AMD Radeon HD 6950 to HD 6970 Mod

I always love threads like this because you're never going to have people agree on both sides.

Some people are for doing this and some are against it. You're going to have some people that do it and the card will perform great and last forever. On the other side you'll get some people that do it and will have their card die in a month.

Just like OCing anything, you're taking a risk to have a piece of hardware perform outside its normal specs. If you read these forums and have worked with electronics for some time you already know.
 
The thing is, those of us doing it know the risks involved, so the naysayers really aren't accomplishing much. It just comes across as some petty form of jealousy.

It's like if you went to a party just so you could tell everyone there how all the drinking and sex is wrong and that they're going to pay for it in the end. Everyone already knows about hangovers and STD's and you're just going to end up looking like an ass.
 
ValeX said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvp5-SlV1Q0&feature=sub
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As much as I like what Linus does, he is giving dangerous advice by saying it's entirely risk free, and it perpetuates the 'if I fuck up I'll just RMA it' mindset that is destroying warranty programs. He has already had one of these types of things backfire when n c i x was selling modded MSI 465's flashed to 470's, many of which ended up getting returned because they stopped working correctly after a few months of use.

Things are binned / sold as they are for a reason, and the TPU users are already having people mess up the ram by overclock and over-volting it with the 6970 stock bios. Somehow I doubt those people will suck it up, but will instead shove that card back on the manufacturer, or worse yet, the retailer as many aren't 30 days old yet.

If it works, great, just don't expect that if it stops working the manufacturer should be taking care of you.
 
Its hard to look at my card now. I have it unlocked and overclocked, and all this talk about degrading ram health worries me. What will the 6950 unlocked bios do? just change the ram timings and keep the shaders unlocked? If so, isnt that a better choice? or does voltage increase as well.
 
ManCannon said:
So what is our prognosis Dr. Ram? How long do those of us with 6970 flashed 6950's have until our cards' tickets are punched.

Weeks? Months? Years? Will they live to see Crysis 2? The Witcher 2?

Please tell me, the uncertainty is killing me.
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I love the sarcasm, but I don't know. I own two 6950's and I will flash them to 6970's as soon as a new version of RBE is released with support for BIOS editing for 6900 series cards. I would like to edit the memory timings and frequencies.

That being said, the 6950 is missing the 8PIN connector, so it will never overclock like a real 6970. That's the real appeal of the 6970: overclock. It's not so much the unlocked shaders as the pure clock speed that increases performance in these cards. A true 6970 can do well over 950MHz and 6GHz on the memory. No 6950, no matter how unlocked, will ever be able to match that. I'm tired to try to make my point about the damage to the RAM that an improper unlock will do, and how a unlocked 6950 will never be able to match a 6970 in terms of overclocking, or even cooling. Yes, the 6970's fan can move more air. Just look at the pictures of the two cards.

So, have a Happy New Everyone, those of you that have unlocked your cards best of luck, and those of you who bought the real 6970 please don't feel any buyer's remorse, as you got an excellent card that will overclock like crazy.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!
HAPPY NEW YEAR [H]
 
ManCannon said:
The thing is, those of us doing it know the risks involved, so the naysayers really aren't accomplishing much. It just comes across as some petty form of jealousy.

It's like if you went to a party just so you could tell everyone there how all the drinking and sex is wrong and that they're going to pay for it in the end. Everyone already knows about hangovers and STD's and you're just going to end up looking like an ass.
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The short and sweet of it is called buyers remorse and i beleive most of the "naysayers" are really just wanting to make people aware and not let anyone think this is fool proof.

I would love to think of this as being an amd merry xmas to it's customers kind of thing but part numbers are out there now indicating that these things aren't built from the exact same stuff.

There is being [H]ard and then there is being stupid, assuming that there is no risk is being stupid.

If you unlocked cards end up working for 2-3 years before burning out then I would call it a complete success and full on congrats to all of them that last, but I'm pretty confident there are gonna be many failures.
 
2wiced said:
Its hard to look at my card now. I have it unlocked and overclocked, and all this talk about degrading ram health worries me. What will the 6950 unlocked bios do? just change the ram timings and keep the shaders unlocked? If so, isnt that a better choice? or does voltage increase as well.
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All of this is pretty much the same as people asking in the 19th century if masturbation is bad for your health :eek: ... but then people would do it anyway ... :confused: Except that masturbation isn't bad for your health, in fact, it is healthy. Hair will not grow in your palms and you will not go blind, so have at it. My is that no matter the answer to the question, people will still do it.

Same with this unlocking: no matter the facts or the truth, people will still unlock their cards because they can. Unlike masturbation, flashing a HD6950 with a HD6970 BIOS is not healthy for your card, especially for your RAM. The RAM will fail, there is no doubt about it. One compromise would be to use a tool like RBE (when it will get proper 6900 series support) and edit the timings of the HD6970 BIOS to match the timings of the HD6950 BIOS. The result will be a card with performance between the 6950 and the 6970.

As for the 8PIN connector, no, it is not necessary. AMD put it there on the 6970 for people that will overclock the 6970. Any flagship card these days should be capable of some decent overclocking.

In conclusion, just like with masturbation, people will do it... That is the BIOS flashing to unlock the 6950... So I say this to you: If you wanna do it, go for it. After, you can always RMA. I know for a fact that ASUS for example loves to send out replacements that are in fact other peoples cards. How fucked up is that? I know cause that's what I got when I RMAd my 5870. I got another used 5870 full of dust and fingerprints from ASUS. There is no decent AIB that makes ATI / AMD cards. Again, best of luck and happy new year!
 
USMCGrunt said:
The short and sweet of it is called buyers remorse and i beleive most of the "naysayers" are really just wanting to make people aware and not let anyone think this is fool proof.

I would love to think of this as being an amd merry xmas to it's customers kind of thing but part numbers are out there now indicating that these things aren't built from the exact same stuff.

There is being [H]ard and then there is being stupid, assuming that there is no risk is being stupid.

If you unlocked cards end up working for 2-3 years before burning out then I would call it a complete success and full on congrats to all of them that last, but I'm pretty confident there are gonna be many failures.
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Thank you for this post. Exact my feelings on the subject. I got a pair of 6950, and I haven't flashed them yet. I probably never will... at this time I'm not tempted anyway. I could have bought a pair of 6970's if I wanted to, but I'm pleased with the performance of the 6950. I'm glad that there are other people out there with common sense.

I would like to reiterate what I've said in my previous post: it's juts like masturbation, people will do it no matter what, and then ask if it's good or bad.

And no, this is no Christmas Gift from AMD. If AMD wanted to offer us a freebie, they could have installed better RAM on the 6950, or an 8PIN connector or both, or could have "leaked" a 6970 BIOS with proper RAM timings and frequencies to match those on the 6950. They've done it before in the Radeon X800 days...

Happy New Year
 
2wiced said:
Its hard to look at my card now. I have it unlocked and overclocked, and all this talk about degrading ram health worries me. What will the 6950 unlocked bios do? just change the ram timings and keep the shaders unlocked? If so, isnt that a better choice? or does voltage increase as well.
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No voltage increases.... The only thing that is changed is the Shaders are unlocked.
 
The performance difference between 6950 and 6970 is nothing worth writing home about in the first place. Most significantly, they both have 2GB of vRAM. No Nvidia line of cards dating back to the 8800 GTX has seen the second-most powerful card boast as much RAM as the flagship card.

I have seen curiously little data on the results of OCing anything on the ATI side with these new cards. Maybe it's because nothing can be pushed hard without someone figuring out how to circumvent Powertune?

At any rate, what exactly is the issue here? The guy who is declaiming that the 6950 RAM will be doomed to die - on what basis are you saying that? How is this different from running RAM out of spec (i.e. overclocking) in any other scenario? Is it being fed incorrect timings?
 
I'm starting to get sick of the doom and gloom posters here. Acting like they are some big expert on this, throwing our their warnings to everyone.
 
tc17 said:
I'm starting to get sick of the doom and gloom posters here. Acting like they are some big expert on this, throwing our their warnings to everyone.
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Given the few reports of ram damage and the ram voltage difference between the modules, it's probably advisable to unlock your 6950 bios first and check for stability with 6950 overclock limits. The 6970 bios flash should probably be reserved for those willing to risk permanently damaging their cards. Longevity of a successfully 6970 bios flashed card may be unpredictable.

Once RBE is updated we should be able to get at core voltage and clocks, but what we're seeing is an indication to leave ram voltage alone.

People are seeing permanent damage. The word of extreme caution is justified IMO
 
I tested my ram up to 1525mhz (used afterburner to unlock the limit) I did not see an artifacts or performance decrease. Could it be that some 6950s use better ram than others? mine is an XFX. I wish I could see which chips are used on my card, but I dont want to remove the heatsink.
 
tc17 said:
I'm starting to get sick of the doom and gloom posters here. Acting like they are some big expert on this, throwing our their warnings to everyone.
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Dude, I don't care what people do to their own cards. I've said it before, it's like masturbation: everyone will do it and ask questions later. I don't care if people flash their cards and overclock the Living Jesus out of them! I was just warning people of the side effects. Obviously you didn't really read my posts: it is not any different than overclocking any other type of RAM. Overclocking RAM isn't the same as overclocking a CPU or GPU. RAM is more fragile and more prone to developing problems. There is plenty of literature available on the internet about this, just google it. So, rub one on, flash your card and have fun! Long live free performance!
 
Well my unlock seemed fine but today I'm crashing under heavy load even at stock 6970 speeds :(
 
2wiced said:
I tested my ram up to 1525mhz (used afterburner to unlock the limit) I did not see an artifacts or performance decrease. Could it be that some 6950s use better ram than others? mine is an XFX. I wish I could see which chips are used on my card, but I dont want to remove the heatsink.
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I don't know if memories are different, but a few cards could just have weak modules that can't handle the voltage.
 
2wiced said:
I tested my ram up to 1525mhz (used afterburner to unlock the limit) I did not see an artifacts or performance decrease. Could it be that some 6950s use better ram than others? mine is an XFX. I wish I could see which chips are used on my card, but I dont want to remove the heatsink.
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XFX doesn't use Sapphire as a supplier. Companies like HIS, Powercolor and others do. Yes, you have a high quality card.

My question: what version of MSI Afterburner did you use? I got 2.1 Beta 5 and I can't seem to unlock anything:) Thank you.
 
wolfman3k5 said:
XFX doesn't use Sapphire as a supplier. Companies like HIS, Powercolor and others do. Yes, you have a high quality card.

My question: what version of MSI Afterburner did you use? I got 2.1 Beta 5 and I can't seem to unlock anything:) Thank you.
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woah, there is a new msi beta out? I have been under the rock. I am using 1.6 I believe lol. All I did was open up the afterburner.ini settings and enabled unofficial overclocking. Once I did that, I started up Afterburner and the OC limits were removed. I could move the sliders higher and apply the settings. Then when I ran games, my onscreen display on monitor and g15 showed that the core and ram were running at the set speeds.

for now, im gaming at 950/1450.
 
ManCannon said:
Lame :(.

What kind of stress tests did you do when you first unlocked it?
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Just 3d11 and Arma 2 benchmarks..Played some games for like 6 hours lol and went to bed. I'm going to try it in my other machine but I might of just got an unlucky card.
 
2wiced said:
woah, there is a new msi beta out? I have been under the rock. I am using 1.6 I believe lol. All I did was open up the afterburner.ini settings and enabled unofficial overclocking. Once I did that, I started up Afterburner and the OC limits were removed. I could move the sliders higher and apply the settings. Then when I ran games, my onscreen display on monitor and g15 showed that the core and ram were running at the set speeds.

for now, im gaming at 950/1450.
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Thanks for the tip. My ASUS HD6950 won't do those clocks. I've only tried the GPU at 950MHz and it crashed in Windows, lol. Tried again to run 3DMark Vantage but it crashed. I know that if I would flash it, the 6970 BIOS would increase the VCore on the GPU to compensate for the higher speed. Any way, take care and Happy New Year.

Marc
 
It's an AMD driver problem. Look at the other thread in this subforum about problems with 10.12 drivers.
 
wolfman3k5 said:
The right way to do it is to buy a high end system when you find a good deal on a mature platform every 3 to 4 years. No more monthly upgrades and what not. It is how I do it. If you spend for example between $2000 to $2500 every 3 years, you get away with $600 to $700 per year on average, which is less than most people spend on cell phone plans. If you constantly upgrade you waste way more money.

As far as the engagement ring goes, I just got married after being engaged for a year. The engagement ring I gave her has a nice diamond and is platinum. But I didn't get it from an overpriced jewelery place where you get fleeced like Kay Jewelers. I got it at a reasonable price at a Pawn Shop and took it to a jewelery to have it professionally cleaned. As far as the wedding is concerned, I didn't do a church wedding. I'm not very religious, so I got married in front of a judge - Justice of Peace :) I got 10 of my closest friends + family and got dinner reservations at a nice Japanese place where they make the food in front of you and spend like $400 to $500 on the whole dinner. I don't like to do half-ass-ed things, so because I couldn't afford to be extravagant this year, I decided to do it small and tasteful. I'm sorry for everyone that didn't get to come to my wedding, but I'm sure that they're glad because they didn't have to spend money one me :D
If she loves you she will say yes even if you give her a toy ring from a wending machine. Oh, and our wedding rings are Tungsten. And she married me anyway:) I hope that you are as lucky as I am when it comes to love. My best wishes to you and best of luck!

As for your 6950 - it will die a painful death, as your RAM will start to disintegrate very soon. RAM doesn't do slow electromigration like other semiconductors. It just gives up one day and dies, just like that. This happens 100% of the time when RAM is used out of spec. For example look how many people had bad experiences with OCZ RAM because they've sold tons of out of spec memory. OCZ Obsidian DDR3 series comes to mind. Anyway, again, best of luck!
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Dude, you are my hero! :) :D
 
Sorry, too busy playing New Vegas on my 6950 turned 6970 to read your link.

If it burns out I'll plug in my 4850 and read it though.
 
bezant said:
Could you give me some more tips on how to save money?
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YES I CAN! Always remember: the more you buy, the more you save! At least that's what they say at KOHL's over the speakers in the store...
 
ManCannon said:
Sorry, too busy playing New Vegas on my 6950 turned 6970 to read your link.

If it burns out I'll plug in my 4850 and read it though.
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Only your RAM will fry, the rest will be fine! Happy gaming. Please let me know when it breaks:)
 
I managed to unlock my XFX 6950 to a 6970. I did have some trouble, but everything works now. Was using the 3DMark 2011 Advance I got off here from [H] and MSI (Thank you!) and my the score went from P4167 to P4648. This is with the system below excluding the 5770 of course.

I did download MSI afterburner and force the memory to 1250 for now. I still don't know if this memory is rated at what the 6970 GDDR5 is rated for yet. Better safe then sorry after all.
 
bezant said:
Dude, don't be gay! Tell us more about your money saving ideas!
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Here is a money saving idea: if you don't spend it, you have it! "Saving Money" is the most retarded expression that I have ever heard. There is no such thing as saving money. There are things like not spending money, keep your money, be frugal.

I love your sarcasm, but please don't get all smart on me smart ass!.
 
I'm on the fence about this, but since

#1) I do overlcok my cards and
#2) I keep my cards for 2+ years, and
#3) I am smart enough to understand the cost of 3 years of anxiety over every time I see an artifact in my games...

I thus conclude that I will be paying the extra money for a 6970

.. I will however buy it on the first sale on them that I see

Oh, and if you want some money-saving advice... buy your prescription glasses online after getting your scripts from eye exams... so you can afford to have script sunglasses, script business / pro glasses, script mountain-biking / snowboarding glasses, and script home glasses.. and save thousands while being able to see ALL the time :) (not to mention you can have them tinted however you like for sun or regular glasses (like green is my fav), and with whatever metals you want (like my titanium pair for business)).

What you save in a year will buy multiple 6970s and what you save in the lack of anxiety over breaking them will add years to your life in the course of your existence in your new improved quality of life where you can see clearly during more activities.

Enjoy.
 
The Red said:
I'm on the fence about this, but since

#1) I do overlcok my cards and
#2) I keep my cards for 2+ years, and
#3) I am smart enough to understand the cost of 3 years of anxiety over every time I see an artifact in my games...

I thus conclude that I will be paying the extra money for a 6970

.. I will however buy it on the first sale on them that I see

Oh, and if you want some money-saving advice... buy your prescription glasses online after getting your scripts from eye exams... so you can afford to have script sunglasses, script business / pro glasses, script mountain-biking / snowboarding glasses, and script home glasses.. and save thousands while being able to see ALL the time :) (not to mention you can have them tinted however you like for sun or regular glasses (like green is my fav), and with whatever metals you want (like my titanium pair for business)).

What you save in a year will buy multiple 6970s and what you save in the lack of anxiety over breaking them will add years to your life in the course of your existence in your new improved quality of life where you can see clearly during more activities.

Enjoy.
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That's actually some sound advice for buying glasses. I'm overdue for new glasses. Also, that's a sound decision about the 6970. I'm itching to overclock and I'm thinking about returning my 6950's and getting a pair of 6970's and overclock them close to 1GHz. I know that the 6970 is built for overclocking:)

As far as a sale is concerned on 6970's, it won't happen anytime soon. If anything, at the beginning of February the prices will go up on the damn things. The next generation cards will be PCI Express 3.0. Around that time you will see a sale on them, to liquidate stock. Just pull the trigger and buy one now, before the reference design goes away and Add In Board Partners start making their own cheap versions.

Take care, and happy new year! And thanks for the advice on glasses!
 
My XFX 6950 flashed to 6970 with the same stock clocks is rock solid with nothing to report really. I've tested it hard for a few days now.

Gotta say I'm loving this mod but I don't think I'll attempt another 6950 since the risk seems to be pretty real. However its also fun to mod hardware like this even with the chance of real damage.
 
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