Enhance your 6950=unlock to 6970!

[RaZz!]

This has me worried and has possibly got us all fooled.
Think for a minute... the drivers think that you are still using a 6950 purely because of the divice ID and install drivers for it respectively.
Now, this would mean that the drivers are infact still using the 1408 shaders and not the 1536 we are lead to believe...
The performance increase could be purely from the extra core speed.
I found it weird that when i downclocked my flashed cards to 6950 speed i saw next to no gain...

Anyone care to speculate ?

i guess 3dmark recognizes the card with help of the device id. however, i don't think the device id influences the drivers that much. the amount of shaders, gpu clocks etc are hardcoded in the bios of the card. the drivers are just the interface for the OS to communicate with said bios and hardware.

btw, computerbase unlocked the card and ran tests with 6950 clocks: http://www.computerbase.de/news/hard...altet/#update1

there's definately an improvement even without increased clocks . even though it's less than i've expected.

[Andi64]

i guess 3dmark recognizes the card with help of the device id. however, i don't think the device id influences the drivers that much. the amount of shaders, gpu clocks etc are hardcoded in the bios of the card. the drivers are just the interface for the OS to communicate with said bios and hardware.

btw, computerbase unlocked the card and ran tests with 6950 clocks: http://www.computerbase.de/news/hard...altet/#update1

there's definately an improvement even without increased clocks . even though it's less than i've expected.

1FPS average in most games. At least is a free FPS, but the difference is 3%?

[Stormgiant]

test made with same clock before and after flash

[PatRaceTin]

Ahhhhhhhhhh that 2 BIOS Switch made for This!!!!! AMD Know

[Gilgamesh]

1FPS average in most games. At least is a free FPS, but the difference is 3%?

Posted same time ago, HD6950 vs HD6970 same clock (2-3% blue bar) :



no "epic" increase for mod HD6950@6970, but is free, so, why not?

[7he ]-[0rr0r]

Ahhhhhhhhhh that 2 BIOS Switch made for This!!!!! AMD Know

Surely doesn't seem to be made for massive overclocking ventures so far I was really hoping to see the limits broken and some nice overclocked speeds on 6970's, 50's before my own card arrived.
So far the bios switch is not to exciting or needed with 6970 I think a lot of 6970 users who spent the extra cash like myself would appreciate AMD tossing us a bone and at least giving another tool not limited like catalyst if they were to frightened by the prospect of unlimited clocking right in the driver.

[zalbard]

Yeah, looks like they will have issues selling 6970s now.

[[XC] hipno650]

Yeah, looks like they will have issues selling 6970s now.

I doubt that, considering the amount of people who buy these cards that will know about the BIOS unlock is about 2%... thats what makes us on XS special compared to the rest of "enthusiasts" if you can call them that. I would like to see a few more results but so far this looks very promising and a great value add for the 6950... after all why pay extra for a 6970 or a GTX 570 when you can get the same performance out of a cheaper card, and the BIOS switch makes this a virtual no risk try to boot

[zalbard]

It's on all the news sites. People who spend 300 EUR on a video card do at least that minimal bit of reading.

[RaZz!]

Yeah, looks like they will have issues selling 6970s now.

on one hand you're right, but on the other hand i think a lot of people who wanted to buy a gtx570 will now have a second look at the 6950. me included.

3 days ago it was still 6970 vs. 570 for me, with the 570 outpacing the 6970 by a small margin in the games i play (e.g. bc2, where the 6970 has significantly lower min fps than the 570).
now that we can know we can unlock a 6950 to a full 6970 everything changed for me and i'd buy a 6950 over a 570 anytime due to its price.

so it's a win for amd, as i didn't buy a 570. it's better for amd to sell a lower priced 6950 than no card at all

Had to whip out paint really quick.

Edit- Do I have any idea what it is or does? Nope.
I just know they aren't 100% identical.

any news on the differences? makes me wonder why these small parts are on the 6950 but not 6970.

[Mad Pistol]

Had to whip out paint really quick.

Edit- Do I have any idea what it is or does? Nope.
I just know they aren't 100% identical.

Interesting. I never noticed that.

Extra power regulation?

[Loque]

Interesting. I never noticed that.

Extra power regulation?

nah, those are the hidden shadders to reach the magic 1920 number :p

[Eastcoasthandle]

Has anyone tried to uninstall then reinstall cat drivers once the mod is made?

[Andypro1]

I flashed my Sapphire 6950 and now have artifacts / flickering textures in Super Meat Boy. There's almost no GPU load so I assume some of my additional shaders are in fact faulty. Just a word of caution to those of you going out to buy a 6950 and expect it to run perfectly as a 6970.

[[XC] hipno650]

It's on all the news sites. People who spend 300 EUR on a video card do at least that minimal bit of reading.

you would be surprised how little research so many people do before they buy, besides most people would not want to "chance it" im talking about people who don't oc there system, they build it and use it thats it. which to be honest make up way more of the custom built computer market then people who OC, most people won't even use the automated overclocking features of there Mobo's and most people use stock cooling. such a shame I know but thats the way of things. those people will still buy the 6970 over the 6950. however that does not change the fact that for all of us who like to get the best deal and the most out of our systems this is just great news.

[vvulture]

Oh yea forgot about the magic switch xD Have you tried it yet?

Edit: I also saw your posts on TPU, are you not able to run 950/1450?

Nah.. no way i can run at those speeds yet. Keeps crashing on me.
Will wait until i can incease voltage and try again.

[MisterMagoo]

Nah.. no way i can run at those speeds yet. Keeps crashing on me.
Will wait until i can incease voltage and try again.

Bummer..

Makes me want to go to the store and get another one, seem to be good clockers in that batch.

[BeepBeep2]

I hope you are right MM, but i feel like something is not right...
3Dmark11 still sees the cards as 6950's, so logically if it can still differentiate after flashing, i'm sure the drivers can too...

Time will tell i guess... as soon as we can change to the correct device ID.

Actually I could make my 4850 look like a 4770 with RBE to applications and it still scores the same.

[BababooeyHTJ]

I flashed my Sapphire 6950 and now have artifacts / flickering textures in Super Meat Boy. There's almost no GPU load so I assume some of my additional shaders are in fact faulty. Just a word of caution to those of you going out to buy a 6950 and expect it to run perfectly as a 6970.

Thats also a common AMD problem. It happens with my 6870 and I saw a youtube video with several comments saying that they see the same thing. I wouldn't worry about it.

I assume that the "artifacts" look like this?

[kuroikenshi]

I doubt that, considering the amount of people who buy these cards that will know about the BIOS unlock is about 2%... thats what makes us on XS special compared to the rest of "enthusiasts" if you can call them that. I would like to see a few more results but so far this looks very promising and a great value add for the 6950... after all why pay extra for a 6970 or a GTX 570 when you can get the same performance out of a cheaper card, and the BIOS switch makes this a virtual no risk try to boot

mate do not forget youtube tutorials...

[96redformula]

Thats also a common AMD problem. It happens with my 6870 and I saw a youtube video with several comments saying that they see the same thing. I wouldn't worry about it.

I assume that the "artifacts" look like this?

I have three same problem, its a driver bug

[7he ]-[0rr0r]

It's on all the news sites. People who spend 300 EUR on a video card do at least that minimal bit of reading.

Well I ordered it Christmas night (still waiting on delivery) I'm not sure when it really broke as news but I'd not read it at that point. I kind of think this takes the limelight off the 6970 as a flagship and puts it unofficially on the 6950 in the enthusiasts eye.

[7he ]-[0rr0r]

Those artifacts are reminiscent of the ones you would get with bad 9500 to 9700 cards though so i could totally see why even if you have experience with such mods why you would think that. Funny that this is the game you are using with all that graphics power by the way.

[BababooeyHTJ]

Well I ordered it Christmas night (still waiting on delivery) I'm not sure when it really broke as news but I'd not read it at that point. I kind of think this takes the limelight off the 6970 as a flagship and puts it unofficially on the 6950 in the enthusiasts eye.

You are still guaranteed a higher binned gpu with faster ram. It's also not like the price difference is as large as say GTX570 and 580.

It's still kind of link saying why buy an X4 965 when you can just buy a 945 and overclock it. People spend a lot more on binned cpus especially on the Intel side.

[Budwise]

Unlocked my XFX no problem and ran some benchies. What i didnt realize is my old Afterburner setting was still sticking the core at 950 from my 6870! No artifacts or issues!