6950 might have potential to unlock 128 extra shaders.

Peeved Kitten · Dec 28, 2010

Mine is certified at 80% so that's what, around 700 watts guaranteed safe? I got the PSU for like $55 on a Newegg sale so being able to use that instead of having to upgrade is absolutely fantastic. Thanks!

RADIO_ACTIVE · Dec 28, 2010

Here is a link to a step by step guide to flash the bios of the 6950 => 6970

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159
If It were me and I bought a 6970, I would take it back... no reason to own one IMO if you can do this...

Peeved Kitten · Dec 28, 2010

RADIO_ACTIVE said:
Here is a link to a step by step guide to flash the bios of the 6950 => 6970
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159
If It were me and I bought a 6970, I would take it back... no reason to own one IMO if you can do this...

Until you buy your 6950 and it has a damaged set of shaders and you get a 6950 instead of a 6970. Not all of those cards are guaranteed to do this, and if you really want that performance Guaranteed I think the 6970 is the way to go. There is also no telling how AMD will respond to this. They could be locking it down via hardware right now on all new cards released. I think before you go I'll just get a 6950 and turn it into a 6970 you might want to weight the pros and cons. I'm really hoping that when it comes to overclocking the 6970 will outshine the 6950, but we'll see.

I'm of the opinion what you buy is what you get, anything else is just gravy.

EarthDog · Dec 28, 2010

Peeved Kitten said:
Mine is certified at 80% so that's what, around 700 watts guaranteed safe? I got the PSU for like $55 on a Newegg sale so being able to use that instead of having to upgrade is absolutely fantastic. Thanks!

It doesnt work like that. If its a 950W PSU, its a 950W PSU. THe reading at the wall is where you would take in to account efficiency at the wall. For example, if you are showing 500W at the wall, with an 80% efficient PSU in that power range, then your actual usage is around 400W.

Peeved Kitten · Dec 28, 2010

EarthDog said:
It doesnt work like that. If its a 950W PSU, its a 950W PSU. THe reading at the wall is where you would take in to account efficiency at the wall. For example, if you are showing 500W at the wall, with an 80% efficient PSU in that power range, then your actual usage is around 400W.

Wow I totally misunderstood how that worked! Thanks Earthdog for clarifying that, that will help me A lot!

RADIO_ACTIVE · Dec 28, 2010

Peeved Kitten said:
Until you buy your 6950 and it has a damaged set of shaders and you get a 6950 instead of a 6970. Not all of those cards are guaranteed to do this, and if you really want that performance Guaranteed I think the 6970 is the way to go. There is also no telling how AMD will respond to this. They could be locking it down via hardware right now on all new cards released. I think before you go I'll just get a 6950 and turn it into a 6970 you might want to weight the pros and cons. I'm really hoping that when it comes to overclocking the 6970 will outshine the 6950, but we'll see.

I'm of the opinion what you buy is what you get, anything else is just gravy.

Out of all the stories on it, the success rate was very good, chances are you will be able to do it,

Peeved Kitten · Dec 28, 2010

RADIO_ACTIVE said:
Out of all the stories on it, the success rate was very good, chances are you will be able to do it,

However, even in our small sampling we have people who are reporting it didn't work 100%.

IE:

flopper1 said:
one of mine unlocked fine, the other artifacts.
works well for many.

I'm absolutely not saying don't do it, I'm just saying that you may not get what you want if you go that route. We all know of cpu's that overclock amazingly well, but we also know no overclock is guaranteed. Every bit of silicone is different.

If you feel the chance of getting a 6950 that is unlockable is very good, go for it. I might pick up a 6950 and flash it instead of buying another 6970, but right now the sample size is a bit small. I've been searching and haven't found more than 100 people that are saying success. It's just a bit small of a sample size to really give us the full picture right now.

If it works on almost every card besides a bad apple, I certainly will be on the 6950 flashed to 6970 band-wagon, but I won't be sending my 6970 back, especially since I just ordered a full cover block for it today!

kayson · Dec 28, 2010

Can't you just revert back to the original bios if its not working....

repilce · Dec 28, 2010

yes, and it's made easy with the new bios switches, just make sure you save a copy of your good bios before you start..

deathman20 · Dec 28, 2010

repilce said:
yes, and it's made easy with the new bios switches, just make sure you save a copy of your good bios before you start..

Why the default bios is on the second switch which is hard coded into the card, can't be writen too.

repilce · Dec 28, 2010

Well i suppose you could backup a good bios to flash with AFTER the fact.. just saying.. you have to make a copy to flash with.

Elmer- · Dec 29, 2010

I totally agree. Probably the 6950MOD6970 wont overclock as good as the 6950's or 6970's.

kayson · Dec 29, 2010

Well I just pulled the trigger on a Gigabyte 6950. I'll unlock that bad boy and see how it OC's

flopper · Dec 30, 2010

Peeved Kitten said:
However, even in our small sampling we have people who are reporting it didn't work 100%.

IE:

I'm absolutely not saying don't do it, I'm just saying that you may not get what you want if you go that route. We all know of cpu's that overclock amazingly well, but we also know no overclock is guaranteed. Every bit of silicone is different.

If you feel the chance of getting a 6950 that is unlockable is very good, go for it. I might pick up a 6950 and flash it instead of buying another 6970, but right now the sample size is a bit small. I've been searching and haven't found more than 100 people that are saying success. It's just a bit small of a sample size to really give us the full picture right now.

If it works on almost every card besides a bad apple, I certainly will be on the 6950 flashed to 6970 band-wagon, but I won't be sending my 6970 back, especially since I just ordered a full cover block for it today!

using my own bios mod with wizzards vbs script my shaders are now unlocked, without any artifacts.
870mhz max current on stock volt.
sems the 6970 bios screwed it up for some reason and I assume the timings/volt to ram.

Laoag24 · Dec 31, 2010

I attempted to do this. Failed

I followed TechPowerUp instructions. But when I click AtiWinflash it says I need to run it as Administrator then after that pop ups this thing comes up again and says critical files missing. So basically I can't run AtiWinFlash without running it as administrator. So I ran it as administrator and save my current bios then flashed to 6970 then I had a blue screen. So I turn off my system then switch to position 2 then boot to windows and switch to position 1 then flashed back to my original 6950 bios. Can you guys help me flash my bios to 6970?

-Thanks

Rattle · Dec 31, 2010

dont use atiwinflash its junk

make a bootable usb drive.

put the bios on it with atiflash

Run atiwinflash -unlockrom 0 followed by atiwinflash -f -p 0 bios.bin

Laoag24 · Jan 1, 2011

Rattle said:
dont use atiwinflash its junk

make a bootable usb drive.

put the bios on it with atiflash

Run atiwinflash -unlockrom 0 followed by atiwinflash -f -p 0 bios.bin

@ Rattle thanks for the quick response,

So I will open CMD and type in atiwinflash -unlockrom 0 then after atiwinflash -f -p 0 bios.bin

after that I can flash the 6970 bios?

Knufire · Jan 1, 2011

replace bios.bin with the name of the 6970 bios, then the second command should flash it.

Rattle · Jan 1, 2011

Laoag24 said:
@ Rattle thanks for the quick response,

So I will open CMD and type in atiwinflash -unlockrom 0 then after atiwinflash -f -p 0 bios.bin

after that I can flash the 6970 bios?

http://www.techpowerup.com/printarticle.php?id=34

heres a good guide on how to setup the usb and the commands

atiflash -s 0 oldbios.bin

use ^^this^^ command to save your current bios to the same usb your flashing from, later you can rename it newyears.bin or whatever you like.

Just make sure your using the newest atiflash and the correct bios.

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

also for your information

a 6970 uses 1.175 volts on core and 1.6 volts on ram

the 6950 is 1.1 and 1.5 if you dont want to overvolt the card but unlock the shaders and still retain 6950 voltage you can use this.

extract wizzards zip to a regular folder thro your stock bios in there and run the exe. it will tell you its been modded, then thro that on your usb and go for it.

heres that also.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=2137760&postcount=381

Jhatfie · Jan 1, 2011

Reporting in. Received my Gigabyte and Sapphire 6950's the other day. Both unlocked and are happy at 6970 speeds of 880/1375.

Did a handful of 5850 crossfire benchmark runs prior to installing the 6950's. Increase in performance at 5760x1200 resolutions went up 27-40% depending on the game at the same settings. 4xAA was unplayable on games at that resolution with the 5850's and the 6950's tear it up. Very pleased so far.

6950 might have potential to unlock 128 extra shaders.

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