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6950 might have potential to unlock 128 extra shaders.

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mdcomp said:
Just tried it. Works like a charm!
:)

Haven't overclocked yet, but I was able to run Vantage at stock 6970 speeds/shaders. Definitely glad I went for this instead of shelling out the extra $60.

Matt
Click to expand...

Grats. Did you power up the limit at CCC by 20%? Or you didnt touch power tune at all?
 
Curious what the power tune is supposed to do? From my testing (checking voltage through GPUz), it does nothing for load voltage. My maximum voltage is 1.175 no matter what the power tune thing is set for.
 
It's no longer economical to manufacture a GPU for every product stream (high-end, mid-range, low-end). It's like the Phenom unlocking scene. They are x3 cores for a reason - they failed to work as an x4 under normal conditions, so they branded it as an x3. Intel does it, everybody does.

It's just a matter of having the right tools to unlock these disabled features, but whether or not the component runs stable is a matter of trial and error.

However, I think AMD will soon implement a hardware lock, similar to what nVidia is doing, to prevent this.
 
Im not certain Intel does it with i7 stuff... duals are duals, not disabled quads... right?

Nvidia's 465's unlock to 470... did they forget to lock that one out? (not being a smartarse, that is a genuine question for the record :))
 
doz said:
Laser cuts are nothing. You forget the old Athlon XP CPUs? :D
Click to expand...

The same with the SLOT1 CPUS. Intel had a problem with people taking Celerons and turning them into PIIs, and then reselling them as PIIs.

Then there was the AMD Geode transformed into a Sempron 2800+ that counterfeiters would sell.

EarthDog said:
Im not certain Intel does it with i7 stuff... duals are duals, not disabled quads... right?

Nvidia's 465's unlock to 470... did they forget to lock that one out? (not being a smartarse, that is a genuine question for the record :))
Click to expand...

I have not heard of anyone 'unlocking' any current Intel cpu (i5/i7/i3) to something higher-end. I don't think they that sort of thing (disable cores)
 
doz said:
Curious what the power tune is supposed to do? From my testing (checking voltage through GPUz), it does nothing for load voltage. My maximum voltage is 1.175 no matter what the power tune thing is set for.
Click to expand...

Powertune limits clock speeds,when the chip overall power consumption exceeds preset limits,powertune does not adjust voltage.




EarthDog said:
Im not certain Intel does it with i7 stuff... duals are duals, not disabled quads... right?
Click to expand...

There is a 1336 dual core cpu,server only,its a native quadcore.Disabled HT on quad core i5 comes to mind too.

EarthDog said:
Nvidia's 465's unlock to 470... did they forget to lock that one out? (not being a smartarse, that is a genuine question for the record :))
Click to expand...

Short answer is no.But how about you start a thread in Nvidia section asking the same question ? Stay on topic.
 
A rare CPU.. yes, sure. Thanks for the info! :thup:

And we are talking PHYSICAL cores here, not HT.

Short answer is no.But how about you start a thread in Nvidia section asking the same question ? Stay on topic.
Click to expand...
Please. I just answered the question someone else asked...sorrrrrrrrrrE. maybe direct that towards the right person next time. :fight: :grouphug:
 
Woah woah woah... unlocking of cards... saving $50-80. Well good thing I didn't buy that 570 just yet :)

Reminds me of my X800Pro and if not mistaken my first ATI card.
 
I have an unlocked Asus 6950 running currently and I can report that while running default 6950 clocks, the thermals remain the same while netting me about a about a 5% increase in frames in the handful of benchies that I ran. It is what it is, but, given the effort to gain said 5%, it was well worth the little amount of time.
 
Last edited:
Has anyone tried this on a Gigabyte card? They're up on Newegg with a $20 MIR but I want to make sure it won't kill the card before buying it :X
 
So does this unlocking feature make this card like a 6960 :) Well I'm definitely getting a 6950 but I've never flashed a video cards BIOS. Hopefully not too hard. Question about the power consumption because it only has two 6 pins where as a 6970 has an 8 and a 6 pin so how limited would your overclocking be after you flash it?
 
Someone correct me if I'm wrong (more than likely), but aren't the two extra wires in the 8-pin connectors just extra ground wires?

IIRC, the PCIe slot goes up to 75w with each 6/8 pin connector being another 75w. :shrug:
 
My AMD HD 6950 just arrived today everything is running awesome, I'm glad I purchased this. I'll stick with this for now, I'm kinda scared to flash it to 6970. Well soon hopefully when the 6950 to 6970MOD is going great. Because it sounds so stupid if AMD is allowing 6970 performance at 6950 price point.
 
Could everyone keep it down on this forum... Some newegg rep is going to read this and jack up the price on the 6950 before I can get one... Was kinda interested, now after this I'm definitely going to be buying a card that I have no use for other then benching.. LOL
 
The only real downside seems to be that unlocked 6950's probably won't overclock as well as original 6970's once voltage control comes. Still, generally better to have the extra shaders than higher clocks, depending...

Would be most accurate to determine this with comparisons between a 6950 max oc and a modded 6950's max oc. But we probably won't see much of that until Afterburner adds voltage control for 6900's.
 
ChanceCoats123 said:
Someone correct me if I'm wrong (more than likely), but aren't the two extra wires in the 8-pin connectors just extra ground wires?

IIRC, the PCIe slot goes up to 75w with each 6/8 pin connector being another 75w. :shrug:
Click to expand...
The 8 pin carries more power though. If you do the math, thats only 225W. PCIe spec is up to 300W.
 
I'm know a heavily overclocked 6950 at say past 1ghz and over 1550mhz on the memory would be a stock 6970 and due to power constraints on the 6950, your max oc wouldn't pass 900mhz so AMD is really at no loss and the performance will be very similar.
 
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