Crossfire question about 6950s

XeeN

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 7, 2004
Messages
238
Hi all,

Please correct me if I'm wrong. As I understand it, if I buy a 6950 now (let's say a 2GB reference card), I can purchase any 6950 a year or two from now and crossfire the cards, right?

Is there any situation where I wouldn't be able to crossfire another 6950 card with the original one I bought? I can use different brands and non-reference with reference cards, right?

I just want to future proof myself from not being able to crossfire a 6950 with another 6950 a year or two down the road.

I do understand that if I got a 2GB card I'd need to get another 2GB card to make sure I could keep the full 2GB available for use.

Thanks in advance for your responses.
 
You are correct in all your questions. You can crossfire a reference with non and vice versa. You can crossfire 2gb with 1gb but if you do that then you'll only be able to use 1gb on both cards. With reference cards you can possibly unlock shaders on both of the cards and get a little bit of extra performance. There are many options to choose from. I went the 2x 6950 2gb reference and unlocked the extra shaders on both of them. Just a little bit of extra performance for free.
 
I went the 2x 6950 2gb reference and unlocked the extra shaders on both of them.

How loud are most of the reference card fans on the 6950s? I was debating between a reference 2GB card and a custom card with two fans or at least a custom heatsink/fan combo to keep the card quieter inside the case. My Sapphire 4850x2 gets loud.

What reference card did you buy and is it still available?
 
The main thing to understand about crossfire is that you need to use cards of the same generation, i.e. 5000 series with 5000 series, 6000 series with 6000 series, and that really, you SHOULD pair models together, eg. 4850 with 4850, 6950 with 6950, etc.

The reason is that the system will force the cards to run at the same specifications as the LOWEST card in the crossfire setup. So, if you have a 6950 2Gb with a 6950 1Gb, BOTH cards will be limited to 1Gb. This even applies to the shaders and the clock speeds. If you have a 6950 2Gb unlocked to have all the shaders of a 6970, and the clock speed is bumped up to the 880MHz, the other card had better be running with the same number of shaders/clock rate, or else the first card will be knocked down to the specs of the 2nd (or subsequent card's specs).

So, the implications for you (and me, because I just ordered a Sapphire reference 2Gb card) are that if we cannot flash the bios on a custom 6950 that we buy a year or more down the road (which seems probable), and we can't find another reference 6950 for sale (which seems very probable, as they're flying off the shelves), then, unless we're able to pick up a second 6950 2Gb used, we may have to run our cards as default 6950 cards, rather than, say 2x6970 cards.

Hope this clears things up for you!
 
I purchased 3 different brands of reference 2GB 6950s only because of rebates were 1 to a customer (otherwise I would have purchased all the same brand). All 3 are pretty much equivalent in noise and overclocking, and they all unlocked no problem.
 
The problem with waiting a year is.... The newer cards will be so much better that it's a poor value to get the second older card!
 
I purchased 3 different brands of reference 2GB 6950s only because of rebates were 1 to a customer (otherwise I would have purchased all the same brand). All 3 are pretty much equivalent in noise and overclocking, and they all unlocked no problem.

Which three brands did you buy?
 
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