6950 to 6970 flash thread

3dmark11 must be SO nvidia biased ...

With my GTX 470 at 800/1900 i got 5.3k, with the 6970 at 940/1400 I get 5.4k ... but in games it destroys it, crysis WH is about 15-20% faster.

In vantage I get around 23k with the 6970 and 19k with the 470, with physx disabled for a fair comparison

Having said that, I was pushing the 470 right to the edge with as much voltage as it would take, and I haven't even touched the voltage yet on the 6970! So maybe I can do better when I put the voltage unlocked BIOS on :D

Sapphire 6950 flashed to Sapphire 6970 bios here.

Only using a small overclock (didn't try higher): ATI overdrive -> 900MHz / 1400Mhz / +20% power limit.
No artifacts, not noisy (I will not even watercool it), temperatures staid under 90°c with FuMark while overclocked (TechPowerUp reached 92°c at stock speed).

Too good to be true, let's hope it will survive at least one year :)

xfx6950 flashed to asus 6970 bios, been gaming with it for the last 4 hours stable at 950/1450 cant go higher cause of CCC limits.

:down:
I noticed that i get some strange dot artefacts in Crysis Warhead especially when there are a lot of trees like in the ambush map. Unfortunately this happens regardless of clocks. So some shaders must be broken.
The effect is pretty minor though, so I will keep the card.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sebastione

:down:
I noticed that i get some strange dot artefacts in Crysis Warhead especially when there are a lot of trees like in the ambush map. Unfortunately this happens regardless of clocks. So some shaders must be broken.
The effect is pretty minor though, so I will keep the card.

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Don't worry, i got that on my 4890 too, as well as my 6950.

Well, i flashed the modded ASUS 6950 BIOS with higher shaders, and no more artifacts in ati tool! Seems it's the best way to do it. But also, smart doctor now works ;)

Scaling seems sort of poor though. To get 1000mhz i need 1.26v to at least finish the benchmarks. 1.24v crashed in crysis after 2 loops, but 1.26v passed all loops plus another 3 loops at 1920x1080. With stock 6970 vgpu (1.175v), that gets me to 975 benchable, so my card needs about another 0.1v for 25mhz...

http://paulyd.co.uk/oz/6950flash%201.26v.jpg

Believe me these errors dissappear once i revert back to 1408 shaders.
Still no major issue for me though.

Notice the yellow dot?

http://img526.imageshack.us/f/frame000096.jpg/

http://img23.imageshack.us/i/frame000637.jpg/

Anyone else affected maybe ?

Do you have a link for this modded Asus Bios of yours?

Ahh i see, i thought you meant black artifacts in the trees, which is what i always get in warhead.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...5&postcount=68

The megaupload link is the modded ASUS 6950 BIOS, no more artifacts and voltage setting works in smartdoctor :) Just that it doesn't change in GPU-Z, still reads as 1.10v.

A 3DMark11 run (6k :D) : http://3dmark.com/3dm11/315459;jsess...tfRVAufKdPjkaJ

And a vantage run:

http://paulyd.co.uk/oz/6950flash%20v...01000_1475.jpg


Finally beat my old 4890 crossfire result, which got a GPU score of 22,900.

HIS 6950 popped it in and flashed to asus 6970 890/1375 bios

Booted stuck core to 950 ran heaven maxed out 8x AA and 16X AF extreme tess...

Ran it 3 times not a HITCH, 67c max with fan at 50%

I think I might be happy.

Edit: not sure what the power control settings effect/do left it at 0% can someone chime in on this pls?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rattle

Edit: not sure what the power control settings effect/do left it at 0% can someone chime in on this pls?

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Take a look at the last paragraph in this post, i think i got it right: http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...7&postcount=25


Did a little bit of testing, and with power slider set to +20%, i get throttling in furmark with anything over 950 core :( Even worse with xtreme burning mode and displacement mapping enabled... 950 core even throttles with those options, that's just using 1.17v.

I know it's furmark, but i'm trying to find a good 24/7 overclock, and i would like that bit of headroom and peace of mind where it won't throttle in furmark.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rattle

Edit: not sure what the power control settings effect/do left it at 0% can someone chime in on this pls?

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Check the article from TechPowerUp:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/...ng/vidcard/159

And it's true in my case, with +20% I get like 30+ more FPS under FuMark so PowerTune indeed limits the power usage like if it was still a 6950.

But you don't really need that tweak imho except for the FuMark effect ;)

Just tried 1.25 @940 in Crysis @ 3840x2400 and could not see any throttling.
The only thing left to be done is to edit the fan profile so that i dont have to switch manually.

I hate the smart doctor GUI, so annoying to work with. Looking forward to trixx with voltage support... much better interface.

I'm going to see how far i can go before it throttles under normal games.

looks like 925/1400 is completely stable, 950 restarts the driver sometimes in bc2 but only in bc2 out of everything i tried. stock volts 1.175.

I am happy with my "unlocked 6950" so far.

Should we be worried about ram timings on these cards? They are different right? I flashed and now reading some peoples posts lol about ram timings and voltages being different makes me worried. whats the differences between the 6950 + shaders bios and the 6970 bios?

Well, so far no throttling in crysis or GPU tool stability tester. I've tried up to 1025 with 1.31v.

1000MHz looks to be stable with 1.25v. I tested for 20mins with GPU tool stability tester (1.23v artifacted after a few minutes, 1.24v didn't, so 1.25v looks to be a sturdy voltage). Furmark throttles at this clock so that's why i used GPU tool, which is pretty good actually, just not for testing memory. I also let heaven benchmark loop for quite a while with 8xAA, 16xAF and normal tessellation. This is with 70% fan speed though... temps were hitting high 50's, i will have to see if the voltage is any different with a more conservative fan speed.

I'm gona try get 1050MHz benchable ;) I think it will probably need about 1.38v, voltage seems to scale about 0.06-0.07v every 25MHz.

edit: meh, couldn't get 1050MHz to run gpu tool for longer than 10 seconds, kept crashing out, tried up to 1.40v. Would try more but that's just poor scaling past 1GHz. 1025MHz needs at least 1.31... I think i'll stick to 1Ghz. Probably just needs some cold or something.

edit2: another meh... 1ghz crashed out with 1.26v on 44% fan speed (most i can bare for 24/7). I swear, these gpu's need water to get 1ghz+ stable for 24/7. That or a noise level similar to my san ace at full speed :rofl:

Sticking to 950 with 1.15v for 24/7... and 1450 on the memory.

I tried the modded asus 6950 bios and smartdoctor, and it boosted the voltage and let me get the core to 1000mhz with 1.3. But I also got alot of stuttering so I just flashed back to the asus6970 bios which didn't have that problem.

I today got 2x HIS 6850 and replaced my 5870 (1 GB) CF setup.

I flashed them and they run great in CF. I think it might be interesting for some of you that they also work in CF.

They run at 880/1375 and + 20 % stable.

Im impressed which boost i got because of the 2 GB especially in BFBC2 (running @ 2560x1600).

That was a very good deal and im very happy.



Some bench results: 3D Mark 20011 (Peformance mode)

5870 CF Stock (850/1200): P7840
5870 CF OC (1000/1250): P8746

6950 CF Stock (800/1250): P8390
6950 CF modded (880/1375): P9180

so also in low res a little more performance.

But in Hi res DX11 gaming the new Combo rocks and is faster with higher AA Settings because of 2 GB Memory :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alucard-

I tried the modded asus 6950 bios and smartdoctor, and it boosted the voltage and let me get the core to 1000mhz with 1.3. But I also got alot of stuttering so I just flashed back to the asus6970 bios which didn't have that problem.

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Hmmm, i noticed this too eventually. But guess what it was... smart doctor, yep, i closed it and no more stuttering! FPS is a lot steadier.

*waits for better software* :down:

Also, i have a slight suspicion that this modded 6950 BIOS only unlocks the shaders and not the TMU's... not totally sure though. But it would explain a lot. It's hard to tell because the difference would be quite small that it might just be variances in each run.

prefer to see 1 GH on furmark here ..........

Check this:

6950 modded BIOS 800/1250

http://paulyd.co.uk/oz/6950modded.jpg


6950 modded BIOS 880/1375

http://paulyd.co.uk/oz/6950modded+.jpg


Now compare those results to these, which were with the ASUS 6970 BIOS:
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...&postcount=758

Again, not a huge difference, could very well be down to variance in the runs... Even still, it could be down to different memory timings like other people have said :shrug:

Either way, i'm waiting for trixx or RBE support, then i'll probably play about on the proper 6970 BIOS again.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sebastione

Notice the yellow dot?

http://img526.imageshack.us/f/frame000096.jpg/

http://img23.imageshack.us/i/frame000637.jpg/

Anyone else affected maybe ?

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I'm getting them too but only with AA, clock speed doesn't seem to make a difference. I also saw this with my 6870 so I'm pretty sure that it's a driver bug. I also noticed that you can't force AA driverside in 10.12 WHQL in Crysis DX10/9. I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'm going to flash back and see if I still see this, the ATITool artifacts, and Super Meat Boy which is worse than it was on my 6870.

Ok, so I shutdown my computer and flipped the switch and I'm still seeing this Dots in Crysis on High but like before only with AA. I am no longer seeing those artifacts in Atitool which I also never saw on my 6870. In super Meat Bot the artifacts aren't anywhere near as bad either, it's the same thing that I saw on my 6870 now. I'm going to have to try this moddified 6950 bios now. If anyone has a link that would be great.

If anyone with a real Sapphire 6970 wants to run Atitool it would be great to know if that shows artifacts too.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Oztopher

Hmmm, i noticed this too eventually. But guess what it was... smart doctor, yep, i closed it and no more stuttering! FPS is a lot steadier.

*waits for better software* :down:

Also, i have a slight suspicion that this modded 6950 BIOS only unlocks the shaders and not the TMU's... not totally sure though. But it would explain a lot. It's hard to tell because the difference would be quite small that it might just be variances in each run.

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The difference might be powertune for some reason it likes to disappear and I have to reinstall the drivers to get it back. I'm still confused why the temps are so different between the modded6950 bios and asus6970. For now I'll settle for 920/1450 until proper software or bios voltage mod comes out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alucard-

I figured out my artifact problem was that eq aa is not compatible with supersampling aa or leaving the enhance aa setting on . I guess there are still some driver bugs, and a new radeon pro with eq settings would help.

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quote bump again. Some artifacting problems are driver issues probably, guys.