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
I kept mine at 800mhz too. If I could flash some higher clocks onto the card I would but sadly you can't edit clock speeds with RBE.
 
If you go into the Catalyst control center you can bump up power and MHz with no extra software needed.
 
Only up to 840mhz and I like to flash clocks to my card so I never have to play with them again. You also can't edit voltages in CCC,
 
Just ran the shader unlock on my XFX 6950, worked like a charm. Now to run some benches. :D
 
Hi, new to the forums here and I firstly just wanted to thank the posters here, the information in this thread was very useful. Also, my Sapphire 6950 seems to have unlocked successfully, gpu-z now says 1536 shaders and I had no problem playing Civilization 5. Thanks again.
 
my xfx 6950 with unlocked shaders and voltage control to 1.180 runs at 950/1450

I think the video ram can do 1500, but i have not tested it yet. I have just been playing at 950. I was thinking of boosting the voltage higher and going for 1000mhz on the core, but i dont know just yet. I want the card to last.
 
Yup, it's fine as it is now. The only reason I would bump it that high would be if I was on water or attempting to top' in benchmarks. Otherwise, for gaming, leaving it at 950/1450 is perfectly optimal.
 
I unlocked the shaders of my Gigabyte 6950 successfully. Currently have it stable at Overdrive limits. This isn't without a story however.

Here's how it all went down.
1. Dumped stock bios, modded it and ran batch to flash it.
2. Rebooted and reinstalled latest leaked drivers (kinda dumb)
3. CCC kept my maxed overdrive profile, so I went for the gusto.
4. Fired up Black Ops and during initial load it froze then BSOD !!!!
5. Rebooted and successfully loaded Black Ops, played for couple minutes then exited. Froze then BSOD upon exiting game. My save games were now missing!!!
6. Reloaded previous driver version and went back to stock clocks (GPU and CPU). Fired up Black Ops, BSOD again.
7. Flipped switch back to stock GPU bios, rebooted. Black Ops still BSOD. Started to get scared, but knew this didn't make sense.
8. Played BC2, Metro and ran 3D Mark 2011 all without issue.
9. Ran above (except BO) with modded bios and full overclocks (CPU and GPU) also without issue.
10. Relieved :D

Something within Black Ops did not like the "change" in video card, even when back on the stock bios. Maybe allowing it to run in "safe mode" would have helped, but for now I'm avoiding the game and will try reinstalling it sometime soon.
 
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Ehren8879 said:
I unlocked the shaders of my Gigabyte 6950 successfully. Currently have it stable at Overdrive limits. This isn't without a story however.
Click to expand...

Did your save file turn out alright? And what did you change that made BO stop being fussy? It seems like your PC acted like a three-year-old child.

Child: Mommy, why is the world round?
Mom: Because...
Child: Why?
Mom: Because...
Child: Why?
Mom: I already explained it, because...
Child: Why?
Mom: Look, you must stop this at once...
Child: Why?
Mom: I'm begging you, please stop...
Child: Why?
Mom: Because.
Child: OK.

Well, that made sense. :p
 
XacTactX said:
Did your save file turn out alright? And what did you change that made BO stop being fussy? It seems like your PC acted like a three-year-old child.

...

Well, that made sense. :p
Click to expand...

My save files are lost and I haven't tried to recover them. I've removed BO, but haven't yet reinstalled it. Everything else I've thrown at the card works flawlessly. I won't know what's up with BO until I reinstall it.

Update: Reinstalling Black Ops seems to have corrected its issue.
 
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silent-circuit said:
Yes you can. At least, I'm pretty damn sure you can...
Click to expand...

No, you can't edit the clock speeds and fan profile on any 6xxx series card via the bios. I guess that it's handled by the driver. I really wish that you could since it would make life much easier.
 
just got my second card back in from RMA and flashed both of them to a asus bios with 1.75v, 1536 shaders, stock clocks for me to find a stable clock and unlocked CCC overclocking ability.
 
Visiontek card here. Shaders unlocked without a hitch. Haven't had the card long enough to play with the clocks yet.
 
I risked it with the regular 6970 flash and it worked fine with no artifacts for a few hours. I didn't trust the flash as I didn't know the timings and the details of the 6970 of the time so I switched it back. I have an HIS 6950 2GB.
 
I suggest that you use your card's original BIOS and modify the shader count up, then save and flash. That way, everything else in your card stays the same, memory timings and all. I have a 4850, but I've seen an option in RBE for enabling `1536 shaders. The TPU unlock thread explains it all in detail.
 
I flashed the 6970 bios to my Powercolor 6950 2gb. It worked great when gaming on a single display but would crash when running a game in eyefinity. I did the shader unlock only and bumped the gpu to 840 and the ram to 1300 and it works great. I picked up another Powercolor 2 weeks ago and crossfired them with the shader unlock and small OC on both.
 
XacTactX said:
I suggest that you use your card's original BIOS and modify the shader count up, then save and flash. That way, everything else in your card stays the same, memory timings and all. I have a 4850, but I've seen an option in RBE for enabling `1536 shaders. The TPU unlock thread explains it all in detail.
Click to expand...

Exactly the method I used. Backup bios, make a modified bios with RBE, flash the modified bios, reboot. Took 2 minutes.
 
My xfx unlocked with shader mod and so did my msi

both cards have 1536 shaders running at 880/1375 crossfire, they both can go up higher to 950/1450
 
harmattan said:
Anyone know if this model can unlock?

PowerColor AX6950 2GBD5-2DH Radeon HD 6950 2GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131393

I just appeared at Newegg... from the pics, it looks to have the dual bios switch, and I like the dual fan approach, but no report yet whether it can unlock.
Click to expand...

I like that design as well. looks like it will run cool and quiet. I think it will unlock if you use the 6950 bios shader mod. If you only mod the shaders then you should be good to go because they dont change the core. You wont be able to flash it with a 6970 bios but if you do that bios shader mod then it should.
 
I bought two

* 2gb Sapphire 6950

Both unlocked, using the winflash program. I had to manually unlock via cmd prompt commands, then flashed. It first would not unlock, then I noticed the cards bios switch came in the unlocked position, and marked Locked.. Took forever to figure that one out.. lol


After uninstalling CCC, restarting, reinstalling CCC, GPUZ reports "1536" shaders
 
2wiced said:
I like that design as well. looks like it will run cool and quiet. I think it will unlock if you use the 6950 bios shader mod. If you only mod the shaders then you should be good to go because they dont change the core. You wont be able to flash it with a 6970 bios but if you do that bios shader mod then it should.
Click to expand...

Cool. I figured they should unlock since they have the bios switch and original PCB (and looks to be the same as their PCS++ model which unlocks). I just wasn't sure since these are one of the only models with the original PCB and a new non-stock cooler.

I just bought two. Will post back with results on the unlock as well as the temps.
 
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Just got a Gigabyte 6950 2GB this weekend. Unlocked to a 6970 without a problem and even got a little OC with 900/1400 with temps at 70C full load. :D

Also this is my FIRST AMD/ATI card ever, and so far I am impressed. :p
 
Sapphire 6950 2GB unlocked successfully just using the shader unlock bios. Any overclock past 840/1325 is a no go on stock voltages.
 
I've unlocked 26 sapphire 6950's so far, and all of them were successful. Have not tried overclocking any of them after the unlock as that's up to the customers not me.
None of the people who bought the unlocked cards have complained yet however.
 
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ok guys today ive just unlocked my 6950 shaders only. play a few games seems to be running ok. now if only i can get ccc to go higher i will be happy. right now im only at 840 and 1325. i think i can go higher if ccc allows me. i dont like using afterburner as it locks up my pc when i play bc2. punkbuster issue with that program. without it i can play for hours. anyway how can i have more gpu settings in ccc? thanks
 
I unlocked both of my MSI HD6950 2Gb reference models without a problem.

I used this guy's guide: http://www.overclock.net/ati/923129-...hz-shader.html

It unlocks only the shaders and sets the card to a 6970 ASUS Bios without messing with any clocks or voltages or timings, except for a mild GPU VCore bump.

Then the nice thing is he gives you ASUS SmartDoctor and you can modify CCC overclocking values.

My two cards run 880/1300 full load at about 60C with the fans a constant 50%.:D
 
magoo said:
I unlocked both of my MSI HD6950 2Gb reference models without a problem.

I used this guy's guide: http://www.overclock.net/ati/923129-...hz-shader.html

It unlocks only the shaders and sets the card to a 6970 ASUS Bios without messing with any clocks or voltages or timings, except for a mild GPU VCore bump.

Then the nice thing is he gives you ASUS SmartDoctor and you can modify CCC overclocking values.

My two cards run 880/1300 full load at about 60C with the fans a constant 50%.:D
Click to expand...

I see that and the guide at XS being recommended a lot recently. There have been much better methods since those guides were written so I actually just wrote one up. I hope that it helps a couple of people out.

Here is a link. This is the method that I have been using and it should work with any card including non-reference cards and 1GB models.

You should be able to accomplish the same with Radon Bios editor as well.
 
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