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Looking to get a 6950 Reference Card

S

shawnmramsey

Limp Gawd
Joined
Sep 28, 2009
Messages
173
Hi, I'm looking to get a new 6950 card very soon, but i have had trouble in the past with non reference cards, so I was wondering if you nice folks could give me some insight as to which of the cards are reference or not. Or if there is an easy was to tell let me in on it. From what I can tell any card with an aftermarket cooler is not a reference card. But does that mean all the ones with stock coolers are reference?

Thanks
Shawn
 
Stock coolers almost always definitely mean reference. Some with aftermarket coolers are reference designs on the PCB, just with a different cooler attached. And then others are non-reference, which means the PCB is laid out differently. Best way is to look up reviews that compare them.
 
Most of the 2gb ones are the reference cards. With the big rectangular cooler that has a red blower fan on the end, and red stripes along the edges. The 1gb, I have no idea.
 
Of all of the reference design video cards I have seen, Palit/Gainward's GTX 460 designs are the only one's that use a stock cooler, but have a non-reference PCB, where the cooler uses G92 mounting holes.

In every case except that exception, a card using the reference cooler will use a reference PCB and mounting holes. This is the case with the 6900 series, which has mounting holes that are compatible with the x870 cards of the past.

So here's what to look for: if the card has a blower style cooler that has red and black stripes on the sides, a red fan, and a rectangular fan shroud, it's the reference 6950. Here's an example.

http://www.google.com/images?um=1&h...sch:1,isz:l&sa=1&q=hd+6950&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=
 
Ok thats good to know about the 6950, because I have that problem with my XFX4890 with stock cooler, and non-reference board

So it look like This MSI 6950 should be reference correct?

thanks
 
shawnmramsey said:
Ok thats good to know about the 6950, because I have that problem with my XFX4890 with stock cooler, and non-reference board

So it look like This MSI 6950 should be reference correct?

thanks
Click to expand...

I haven't seen it disassembled to know for a fact, but 99.9% chance that it is reference. All the reference designs are built in one factory.
 
XacTactX said:
I haven't seen it disassembled to know for a fact, but 99.9% chance that it is reference. All the reference designs are built in one factory.
Click to expand...

That is what I was thinking, but just like you said, without any pcb pics that I can find to cross-reference it can make it hard to tell.
 
The only non-reference design I've seen is XFX 1GB version of the card -- the fan is in the middle and is surrounded by a copper heatsink. I'm sure I saw a review on it somewhere....I remember it having slightly better thermals than the stock cooler but being much quieter. Based on my personal experience with my (now dead) 6950 2GB, the reference cooler works well from a purely thermal perspective, but the fan sucks --- it sounds like a low-powered popcorn machine as it winds up when playing games. Very annoying. Even at 33%RPM the fan emits a quiet but annoying buzzing sound. I thought that perhaps I had a bad fan, but when I cranked it up to 100%, it sounded like any other fan at high RPM, ie hairdryer. I think that the stock fan sits atop a ball bearing mechanism as opposed to a sleeve bearing, which would explain the higher noise.

Thanks,

Gary
 
gary_568 said:
The only non-reference design I've seen is XFX 1GB version of the card -- the fan is in the middle and is surrounded by a copper heatsink. I'm sure I saw a review on it somewhere....I remember it having slightly better thermals than the stock cooler but being much quieter. Based on my personal experience with my (now dead) 6950 2GB, the reference cooler works well from a purely thermal perspective, but the fan sucks --- it sounds like a low-powered popcorn machine as it winds up when playing games. Very annoying. Even at 33%RPM the fan emits a quiet but annoying buzzing sound. I thought that perhaps I had a bad fan, but when I cranked it up to 100%, it sounded like any other fan at high RPM, ie hairdryer. I think that the stock fan sits atop a ball bearing mechanism as opposed to a sleeve bearing, which would explain the higher noise.

Thanks,

Gary
Click to expand...

How did it die? Just curious
 
EDIT started a new thread for this, I would like to keep this one on track with what to look for in finding a reference card.

Ok, I have done my research for a while now, and I am two clicks away from getting the MSI 6950 at newegg. I think this is a good solution for an upgrade from my HD4890. Seems like best bang for the buck. It's going into the system in my sig.

Anyone disagree (I hope some of you do, thats when it starts getting good)? :D

All comments welcome, hope some Nvidia peeps get their head in here too.

What cha got?
 
The MSI 6950 is definitely reference. Another thing that I forgot to mention is that a reference design PCB from AMD(I'm not sure if nVIDIA does this but they might) will say AMD near the PCIe connector. Look at the Newegg picture that shows the card from a top-down perspective, you'll see half of AMD and the arrow trademark, the other half is covered by the shroud.

This is what I mean, all reference design cards have AMD near the PCIe connector.

this is an HIS 6950
this is a Sapphire 6970

So based on that it's a reference design card.
 
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