6950 Owners: Was Your Unlock Successful?

Were You Able to Successfully Unlock Your Radeon HD 6950 GPU?

  • Yes, my R6950 did unlock.

    Votes: 278 86.1%

  • No, my Asus R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 5 1.5%

  • No, my Diamond R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • No, my Gigabyte R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • No, my HIS R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 2 0.6%

  • No, my MSI R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 5 1.5%

  • No, my PowerColor R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 7 2.2%

  • No, my Sapphire R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 15 4.6%

  • No, my VisionTek R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 1 0.3%

  • No, my XFX R6950 did not unlock.

    Votes: 9 2.8%
  • Total voters
    323
X

XacTactX

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 13, 2010
Messages
4,134
Please only vote in this poll if you own a Radeon HD 6950, and have tried to unlock it. If you vote otherwise, you will negatively impact the accuracy of this poll. Thank you for your cooperation.

Definition of Unlock: If you can enable 1536 stream processors and have a stable gaming experience, you have unlocked. Attaining stock 6970 core/memory speeds is outside of the scope of this poll.

This warning disclaimer was suggested by Godmachine, I edited it slightly for better coherence.
A Word of Warning: Do not attempt this unless you can fathom the possibility of a damaged GPU as the end result. Some people that have flashed have had their memory hosed by doing this flashing method. Even after flashing back to the original BIOS they still experienced artifacts and were unable to flash into pre-artifact condition. Although one can use the fail-safe BIOS as a means to flash the primary back to its stock form, this modification technically voids one's warranty.
 
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Man after 4 or 5 reflashes I finally got it to work. For a while I had given up and went back to the original bios. Winflash wouldn't work because of an id mismatch, so then I tried via command prompt and everything seem to go through ok and I got the verified please reboot message. Windows rebooted into a really low res and it would not let me install drivers. I reflashed to stock and all was well again. Then I said what the heck one more try and used the xfx 6970 bios instead and now gpuz says 1536 shaders. Gonna run a few benchies to see if its stable. What's cool is ccc lets me go from 500-950mhz and from 1250-1375 on the ram. After the successful flash, I was still at my 6950 oc'd speeds of 840.
 
I'm sure there are more than four people who own the 6950 and have attempted to unlock.

EDIT: My poll choices don't give any options for people who own more than one 6950. Does anyone have any suggestions for what we should do to account for that?
 
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Unlocked a XFX 6950 after some trial and error with winflash. i would recommend any one considering an XFX version flash through the elevated command prompt because the winflash GUI can not force the flashing process and there are batch files for the lazy on techpowerup.

Stable with stock 6970 clocks as well.
 
unlocked my asus (the stock 810mhz model) on the first try.

i had never done this to a video card, so this may sound noobish but i'll report it anyway - after the unlock, my drivers took a dump. it appears they recovered, but i reinstalled them anyway.

i have not maxxed this thing out yet. i have it at +10% with a max GPU of 860MHz. i have been playing things like Stalker: CoP at max settings at 2560x1440 resolution with no problem
 
I played BC2 in eyefinity last night for about 30mins at 880/1375 fan @45% and played through the first level of Crysis without a single noticeable issue. I'm a happy camper right now.:cool:
 
Can someone measure GPU temperatures with the 6950 bios as opposed to the 6970? The power draw on the 6970 is much higher, something like 50W more, and the cooling is improved to handle this.

Still a modded 6950 should be okay to run, maybe even for years, till the next upgrade, but even so I wouldn't have high hopes for a long hardware life expectancy with stock cooling.
 
Used the batch file to make things super simple. My Sapphire 6950 unlocked pronto. 0 issues at all, and this thing is just a fucking beast.
 
Unlocked my XFX using the batch file. Reinstalled the drivers and I was golden. No artifacting at all after a few hours of gaming like others were reporting. PC Power and Cooling (classic) 650W PSU in an Antec P180 on an Asus P5QL/Q6600 Win 7 64bit.
 
Yep, used my wifes Amazon Prime account to same day an HIS to me. Installed the drivers and used the batch file to flash it to a 6970. So far, I've really only played SC2 with it, but so far, so good.
 
I have an idea to account for people who own more than one 6950. They can message a friend, and tell them to vote for them. I can vote for someone who owns more than one 6950. Please tell me if you think this is a good idea.
 
This was a great discovery
This will save people around 50-100 on a card

Now I have to decide if I wanna retire my 5850 or get some SSD's:D
 
Wow...a pretty impressive unlock rate. I might have to give this a try :D.
 
Just unlocked both of my Sapphire cards; I had to use the command prompt as admin though. But it works great.
 
baboonpkt said:
Just unlocked both of my Sapphire cards; I had to use the command prompt as admin though. But it works great.
Click to expand...

Can you explain how you do that? I mean launch command prompt as admin, that is. And do you need to do that if you are already logged on as admin? Thanks.
 
Matrices said:
Can you explain how you do that? I mean launch command prompt as admin, that is. And do you need to do that if you are already logged on as admin? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Open start menu->search->type in "cmd"-> right lick "cmd.exe"-> run as adminstrator
 
I don't have a 6950 but wow, nearly 90% success rate? It's pretty hard to believe that it wasn't deliberate, especially given what's happened to the Phenoms in the past year or so.
 
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Thanks.

I wonder if these "failures" are failures to unlock or just failures to run stable memory speeds. Because it would be interesting to see if those cards could hit the mem speeds if they were un-flashed, and how much mem speeds even matter for performance.

Because as long as the unlock happens, the shaders are unlocked, which is free performance regardless of mem speeds.
 
Matrices said:
Thanks.

I wonder if these "failures" are failures to unlock or just failures to run stable memory speeds. Because it would be interesting to see if those cards could hit the mem speeds if they were un-flashed, and how much mem speeds even matter for performance.

Because as long as the unlock happens, the shaders are unlocked, which is free performance regardless of mem speeds.
Click to expand...

I just amended the OP to clarify that. The 6950 has slower memory chips rated for 5Gbps, and are probably hotter running chips relative to the chips that make the cut and get sold as 6970 parts. So I'll use the lax definition of 'unlock'.
 
Falling Anvil said:
I don't have a 6950 but wow, nearly 90% success rate? It's pretty hard to believe that it wasn't deliberate, especially given what's happened to the Phenoms in the past year or so.
Click to expand...

Consider every 6900 series card comes "built in" with a dual BIOS switch .. I mean come on. OF course it was deliberate. AMD knows what we like , we love to be able to buy the lesser product and find a way to make it the better product. These manufactures know very well we overclock the piss out of our cards and push them well beyond "recommended" limits .. its what makes us happy.

Kudos to AMD for adding this , its nice to see they are still in touch with the hardcore audience. Plus 10.12 Cats seem pretty damn stable to , no weird variation in fps in certain games .. pretty steady across the board.
 
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I wonder if these "failures" are failures to unlock or just failures to run stable memory speeds. Because it would be interesting to see if those cards could hit the mem speeds if they were un-flashed, and how much mem speeds even matter for performance.

Because as long as the unlock happens, the shaders are unlocked, which is free performance regardless of mem speeds.
Click to expand...

Of my two XFX 6950s one of them won't run at 6970 speeds due to the memory. It's only good up to 1315MHz. The other card however will do 1375MHz without breaking a sweat. Haven't tested it any higher than that since I'm forced to run at the lowest card's speed anyways.
 
Godmachine said:
Consider every 6900 series card comes "built in" with a dual BIOS switch .. I mean come on. OF course it was deliberate. AMD knows what we like , we love to be able to buy the lesser product and find a way to make it the better product. These manufactures know very well we overclock the piss out of our cards and push them well beyond "recommended" limits .. its what makes us happy.

Kudos to AMD for adding this , its nice to see they are still in touch with the hardcore audience. Plus 10.12 Cats seem pretty damn stable to , no weird variation in fps in certain games .. pretty steady across the board.
Click to expand...


Definitely intentional, but I wouldn't count on it to work on future batches. The 6970 is already a good deal at $370, at $280 (with rebate) would be simply giving it away.
 
Couple questions. After unlocking and in Overdrive pushing it to 20%, should I worry about or even try to overclock it?

And why do things like this happen? Seems silly to me. Do the 6950 and 6970 share the same architecture, just a different BIOS?
 
FaRKle0079 said:
Of my two XFX 6950s one of them won't run at 6970 speeds due to the memory. It's only good up to 1315MHz. The other card however will do 1375MHz without breaking a sweat. Haven't tested it any higher than that since I'm forced to run at the lowest card's speed anyways.
Click to expand...

But what happens if you run that weaker card in backup BIOS mode as a 6950 and then try pushing the memory? In other words, I wonder whether you can get higher clocks out of these things by keeping them as 6950s, and whether that's worth it.

The voltages aren't even unlocked yet so we don't know what they're really capable of. What is this "Powertune" tool, some kind of voltage and wattage limiter? Is there going to be a way to get rid of that shit?
 
Tried on one of my cards and it seems to be unsuccessful so far. Windows would BSOD when i tried to re-install drivers or launch any game.
 
Sapphire unlocked fine, had to use the cmd method as well... Stable at 900/1440
 
Damn, that is one incredible success rate! If I wasn't already happy with my GTX 460, this would be high on my list of potential cards.
 
I'm impressed with the amount of success people have unlocking this card. Some serious value there.
 
But what happens if you run that weaker card in backup BIOS mode as a 6950 and then try pushing the memory? In other words, I wonder whether you can get higher clocks out of these things by keeping them as 6950s, and whether that's worth it.
Click to expand...

I doubt keeping the weaker card as a 6950 would let me OC the RAM further. The chips on the 6950 are only rated for 5GHz (1250 x 4) and the 6970 chips run at 5.5GHz (1375x4). The memory OC potential shouldnt be different regardless of the core since you're not modifying the memory controller at all.

I'm looking forward to voltage control so I can see how much the RAM needs to clock higher.
 
Just ran Heaven Benchmark for about 24 hours straight at max settings , not artifacts and completely stable. It does get a tad warm but only up to 79C , I'm really impressed with how quiet the fan is on the 6950 ..even at full load its so low.
 
Congratulations to those who were able to unlock their 6950 cards. :)

To those who weren't able to, I'll give you a little tidbit so you don't feel bad. 1408/1536 = 0.917. You only lost out on ~8% more maximum performance, because getting 6970 speeds is a combination of clocks and stream processors. Plus, you're not doing something major outside your warranty, and you have a kickin' GPU anyway. :)
 
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