that single 6950 is only 300 behind my 5850xfire.

Once I added 20% power my scores actually went backwards. Close to 300 on the xfire.

WTF is that about?

Is it bottling an i7 920 cpu or do I need to start an OC?

It pushes the card past it's powertune limits, basically it tells the card it can output 225 max (powertune settings are STILL 6950 after a flash)when you set the card to +20 and when in 6970 mode it goes past this point so throttles back.

For what ever reason + 10% stops it from doing this even though the power limit is less :S

 

[Kimo P]

Seems like the "Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus" fits the 6950 and 6970 series fine :-D

After some intense searching for cooling solutions for the 69xxx series, i stumbled upon this german site, actually showing the mounting on a 6970 card.

http://www.hardwareoverclock.com/Al...D6970_Arctic_Cooling_Accelero_Xtreme_Plus.htm

This looks very promising regarding temperature and noise levels, at least until some water cooling solution arrives.

 

[pantherx12]

Seems like the "Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus" fits the 6950 and 6970 series fine :-D

After some intense searching for cooling solutions for the 69xxx series, i stumbled upon this german site, actually showing the mounting on a 6970 card.

http://www.hardwareoverclock.com/Al...D6970_Arctic_Cooling_Accelero_Xtreme_Plus.htm

This looks very promising regarding temperature and noise levels, at least until some water cooling solution arrives.

All cooling solutions that fit 6870s/5870s/4870s will fit the 6970s only thing to worry about is VRM cooling which will require buying heatsinks especially sometimes.

 

[Kimo P]

All cooling solutions that fit 6870s/5870s/4870s will fit the 6970s only thing to worry about is VRM cooling which will require buying heatsinks especially sometimes.

Yes they do mention that also, and describe that they use parts from a setsugen 2 kit, as more practical and easy to fit, and recommend the voltage converter from the setsugen 2 kit

 

[Mirmendis]

I finally modded my 6950 with 6970 bios with 900/1415 but im a little worried about memory speed overclock after reading this thread :
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/898919-rip-gtx-570-a.html
Ok it's a 570 but it seems his oc killed the card.

Edit : Link fixed

 

[dimon222]

I finally modded my 6950 with 6970 bios with 900/1415 but im a little worried about memory speed overclock after reading this thread :
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/8989...gtx-570-a.html
Ok it's a 570 but it seems his oc killed the card.

Wrong link :shadedshu

 

[Mark22]

Seems like the "Arctic Cooling Accelero Xtreme Plus" fits the 6950 and 6970 series fine :-D

After some intense searching for cooling solutions for the 69xxx series, i stumbled upon this german site, actually showing the mounting on a 6970 card.

http://www.hardwareoverclock.com/Al...D6970_Arctic_Cooling_Accelero_Xtreme_Plus.htm

This looks very promising regarding temperature and noise levels, at least until some water cooling solution arrives.

I'll be trying a Zalman VF3000A later today, was just waiting on some thermal tape. This kept my old 5850 extremely cool and quiet so hopefully it'll fit this. It also has a vrm heatsink that screws to the board. With any luck it'll fit this.

 

[Qed]

I finally modded my 6950 with 6970 bios with 900/1415 but im a little worried about memory speed overclock after reading this thread :
http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/898919-rip-gtx-570-a.html
Ok it's a 570 but it seems his oc killed the card.

Edit : Link fixed

What you can do to stay within che chip specifications is to use the original Bios and and modify it with the php script. Change only the gpu speed up to 880 MHz and leave the memory clock as it (it is already at the certified speed).

 

[Kimo P]

I'll be trying a Zalman VF3000A later today, was just waiting on some thermal tape. This kept my old 5850 extremely cool and quiet so hopefully it'll fit this. It also has a vrm heatsink that screws to the board. With any luck it'll fit this.

Super

Plz post results if it works, and if any issues with the montage

 

[Bensam123]

I went ahead and did this, but I'm constantly getting blue screens/crashes even going back to the 6950 bios, I think it's the drivers but I've reinstalled them a couple times. Any insight would be helpful.

If you nuke your memory, in other words overclocking it to the 6970 speeds then stress testing it till it messes up pretty bad, it may permanently damage it. There is no amount of reverting that can reverse heat and overclocking damage. That's why I'm curious as to why there isn't a 6950-6970 bios with just the shaders unlocked yet and posted on the article.

The shader pretty much risk free, the overclocking memory by 125mhz is not.


I forgot to mention I successfully unlocked a Gigabyte 6950, then restored the clocks to 800/1250.

Curiously, I also noticed that the VDDC climbs to 1.115 now instead of 1.1. Is the bios I downloaded overvolting as well as turning up the GPU speed (zip file pack on the main article page)?