xfx 6950 2gig Help

This is my set up

q6600 oc 3.0ghz
4 gig ddr2 ram
xfx 6950 2gig video card
asus p5k delux mobo. It should be all in my sig but just incase.

Anyways Is it worth it to run the video card to run on best quality or performance? When I ran this card on the highest image quality, I didnt notice much different in Quality then if I ran the card for optimal performance. Does it matter? When I did tun it on highest quality, I was playing Rage and I was getting little lag spikes in small spaces on the game or if I was to close to the wall. If also notice, sometimes but not every time there is a glitchy looking line in the middle if im looking at a wall and I look up and down, sometimes that glitchy line its like blurry and it runs across the screen, its not always there just every so often it pops up well im looking around or moving fast. Any suggestions?

Why am i getting those lag spikes? and whats the best settings to use on my 6950 so I dont get any lag spikes, but i get the best picture as possible? I want a better picture then the ps3 and 360, otherwise whats the point of pc gaming.

Its because that videocard is OVERKILL compared to the rest of your system. You have a big bottle neck going here and you wont beable to reap the benefits of that powerful video card untill you get some faster hardware to support it.

Edit: Try increasing the FSB voltage one increment and the PCIE voltage ONE increment. Also be sure the PCIE frequency is set independtly of the FSB to 100MHz.

"Lag" aka poor latency and or dropped packets has nothing to do with your videocard or cpu settings...

Also be sure you are running your monitor at its native resolution..

King107s said:

Its because that videocard is OVERKILL compared to the rest of your system. You have a big bottle neck going here and you wont beable to reap the benefits of that powerful video card untill you get some faster hardware to support it.

Edit: Try increasing the FSB voltage one increment and the PCIE voltage ONE increment. Also be sure the PCIE frequency is set independtly of the FSB to 100MHz.

"Lag" aka poor latency and or dropped packets has nothing to do with your videocard or cpu settings...

Also be sure you are running your monitor at its native resolution..

Click to expand...

I dont think im running on native resolution Ill try that out. Im not talking about latency, Im just playing story mode of games like rage. Just sometimes i get glitchy screen if i move to fast, or lag spikes if im to close to a wall in a closed small environment.

Ill go into my bios and give it more juice and see if that fixes it?

Also what is the best settings to use on video cards? do you guys leave them on optimal performance, or highest quality or somewhere in between? I haven't really mess with the settings on the card it self, but it looks like there is alot of settings to mess with and change what do you guys recommended changing? or leave it at default?

yzfspecvr6 said:

Big bottle neck going on here? quad core q6600 oc to 3.0ghz isnt a bottle neck, sure its no i7 , But its still a nice chip to game on, and 4 gigs of ram isnt bad either? im confused how I have a bottle neck?

This video card is really way better then my cpu and ram lol?

How do I find the native resolution? are you talking about when I go to change my resolution leave it on the recommended one? because it says recommend solution , and no I dont use the recommended one If thats what you are talking about I will try that out.

Click to expand...

Yes you DO have a bottle neck. This is not meant to be a shot at you, just the truth. If you don't belive me, try doing this. Leave all your settings the same except your CPU clock. Run 3D Mark Vantage on stock clocks all the way up to as high as you can overclock the cpu... at least 3.6 for that one... Now look at your GPU scores only (of course the cpu scores will go up). Everytime your cpu speeds get better the GPU scores will go up and if you had a higher end cpu you would start to see the full potential of the 6950 you have. I had a pair of 4890's on a Q9550 running at 3.83GHz and still didnt have them maxed out. It wasn't till I went to an i7 960 clocked to around 4GHz till I saw it start topping out and you have a Q6600 on a 6950 card... Belive me you are bottle necked.

What kind/size of monitor do you have? The native resolution is linked to the monitor. Example: a 19" LCD is typically 1280x1024 where a wide screen LED is 1920x1080....

Because you are overclocking there can be settings that may improve your performance so please list out your overclocking settings and voltages...

King107s said:

Yes you DO have a bottle neck. This is not meant to be a shot at you, just the truth. If you don't belive me, try doing this. Leave all your settings the same except your CPU clock. Run 3D Mark Vantage on stock clocks all the way up to as high as you can overclock the cpu... at least 3.6 for that one... Now look at your GPU scores only (of course the cpu scores will go up). Everytime your cpu speeds get better the GPU scores will go up and if you had a higher end cpu you would start to see the full potential of the 6950 you have. I had a pair of 4890's on a Q9550 running at 3.83GHz and still didnt have them maxed out. It wasn't till I went to an i7 960 clocked to around 4GHz till I saw it start topping out and you have a Q6600 on a 6950 card... Belive me you are bottle necked.

What kind/size of monitor do you have? The native resolution is linked to the monitor. Example: a 19" LCD is typically 1280x1024 where a wide screen LED is 1920x1080....

Because you are overclocking there can be settings that may improve your performance so please list out your overclocking settings and voltages...

Click to expand...

22" 720p sammy, and sometimes i play on my 55" led sammy

Well I went from a 5750 to this 6950, and i See difference, I just want to cut out the little bit of glitchy ness that happens when im moving around to fast, the glitchyness did it on my 5750 and I just bought the 6950 last night thinking it would go away and my 5750 was getting old =/...


Here are my settings
JumperFree Configuration Settings
CPU Ratio Settings : 9
FSB Strap North Bridge : 333
FSB Frequency : 333
PCI-E Frequency : 100
DRAM Frequency: 800 MHz
Dram Command Rate: 2T
DRAM Timings:-
CAS# Latency: 4
RAS# to CAS# Delay: 4
RAS# Precharge: 4
RAS# Activate to Precharge: 12
TWR: Auto
TRFC: Auto
TWTR: Auto
TRRD: Auto
TRTP: Auto
DRAM Static Read Control: Auto
Transaction Booster: Disabled
Cpu Voltage: 1.375
Cpu GTL Voltage reference: Auto
CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled
CPU Voltage: 1.375
CPU Voltage Reference: Auto
DRAM Voltage: 2.000
Clock Over-charging mode: Auto
Cpu spread spectrum: Disabled
Pcie spread spectrum: Disabled

Advance CPU Settings
CPU Ratio Setting: 9
C1E Suppport: Disabled
Max CPUID Value Limit: Disabled
Vanderpool Technology: Disabled
CPU TM Function: Disabled
Execute Disable Bit: Enabled
Intel® Speedstep™ Tech: Disabled

edit: there is nothing I can do within the catalyst control center option? what should my settings be in there for my video card? I have those settings set at default

720P monitors should be set to 1280 x 720 for native resolution. A 1080P monitor would be set to 1920 x 1080...

1.375V seems like a lot for that O/C...

What is PCIE voltage and FSB votage?

You could have this thing running at 3.6GHz with very little trouble....

Rage is fairly new too, I wouldn't be suprised if the game has some bugs and or driver conflicts....

King107s said:

1.375V seems like a lot for that O/C...

What is PCIE voltage and FSB votage?

You could have this thing running at 3.6GHz with very little trouble....

Rage is fairly new too, I wouldn't be suprised if the game has some bugs and or driver conflicts....

Click to expand...

Honestly man im not to good with this whole over clocking thing, I tried to get it running higher and had it at 3.4ghz for a month or 2 then all of the sudden, i started to get blue screens, and I just went back to 3.0ghz and never tried again. if you could help me get it at 3.6ghz I would very much appreciate it.

yeah rage does have a driver conflict, I had to download rage driver ati just to get the game to load, I forgot what it was called but if you Google rage ati drive you will see it.

I will get back to you when I get home to check my PCIE voltage and FSB voltage , Im at work right now, and im home and got those settings from a previous thread I had. Ill go home and go into bios and check it out for you. Thanks for the help, and if you could help me get to 3.6ghz I would appreciate it, I wasn't able to get it steady at 3.4ghz, I thought i had it steady it tested prime 95 and everything, 2 months go by and i started to get blue screens. So i got scared and went back to 3.0ghz.

yzfspecvr6 said:

Honestly man im not to good with this whole over clocking thing, I tried to get it running higher and had it at 3.4ghz for a month or 2 then all of the sudden, i started to get blue screens, and I just went back to 3.0ghz and never tried again. if you could help me get it at 3.6ghz I would very much appreciate it.

yeah rage does have a driver conflict, I had to download rage driver ati just to get the game to load, I forgot what it was called but if you Google rage ati drive you will see it.

I will get back to you when I get home to check my PCIE voltage and FSB voltage , Im at work right now, and im home and got those settings from a previous thread I had. Ill go home and go into bios and check it out for you. Thanks for the help, and if you could help me get to 3.6ghz I would appreciate it, I wasn't able to get it steady at 3.4ghz, I thought i had it steady it tested prime 95 and everything, 2 months go by and i started to get blue screens. So i got scared and went back to 3.0ghz.

Click to expand...

FSB and or PCIE voltages could be the issue here for sure!

Check out this thread to learn new stuff or to refresh your memory then we can get into more advanced stuff later! 3.6GHz should be easy!

BTW see my above post on monitor resolution I tried to Ninja edit but you caught me

Alright, gotcha, yeah i never did play my monitor on the max resolution it had for me. I played on smaller. So ill start doing that, and I will get back to you on the fsb and pcie volts in about 4 hours, then after ill start reading that thread its been a long time since i tried to oc, so i will need a refresh if your not on no biggie and ill be looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow sometime. and thanks for the help so far.

pci-e is southbridge, fsb is northbridge right? they are both on auto, is that bad? lol


edit : get about 40-60 fps on rage, if im at a still its 60, when im moving around it bounces around. Also since i started to play on native res, that glitchy stuff went away atleast. So what would u recommend I change to get to 3.6ghz? I know my temps will be fine, i got z600r heat sink and its pretty bad ***, got alot of fans in my case too. my pc idles at 38c and you said my cpu volts are already to high.

yzfspecvr6 said:

Alright, gotcha, yeah i never did play my monitor on the max resolution it had for me. I played on smaller. So ill start doing that, and I will get back to you on the fsb and pcie volts in about 4 hours, then after ill start reading that thread its been a long time since i tried to oc, so i will need a refresh if your not on no biggie and ill be looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow sometime. and thanks for the help so far.

Click to expand...

Good, native resolution is the optimum setting for the monitor regaurdless of the video card that is running it.

yzfspecvr6 said:

pci-e is southbridge, fsb is northbridge right? they are both on auto, is that bad? lol


edit : get about 40-60 fps on rage, if im at a still its 60, when im moving around it bounces around. Also since i started to play on native res, that glitchy stuff went away atleast. So what would u recommend I change to get to 3.6ghz? I know my temps will be fine, i got z600r heat sink and its pretty bad ***, got alot of fans in my case too. my pc idles at 38c and you said my cpu volts are already to high.

Click to expand...

The north bridge aka MCH aka FSB is the connection point between the PCIE-16x video card slots, CPU and RAM there is another connection between the MCH and the south bridge which controlls other peripherals such as SATA devices, USB, PCI and audio. You should be able to set the PCIE voltage and frequency independtly of the VTT (FSB Voltage).

Auto is not bad but it may not be good either... I would leave the south bridge on auto but not the MCH. Do you have LLC enabled? Its probably best if you list out all the settings in your BIOS so we can get it set right (not just the short list from earlier).

I also suggest you look at the frame rate and 'smoothness' from something like 3DMark Vantage as there may be driver issues associated with RAge that we can not fix with anything we are doing here...

King107s said:

Good, native resolution is the optimum setting for the monitor regaurdless of the video card that is running it.



The north bridge aka MCH aka FSB is the connection point between the PCIE-16x video card slots, CPU and RAM there is another connection between the MCH and the south bridge which controlls other perifrials such as SATA devices, USB, PCI and audio. You should be able to set the PCIE voltage and frequency independtly of the VTT (FSB Voltage).

Auto is not bad but it may not be good either... I would leave the south bridge on auto but not the MCH. Do you have LLC enabled? Its probably best if you list out all the settings in your BIOS so we can get it set right (not just the short list from earlier).

I also suggest you look at the frame rate and 'smoothness' from something like 3DMark Vantage as there may be driver issues associated with RAge that we can not fix with anything we are doing here...

Click to expand...

Ok I will list all my settings in bios when I get off work.

Damn i was to busy today when i got off work to do it, so look for it tomorrow please Ill do it tomorrow when I get off work I Dont think ill be as busy. Thanks man.

Ok here are my settings in bios I took pictures. Let me know if you need anything else. 1.45 volts , Im thinking you are gonna say that is to high lol, My temps right now browsing the web is 38c ,35c ,33c ,33c max load they should be at like mid-high 50c... I forget its been awhile since ive stress tested my pc. I do have a little volt droppage, from bios to windows, Cpuid hwm, has me at 1.42c for my cpu. Its not much Just a little.

Ya that vcore is pretty high, I would not go any higher and I'm suprised your temps aren't out of controll.... I'd be suprised if you needed more than 1.35V to get to 3.6GHz... So lower it down to at least 1.4V

Make sure your RAM doesn't need 2.1V instead of 2.0V as you have it set.

Here are my starting suggestions

AI Overclocking: Manual
CPU Ratio Control: Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting: 9
FSB Strap to Northbridge: AUTO (or 2.00D if you can set this)
FSB Frequency: 400
PCI-E Frequency: 100
DRAM Frequency: DDR2 800
DRAM Command Rate: 2T
DRAM Timing Control: Manual
CAS# Latency: 4
RAS# to CAS# Delay: 4
RAS# Precharge: 4
RAS# Activate to Precharge: 12
DRAM Static Read Control: AUTO

Transaction Booster: AUTO
Clock Over-Charging Mode: AUTO

CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled

CPU Voltage: 1.4v
CPU Voltage Reference: AUTO
CPU Voltage Damper: Enabled or AUTO
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.50
DRAM Voltage: 2.10
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.25
North Bridge Voltage: 1.25
North Bridge Voltage Reference: AUTO
South Bridge Voltage: AUTO

Advance CPU Settings
CPU Ratio Control: Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting: 9
C1E Suppport: Disabled
Max CPUID Value Limit: Disabaled
Vanderpool Technology: Disabaled
CPU TM Function: Enabled
Execute Disable Bit: Enabled
PECI: Disabled

The values in RED are the ones you will probably have to start increasing to get the system stable.

King107s said:

Ya that vcore is pretty high, I would not go any higher and I'm suprised your temps aren't out of controll.... I'd be suprised if you needed more than 1.35V to get to 3.6GHz... So lower it down to at least 1.4V

Make sure your RAM doesn't need 2.1V instead of 2.0V as you have it set.

Here are my starting suggestions

AI Overclocking: Manual
CPU Ratio Control: Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting: 9
FSB Strap to Northbridge: AUTO (or 2.00D if you can set this)
FSB Frequency: 400
PCI-E Frequency: 100
DRAM Frequency: DDR2 800
DRAM Command Rate: 2T
DRAM Timing Control: Manual
CAS# Latency: 4
RAS# to CAS# Delay: 4
RAS# Precharge: 4
RAS# Activate to Precharge: 12
DRAM Static Read Control: AUTO

Transaction Booster: AUTO
Clock Over-Charging Mode: AUTO

CPU Spread Spectrum: Disabled
PCIE Spread Spectrum: Disabled

CPU Voltage: 1.4v
CPU Voltage Reference: AUTO
CPU Voltage Damper: Enabled or AUTO
CPU PLL Voltage: 1.50
DRAM Voltage: 2.10
FSB Termination Voltage: 1.25
North Bridge Voltage: 1.25
North Bridge Voltage Reference: AUTO
South Bridge Voltage: AUTO

Advance CPU Settings
CPU Ratio Control: Manual
Ratio CMOS Setting: 9
C1E Suppport: Disabled
Max CPUID Value Limit: Disabaled
Vanderpool Technology: Disabaled
CPU TM Function: Enabled
Execute Disable Bit: Enabled
PECI: Disabled

The values in RED are the ones you will probably have to start increasing to get the system stable.

Click to expand...

Yeah I got a antec 900, its older model, but i got so many fans in there, and a awesome heat sink. So if my system is already has to many volts on the cpu and my temps are still good, Is it possible I can oc it to like 4.0ghz lol? Just a question I would be fine with 3.6 for sure.

Going to lower the cpu volts to 1.36 Cooler temps would be nice. How do I know what needs to be increase if my system fails? Is there like, A certain way your system fails that lets you know what you need to do? Everytime my system failed the stress test, I always just get a blue screen, or I get when I restart my pc, my windows wont come up and it will restart on its on and act werid, and keep restarting.

Ok I increase both of them the same amount? how much do you recommend to move the volts up on them when I go to re test?

Maybe, but not without some tweaking. Its not just the CPU involved here... the mainboard has a lot more to do with the overclock than anything else. Lets get you to a FSB of 400MHz first and see how far it can go after that.

Prime95 test using small ftt's will for the most part only stress the cpu. If it passes small ftt's but fails blend you might need more voltage on the FSB/VTT and MCH. Getting the voltages right requires methodical testing that will take time. I belive a lot of this is covered in that thread.

Well i stopped I change all my settings to what you gave me.

fsb strap to northbridge auto, you said to change it to 2.00d? I have 200mhz , 266, 333 mhz. was 2.00d a typo or somthing else went wrong?

FSB termination volts did not have 1.25 So i started with 1.30v

I started with

cpu volt 1.4v
fsb termination 1.30v
north bridge 1.25

Desk stop wouldnt even load

So then i went with

fsb termination volt 1.50v
north bridge volt 1.55v

Desktop wouldnt load

So then i went to

cpu colts 1.46
fsb termination volt 1.50v ( which is the max volts I have to choose)
North bridge volt 1.70v ( max volts I have to choose)

Deskstop did not load still.

So then the only thing i change was cput volt to 1.53 just for ****s and giggles, and it still didnt load.

This is what kind of what happen last time and i gave up, I really would like to get to it to 3.6ghz this time.

Maybe its my dram volts maybe i need more? Thats what I think i change my settings back to normal hopefully i hear from you tomorrow to confirm what I should change, I dont want to mess with it anymore .

By the one can this many blue screens mess up my computer lol?

Ok so i think i got my pc stable at 3.2ghz, I dont know i didnt run a 12 hours test, But i did run a test, and then I ran 3dmark vantage ,

So i ran 3dmark vantage
when you told me about it at 3.0 ghz and my score was just about 16000 I think it was like 15784 or somthing. And it said it was comparable and good.

Just ran it 2 times at 3.2ghz to see if it improved at all.
and my score dropped down at P13284 at 3.2ghz, Shouldnt it have been better and now its slower wth!!


edit Just went back to my regular 3.0ghz and my score is P15368 so it went back to normal, It might have been higher if I closed my gadgets and stuff but.
Maybe my ram only being 800mhz is stopping me from going pass 3.0ghz.

yo king if you can get back to when ur free, id appreciate it.