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
Hi guys - new here and joined specifically to ask - so what is the summary of this thread.. are there any 9650's available anymore that would reliably be unlocked?

Also, I'm sort of a newb at this stuff - if the card can't be unlocked, I'm assuming that also means the shaders can't be unlocked as well, not just that it can't be flashed with a 9670 BIOS?

It looks like the only ones apparently available anymore are the VisionTek's , e.g. at Newegg, but even those are beginning to be shipped out as non-reference, so if I'm going to get one I better get it quick.

Looking for advice here... the extra $40-$50 for the retail 9670 is a bit more than I'm willing (able) to spend right now.

Advice/help for a newb appreciated!
 
I'm fairly sure that all of the non-reference designs you can buy new right now are laser cut, as well as the BIOS chip is locked to prevent flashing a BIOS. It's anyone's guess whether or not the reference one's that are left will unlock. You might want to make a thread and ask people who recently bought a new reference 6950 whether or not they were successful.

I got two XFX 6950s from TigerDirect a month ago and both has the BIOS locked, I defeated the BIOS lock and found out that one of the cards is laser cut, so both of them probably are. It's the model with the single fan and vapor chamber.

Flashing a 6970 BIOS or unlocking shaders are done for the same purpose, the difference is that the 6970 has different memory settings which may be linked to irrepairable damage, and because of that you should modify your card's original BIOS with Radeon BIOS Editor.
 
Thanks XacTaxtX.. started a new thread.

Sigh... looks like I'm going to have to spring for the extra money.

Hilariously, I don't want the extra shaders for gaming. They increase the performance of mathematics applications significantly.
 
Did the successful unlock day 1 when I purchased the card about 3 months back or something. Runs at 950 core / 1450 memory also. :)

It is a Gigabyte.
 
Any of my 2 6950 TF3 did the unlock.
I used the 6950pex bios, maybe it was my fault for no go for a reference model but I really don't care to gain 1 FPS IRL, I did OC to the 6970 freqs but no OV, works perfect in any game except Bad Company 2, don't care either cause in three most we have BF3 :).
 
Spoonmaster said:
And I will fourth it! Loving my MSI Twin Frozr II 6950!
Click to expand...

Sweet, I'd been planning on getting 2 of these around Christmas and was a little on edge because I'd never heard anything about their unlock rates.

On the subject, Tiporaro I noticed you have 2 in your RV02. I was planning on getting a FT02 alongside these cards, how do they do in your case?
 
Tazmonian said:
Sweet, I'd been planning on getting 2 of these around Christmas and was a little on edge because I'd never heard anything about their unlock rates.

On the subject, Tiporaro I noticed you have 2 in your RV02. I was planning on getting a FT02 alongside these cards, how do they do in your case?
Click to expand...

No problems so far with air flow for the cards, highest temp I've seen from the inside card has been low 80s under load when I was playing around with overvolting and oc'ing - haven't had quite enough time to really see how far I can push them yet for 24/7, but just running 920/1375 right now.

Also, that's with a x-fi card in the 1x slot tucked behind the inside card probably causing the temps to go up even more I'm sure, which I might pull eventually as its not horribly necessary. The second 6950 on the outside runs typically 10-15 cooler under full load. And compared to reference 6950's, these are a good deal shorter, which makes for an even better fit in this case (reference cards fit, but were tighter and probably didn't help airflow).

Just realize that the airflow is significantly better coming out of the bottom fans and through your entire case if you can have it on a solid surface, as there's not a huge amount of clearance below. I had to rearrange my setup a short while ago and had the system on a somewhat thick carpeted floor for a bit. While the gfx cards didn't suffer much and still chugged along fine, the reduced airflow was enough to limit the rad on the H60 I have at the top of the case from being able to adequately dump the heat from my 2600k at load @ 5.0. Granted, the H60 is already borderline at that point as is, so I'll give kudos to the case regardless for having good flow.

Slightly OT, but for the sake of a fellow RV02/FT02 - I am contemplating switching out mb's to go tri-fire (not sure if I'm going to do that now, or wait for 7 series), and at that point I may even play around with wc again. Surprisingly, I've seen some people modding this case by taking out the bottom drive cage pretty quickly and dropping in a 120.4 rad (or even 140.4) to do fairly well with wc, despite initial impressions, But that's a different story =)
 
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I'll report back once my MSI Twin Frozr III comes in tomorrow if it unlocked or not.

edit: MSI Twin Frozr 6950 2GB Unlocked via MSI .bin file / ATIflash within windows.

Purchased: 11/3/2011 from Newegg.com
 
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Cannot unlock at the moment, used the batch file and got no display afterwards.
Might try the command line approach.
 
Ragenrok said:
no, both positions are the same bios, the difference is one position is unlocked and allows you to re-flash it, the other is a back up bios that is locked and un-flashable.

The point of the switch is so that if you flash your card and something goes wrong, you can flip this switch and it goes to your back up bios which is the stock default one, allowing you to still use your card and then re-flash the other bios you screwed up.

Really go ahead and flash, the whole point of the switch is so you dont have to worry about flashing it wrong as your only a switch flip away from reversing your changes.
Click to expand...

That's what I did (flip it back) but the question is when I flashed position 1 I ended up with no display...so am I still going to get no display when switching back to position 1 flashed 6970 bios even though it didn't work? How do you keep plugging at it if there is no display?
 
Dunan said:
That's what I did (flip it back) but the question is when I flashed position 1 I ended up with no display...so am I still going to get no display when switching back to position 1 flashed 6970 bios even though it didn't work? How do you keep plugging at it if there is no display?
Click to expand...

Have you tried using a second card? That way you can move it back to position one and flash over it again?
 
Just ordered my Twin Frozr III's now that they're back in stock at the egg. Was choosing between 50's and 70's and just decided to go for it :p. Will report back in a couple days as to whether or not they unlock :)
 
No, my Sapphire R6950s (both of them) did not unlock. This is even after the bubblegum + wire bios write mod.
 
Sapphire 6950 dirt 3 flipped the switch and unlocked.
I have not overclocked it yet. i was just curious if it would unlock so hit the switch and booted up to 1536 shades. :D
 
For what it's worth my Gigabyte 6950 purchased and unlocked last January is still running strong.
 
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