6950 suggestions: Help an old time nvidia user leave the blue team.

K

KVW

Limp Gawd
Joined
Apr 16, 2009
Messages
325
Hey guys,

It's been awhile since I've gone with an ATI graphics solution (9800pro). besides the occasional trial run, with each gen upgrade, I always settled on Nvidia. But things have changed. :eek:

So right now I have two xfx 6950s from frys in my system and everything is peachy. Performance is good. I was able to defeat the stuck 24hz issue (in certain games) i used to have trouble with when it came to ATI by setting a custom res of 1920x1076 (not as ideal is nvidia's fix to it but it'll do). This used to be one of my deal breakers with ATI. These two cards are just temporary. I'm going to buy them online, I just wanted to make sure previous issues I had with ATI were no longer present and this was going to work before I commit.

Now where I need your help with is I want to make sure with the 6950s I purchase, they are "bios flashable" or "shader unlockable"? This is all new to me but what worries me is I've seen more than once people mention ATI is going to stop that with PCB revisions so I need to buy the right ones before the change? How bout this one here? Good? Is this one unlockable ?

Also is there any non-reference style 6950s with a better cooling solution? Reason I ask is because my sabertooth x58 motherboard, unfortunately squishes the two x16 pci-e lanes right next to each other so I have no choice but to run them on adjacent slots. The reference design have no indention near the fan in their shrouds like nvidia cards do to allow the first card to breath in this scenario (come on ati).
 
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Wait, so you bought cards from Fry's, to try out, then you are going to purchase stuff online once you are satisfied? I assume that you are just going to return the cards to Fry's. Nice.
 
Well I can have them price match it (they price match online now)... if these XFX cards are the best choice. and trust me, LOL it's not like fry's is hurting with the amount of money I spend there per year. :rolleyes: They practically know me by name. so no, I don't carry any guilt what so ever if I return these.
 
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Any reference 2GB 6950 should unlock. The one you posted from Amazon is a reference 2GB 6950.
 
Thanks Samuel. It appears I have alot of options then since that's all I can find, the reference design.

I was hoping to find one non-reference design, a shorter length one to run as the bottom card. That allows a staggered configuration so the top card's intake is unobstructed. I was going to do exactly that with dual 570s. Reference PNY 570 on top and the shorter lenght EVGA 570 "HD" on the bottom. Oh well.

Has anyone encountered any major overclock heat issues with these 6950's when they're sandwich together like this?:confused: I imagine those who crossfire it 3 way deal with this.
 
I bought that same card last week. I did the unlocked shader 6950 BIOS flash (not the 6970 BIOS, which also ups the voltage), running it at 900 core and 1325 RAM no problemo. Custom fan profile set in Sapphire TriXX, keeps it below 65C load and 35C idle.
 
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nalc said:
I bought that same card last week. I did the unlocked shader 6950 BIOS flash (not the 6970 BIOS, which also ups the voltage), running it at 900 core and 1325 RAM no problemo. Custom fan profile set in Sapphire TriXX, keeps it below 65C load and 35C idle.
Click to expand...

that's good to hear! Sounds like you got pretty decent overclock too. :cool:

I wasn't sure about the brand name Sapphire but I might just go with that one then. Thanks Nalc!
 
KVW said:
that's good to hear! Sounds like you got pretty decent overclock too. :cool:

I wasn't sure about the brand name Sapphire but I might just go with that one then. Thanks Nalc!
Click to expand...

Yeah, this thing overclocks like a monster. I haven't OC'ed a GPU since I spent a weekend with Rivatuner trying to get a score above 2,000 in 3dmark01 on my 64mb Geforce 2 MX 400.

900/1325 was as easy as moving the slider in TriXX up and playing SC2. I'm sure I could get plenty more out of it with more tweaking and maybe a voltage bump (I'm at 1.100v stock 6950, not 1.175 like the 6970 bios gives you).
 
LOL! I remember those cards. They were like the number one cards listed on steam for a long while there. Takes me back.:)

Well that's all i needed to hear - I just ordered a couple with added 1 day shipping for 3.99, should be at my door tomorrow. :D Thanks again!
 
reaper12 said:
What's the stuck 24hz thing you are talking about??
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It's when you use an HDTV as your PC display through HDMI. A lot of HDTV list 1920@1080 @24hz as their native or best resolution through the EDID. Some games get confused and use 24hz instead of 60hz when choosing 1920x1080 resolution because of it. Very few game allow you to actually chose your hz speed So you're effectively stuck at 24hz if you want to use your displays native 'pixel to pixel' resolution. Your frame rate will max out at 24 fps which results in unacceptable, laggy gameplay. Not all games are affected by this, mainly DX10 games like Crysis, GTA and a few others.

Being an early adopter to using HDTVs as a pc display (before hdmi existed) I've gone through several HDTVs and many different graphics cards over the years and this has been a persistent issue. But over time it became more and more popular for PC gamers to use a HDTV as their display and nvidia allowed you to make a custom resolution that would supersede any resolution from the EDID.

This was a surefire fix to this issue and is largely why I stayed with nvidia for so long. ATI was a late adopter to at user defined custom resolution and even when they finally implement it, it was buggy and incomplete to say the least. Scouring the internet, there are many ATI users who were experiencing the same. AMD users had to resort to 3rd party programs to do ATI's job like powerstrip to try and fix this issue but the problem with that is, Powerstrip needs ATI to give them details about their latest gen cards to properly support them but often times ATI refuses to because it's revealing confidential information. So despite AMD users turning to them for help, their hands were tied by ATI. Even on AMD's own forums, their own members were complaining about it and AMD ignored them. I guess they were a minority voice probably and they had too many other issues to attend to. This was another reason I turned away from ATI, nvidia had more support and gave more powerful tools, right in their driver package.

In ATI's CCC current state, I can create a custom resolution that is close to but not the same as 1920x1080p and it will become a selectable resolutions to games. Right now, I've created 1920x1076p which only cuts off a couple lines from the bottom and top of my display which is hardly noticeable. It's something I'm willing to live with now since it's becoming more rare these days to encounter games stuck in 24hz and the fact that I don't trust nvidia anymore as of their recent issue found here.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1036922944&postcount=68
 
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KVW said:
It's when you use an HDTV as your PC display through HDMI. A lot of HDTV list 1920@1080 @24hz as their native or best resolution through the EDID. Some games get confused and use 24hz instead of 60hz when choosing 1920x1080 resolution because of it. Very few game allow you to actually chose your hz speed So you're effectively stuck at 24hz if you want to use your displays native 'pixel to pixel' resolution. Your frame rate will max out at 24 fps which results in unacceptable, laggy gameplay. Not all games are affected by this, mainly DX10 games like Crysis, GTA and a few others.

Being an early adopter to using HDTVs as a pc display (before hdmi existed) I've gone through several HDTVs and many different graphics cards over the years and this has been a persistent issue. But over time it became more and more popular for PC gamers to use a HDTV as their display and nvidia allowed you to make a custom resolution that would supersede any resolution from the EDID.

This was a surefire fix to this issue and is largely why I stayed with nvidia for so long. ATI was a late adopter to at user defined custom resolution and even when they finally implement it, it was buggy and incomplete to say the least. Scouring the internet, there are many ATI users who were experiencing the same. AMD users had to resort to 3rd party programs to do ATI's job like powerstrip to try and fix this issue but the problem with that is, Powerstrip needs ATI to give them details about their latest gen cards to properly support them but often times ATI refuses to because it's revealing confidential information. So despite AMD users turning to them for help, their hands were tied by ATI. Even on AMD's own forums, their own members were complaining about it and AMD ignored them. I guess they were a minority voice probably and they had too many other issues to attend to. This was another reason I turned away from ATI, nvidia had more support and gave more powerful tools, right in their driver package.

In ATI's CCC current state, I can create a custom resolution that is close to but not the same as 1920x1080p and it will become a selectable resolutions to games. Right now, I've created 1920x1076p which only cuts off a couple lines from the bottom and top of my display which is hardly noticeable. It's something I'm willing to live with now since it's becoming more rare these days to encounter games stuck in 24hz and the fact that I don't trust nvidia anymore as of their recent issue found here.

http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1036922944&postcount=68
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but I have been using HDTV as my computer monitor for the last 5 years or so. There is a pretty easy fix for this and there is no messing about with custom resolutions or anything like that. It happens in DX0 games like Crysis, Warhead, Stalker etc.

All you have to do is go into catalyst control centre and the HDTV tab where is allows you to add support for various resolutions. All you have to do is add 1080p60 and 1080p50 to the HDTV modes supported by the display.

Then in the display properties page and set your resolution to 1024*768 or 1280*1024. Enable GPU scaling and select "scale image to full size panel"

you should enable ITC processing as well, if you have have a good display.

Then return your resolution to your normal 1920*1080 and start playing games without any black borders or anything like that.
 
I have an XFX 2 GB 6950 and I am sitting at 1000/1400 OC with 1.3vcore. Oh and I use a Thermalright Shaman to cool mines so the max temperature is always around 50-60 degrees Celsius :) .
 
reaper12 said:
I'm sorry, but I have been using HDTV as my computer monitor for the last 5 years or so. There is a pretty easy fix for this and there is no messing about with custom resolutions or anything like that. It happens in DX0 games like Crysis, Warhead, Stalker etc.

All you have to do is go into catalyst control centre and the HDTV tab where is allows you to add support for various resolutions. All you have to do is add 1080p60 and 1080p50 to the HDTV modes supported by the display.

Then in the display properties page and set your resolution to 1024*768 or 1280*1024. Enable GPU scaling and select "scale image to full size panel"

you should enable ITC processing as well, if you have have a good display.

Then return your resolution to your normal 1920*1080 and start playing games without any black borders or anything like that.
Click to expand...

Followed your instructions exactly and it doesn't work. Crysis still incorrectly chooses 24hz.

Enabling "GPU Scaling" causes Crysis in full screen to show up as a blank screen in 1080p. If it make the game windowed with alt-enter the display comes back. I have to leave this unchecked.

I can add ITC processing (this must be a new thing because this didn't exist back when I tried ATI a few times) and it did help remove the microstutter I noticed in blue ray movie playback almost completely! Thanks for that!

If you think it's user error, as in I'm not following your instructions right, I can record myself doing your steps on youtube or something so you can point out what I'm doing wrong - I'd love to hear it. My only solution remains to make a custom resolution of 1076p. Like I said in my previous post, it's only 2 lines from the top and bottom that are missing so it isn't a big black border or anything - it's hardly noticeable actually. But it would be nice if ATI handled this the way Nvidia does it. So simple. You just create a custom res of 1920x1080@60 and it can co-exist with your normal HDTV resolutions. The new custom res you created, even though it's technically the same that exist under the detected "HDTV resolutions" can be chosen in a separate section and the only available hz of that custom res is what you specified so there's no other option for the game to choose a different hz.
 
btw my two sapphire cards came in. Very nice touch that they threw in hdmi cables (even though I didn't need it). Especially considering how much cheaper they are than the other reference card selections (i think MSI was the only other one as cheap).

Also just a little tid bit, I was able to make a considerable gab between the two cards so the first card can breath simply by screwing down the video cards with each one leaning over in opposite directions from each other - Just screw them down tightly with a finger tip between the two which holds them in place like that. This gave me about 4 extra millimeters gap over what looked like only 2mm gab between them previously without doing that trick. Its already helped with temps. :cool: Surprisingly, It didn't feel like I was stressing the PCI-E slots to do that because it didn't feel forced at all - almost as if it allows a little bit of leeway and the pins aren't squeezing the board so tight.

I've been stress testing these two cards since the installation like this and everything has been great. Going to try overclocking them just as soon as I read up on how to unlock their shaders soon.
 
Can you try again for the 24hz?

1) Hit the "HDTV Support" tab
2) Then under "HDTV modes supported by this display" checkmark the box for "Add 1080p60 format to the Display Manager(NTSC)".
3) Then in the field at the bottom select the "1080p60 standand (1920x1080@60Hz)" and click "Apply Format".

Make sure 1080p60 is the only one ticked.

The GPU scaling shouldn't be causing a black screen. Lower your resolution to 1024*768, then enable GPU scaling and make sure it's at scale image to full size panel. Then put your resolution back up to 1920*1080. I know I said this before lol, sorry. Just make sure you set the resolution in game ot 1920*1080 not 1920*1076.
 
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