6950 to 6970 flash thread

[st0ned]

Here I've found that's the best option . Because with 6970 bios it's a bit harsh to up the voltage

[BababooeyHTJ]

No, this is the best option imo. You can't go wrong with a modified version of the bios that shipped on your card. Out of the three cards that I have used this on not one couldn't hit at least 6970 speeds on stock voltage.

[st0ned]

That wont solve the problem of higher clocks... And you will have to disable UPLS...

[BababooeyHTJ]

Both of which are handled by Sapphire Trixx.

[soyea]

my xfx hits 940 on stock volts and blacks out at 950, i'm lazy to see if I can go higher with 6970 volts on the core. my mem goes up to 1400 but I didnt check If I can go higher as Im not sure whether it really gives me an fps advantage at this point and I know how memory instability can be the cause of problems in games.

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edit

my xfx goes up to 990 with 1.175vcore, I got to 990 and it froze with 1k on core, so I backed down to 990, however I didnt really see much of an improvement with 990 over 940 with 1400 mem so I started upping my mem and right now i'm at 1470 without messing with mem voltage, I noticed a very large improvement in fps (bfbc2 oasis went from 44 to like 75) im puzzled if I should go any higher with my mem. I think im gonna stay at where im at right now as the performance is very pleasing. I feel that my cpu might be holding me back a little bit but I cant really oc that much further, 3.4ghz seems to be the only stable max oc but bulldozer is coming so I will switch.

[Singh400]

Flashed my XDX HD6950 2GB to unlock the additional shaders only. I didn't fancy pumping in extra voltage, the extra shaders will do me fine.

[soyea]

Flashed my XDX HD6950 2GB to unlock the additional shaders only. I didn't fancy pumping in extra voltage, the extra shaders will do me fine.

you can bring it to 6970 without messing with any voltage, atleast mine did, actually went higher than 6970.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Flashed my XDX HD6950 2GB to unlock the additional shaders only. I didn't fancy pumping in extra voltage, the extra shaders will do me fine.

I agree with you. My cards still hit 900/1350 (I haven't tried for more) on a shader unlocked bios at stock voltage. They run much cooler than with a 6970 bios.

[turok_t]

For my 6950 unlocked shaders only to 6970, I realized that for Crysis 2 I see some flickering and flashing if I set my clock speeds to 880/1300 on 1.1-1.17mV. However, if I set the voltage to 1.185-1.19mV, its more stable and the flickering is gone.

Now when I was playing DiRT 2, I can set 880/1300 at 1.1mV, and it is completely stable, with no flickering of artifacts!

So my question is, how come Crysis 2 requires more Vcore than other games? Is it that graphically intense, or need more juice in order for the game to be stable?

[soyea]

I think its your individual config or drivers. I dont have to bump anything for crysis

[JohnnyV]

I agree with you. My cards still hit 900/1350 (I haven't tried for more) on a shader unlocked bios at stock voltage. They run much cooler than with a 6970 bios.

I got my 2 MSI 6950's yesterday and benching with 1 card first... then I want to test with 2 in crossfire and finally flash both and see the difference.
Tried a single card with some gaming as well but the temps were quite shocking. When I exited the game and checked Ati CCC it showed 100c temp..... that's totally stock but way too high imho. Think it's better to wait with flashing until I get a decent cooler for them. Still in doubt between the zalman VF3000 and the Accelero Xtreme plus. Since I want to have them in CF for gaming space may become a bit of an issue. Anyone tried 2 cards with the accellero coolers in cf?

edit:
Well the high temp seems to have been caused by my doing. I switched on manual control of the fanspeed and must have set it too low. On auto the card hits about 70c while gaming.

I just unlocked the shaders of the first card by using RBE + winflash and it works fine. Now to test how far I can go with core and mem speeds. How did you guys work around the CCC overdrive limits? I read in RBE that it's quite tricky to change the max values. Perhaps I can use other software (MSI Afterburner perhaps? haven't even installed that yet ) to test stable values and flash that in later?

[JohnnyV]

I'm having a bit of a weird problem after flashing a 6970 bios into my 6950. After flashing the pc reboots and everything is fine. When back on desktop I can run benchmarks etc. and no problem at all. Then, when shutting down the pc completely and turning it back on I get a BSOD when my desktop loads. I have to flip the switch and flash in a normal bios or one with only the shaders unlocked after which everything works fine. Does it mean the card is not stable with the 70 bios or could there be something else wrong? I find it strange that it works without issues after rebooting with the 70 bios?!?

edit: Apparently it is the memory that doesnt like 70 speeds
Got bsod when starting a game and now at 880 core and 1300 mem it works. Any tips to get the mem to 70 values and be stable or shall i just try to increase the core speed a bit to balance out the difference?

[BababooeyHTJ]

Even at 1300 you'll start to see diminishing returns with clock speeds on the memory anyways. My cards are stable at 1350mhz and I'm content with that. I haven't even tried for more.

[HelixPC]

My cards can do 1375 on the memory, stock volts. Anything higher is a no go.

[ViRuS2k]

Here is another furmark bench with 920/1375 on both cards with a power control of 13% to stop the cards throttling when overclocked with vsync disabled

as you can see cards are completely stable and the highest temps that my system would ever get i get no where near these fan speeds or temps with normal games



and yes i also wedged my cards apart now and the temps are much improved. lol

[WangChung]

Looks like there's another customer in the mix!

I am using the ASUS HD6970 Overclock Edition BIOS from here (http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/8...48.101203.html). I also tried the more popular one (here, http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/9...48.101124.html) and it appears both are working fine for me. I'm going to stick with the Overclock Edition version for now, I haven't found any objections online to do otherwise.

Stock card is a Asus HD6950 Voltage Tweak Edition (http://www.amazon.com/DisplayPort-PC...3443040&sr=8-1). I'll post some pics later!

*EDIT* - should I unlock the cards, the ATI Overdrive, before I put the Crossfire bridge on?

*EDIT 2* - results!

Before:


After:

[Wumpus]

anyone know if there are 1GB cards that also unlock? or only reference?

[WangChung]

*EDIT* - should I unlock the cards, the ATI Overdrive, before I put the Crossfire bridge on or enable Crossfire?

Anyone?

[zalbard]

I would unlock them one by one if I were you.

anyone know if there are 1GB cards that also unlock? or only reference?

Some do, use W1zzard's tutorial on TPU. Way more risky and depends on the model, though.

[twistedneck]

also you may want to use sapphire trix, it disables the low power mode that causes some of these unlocked cards not to work properly in crossfire.

[WangChung]

For some reason Auto Tuner in my CCC is missing... is this a known issue or something? I was looking forward to just starting out using that then going from there, but I've checked and it's nowhere to be seen. Any ideas?

[zalbard]

I think it's long gone, just use manual settings.

[trt740]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121431
ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/2GD5 I am wondering

[zalbard]

It's non-reference. Could try extracting BIOS and using the unlock script...
I Googled some, and it seems to work for people. YMMV, of course.

[trt740]

It's non-reference. Could try extracting BIOS and using the unlock script...
I Googled some, and it seems to work for people. YMMV, of course.

So you me just try to unlock only the shaders?