6950 flashed to 6970

[hclarkjr]

After flashing my 6950s to 6970s and then back (to the shader-unlocked 6950 version) performance was inexplicably bad in games and 3DMark.

Doing a complete sweep and reinstall of the drivers fixed the performance issues. Not sure if everyone else has been doing this (common sense?) but if you flash your cards and the FPS/scores don't go up as expected, try reinstalling the hotfix driver.

any time you change a video card be it hardware wise or flash wise i would uninstall drivers and hardware in device manager and start fresh. that is how i do it anyhow.

 

[MTDEW]

After flashing my 6950s to 6970s and then back (to the shader-unlocked 6950 version) performance was inexplicably bad in games and 3DMark.

Doing a complete sweep and reinstall of the drivers fixed the performance issues. Not sure if everyone else has been doing this (common sense?) but if you flash your cards and the FPS/scores don't go up as expected, try reinstalling the hotfix driver.

So you're saying you flashed to a 6970 bios and back and kept the 1536 shaders.
Do the cards overclock better with the 6950 mem timings over the 6970 bios / mem timings?

 

[sxr7171]

These observations were done with HQ and surface filtering optimizations disabled. HQ is better than Q, but it still visibly shimmers compared to a Fermi.

Anyway, I'm probably getting off-topic now, so carry on. 😳

Well I hate shimmers. In fact I would do anything to get rid of them. They are the number one thing that IMHO detracts from the immersion factor in gaming. Thanks for steering me in the right direction. Texture filtering is important and I hope consumers recognize this and demand better.

 

[Mistwalker]

any time you change a video card be it hardware wise or flash wise i would uninstall drivers and hardware in device manager and start fresh. that is how i do it anyhow.

Yeah, like I said--it's probably common sense. But since after the flash, the new clocks and overclocking features all show up after a simple reboot in CCC I assumed (wrongly) that a driver reinstall wasn't required. The cards did perform, just about 30% less than normal.

As you say, it's a good practice in any case.

So you're saying you flashed to a 6970 bios and back and kept the 1536 shaders.
Do the cards overclock better with the 6950 mem timings over the 6970 bios / mem timings?

I certainly wouldn't say better, since you're working with less voltage.

If you're asking whether an overvolted 6950 works out better than a flashed 6970, it's pretty much a wash. Reading the 25-page techpowerup thread that started all this, no one is sure if it's the memory timings that limit OCs or (more likely IMHO) that you're relying on pumped voltage to push physically slower memory chips.

 

[HurleyBird]

Well, I found the shimmer. Seems kind of situational, and most textures don't have it. But when it's there yes, it is annoying.

 

[BFG10K]

That's the reverse of the settings I'm using (HQ on, surface filtering observation on).

Sorry, I worded it wrong. I am using HQ enabled with surface optimization disabled.

Another question is how much of the shimmer is due to undersampling, and how much is due to LOD bias differences between Nvidia and ATI.

The LOD bias for ATi’s Q appears to be similar to nVidia’s HQ.

Actually, I think Q shimmers less than HQ at the expense of sharpness. IIRC HQ uses a -.35 LOD bias, while Q is somewhat less negative.

Q has a higher LOD bias than HQ, but it has more texture aliasing than HQ as well.

 

[HurleyBird]

Well, I took my second "6970" out. The noise and heat just weren't worth it for performance I'm not going to notice unless I'm playing Crysis, Stalker, or Metro. Will put in when my long CF bridge comes in. Can't beleive how short sighted of AMD this was.

 

[43st]

Well, I took my second "6970" out. The noise and heat just weren't worth it for performance I'm not going to notice unless I'm playing Crysis, Stalker, or Metro. Will put in when my long CF bridge comes in. Can't beleive how short sighted of AMD this was.

You've overclocked.. complained of heat.. and blamed AMD? 😵

 

[Chaoticlusts]

You've overclocked.. complained of heat.. and blamed AMD? 😵

I think he's more complaining of the known reference cooler problem in X-Fire..they fit so snugly that it kills airflow raising heat and noise drastically...even without overclocking it's quite unbearable according to a lot of reviews...I know I'll either be getting my second card as a non reference cooler or i'll make sure the motherboard I get has space to separate them

 

[GaiaHunter]

I think he's more complaining of the known reference cooler problem in X-Fire..they fit so snugly that it kills airflow raising heat and noise drastically...even without overclocking it's quite unbearable according to a lot of reviews...I know I'll either be getting my second card as a non reference cooler or i'll make sure the motherboard I get has space to separate them

Actually I think he is complaining more about the fact these expensive cards don't ship with a long CF bridge that would allow him to use the farther PCI-E slot. Size does matter! 😉

 

[Mistwalker]

Actually I think he is complaining more about the fact these expensive cards don't ship with a long CF bridge that would allow him to use the farther PCI-E slot. Size does matter! 😉

Agreed, when I exchanged my 580 for a pair of 6950s I specifically asked for a long CF bridge. The shop clerk was kind enough to open two different brand 6950 boxes, a 6970 package, and two motherboard boxes to see if any came with the longer bridge--nothing seems to anymore.

I can understand the lack of long cables for mid-range options, but these are expensive cards designed to run a bit hot and loud to begin with. Very, very disappointing move to discontinue the long bridge as a pack-in. The shop even sold CF bridges separately, but only the short "standard" size. Alas.

 

[MobiusPizza]

Because of memory timing chane, it's better to mod a 6950 BIOS to unlock shaders rather than slap a 6970 BIOS.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=2137760&postcount=381

That's safer because 6950 memory chips are a different bin and 0.1V lower.
The shader unlock is pretty much risk free (10% Power usage increase should be within engineering headroom). The overclocking memory by 125mhz is not.

 

[WelshBloke]

Because of memory timing chane, it's better to mod a 6950 BIOS to unlock shaders rather than slap a 6970 BIOS.

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=2137760&postcount=381

That's safer because 6950 memory chips are a different bin and 0.1V lower.
The shader unlock is pretty much risk free (10% Power usage increase should be within engineering headroom). The overclocking memory by 125mhz is not.

Yeah, you can always still overclock everything with Afterburner anyway.

 

[jackstar7]

Unlocked Gigabyte 6950 to 6970 BIOS and then backed down and simply unlocked the shaders reverting to the 6950 BIOS (modded).

This will quell my paranoid fears about effing my new card.

 

[badb0y]

Modded with a 6970 BIOS, stable so far.

 

[hclarkjr]

is the only way to flash these from within windows? or can you do it from dos?

 

[badb0y]

I did it through Windows and it was easy as hell, are you running Linux or something?

EDIT: Your sig says Windows 7 X64, so what seems to be the problem?

 

[hclarkjr]

there is no problem other than the guts to do it. big chicken

 

[badb0y]

there is no problem other than the guts to do it. big chicken

I was scared too as it was my first time doing it but if there is a problem pop the switch and your good to go.

 

[hclarkjr]

isa the switch in 1 position by default? can't tell

 

[badb0y]

isa the switch in 1 position by default? can't tell

Mine was, just open the case and take a look :thumbsup:.

 

[happy medium]

Get em while there hot, I'm sure the laser cut 6950 is comming.

 

[razr21]

My brother was able to get this card to flash and the core up by 135.... unfortunately not much luck on the memory. You really can't beat it for the price. Just ordered two of them. 🙂

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102914

 

[Jinxy]

Hey all, new to the forums, and starting off with some bad news (for me at least anyway) and a word of warning about attempting this bios flash if you are an idiot noob like me.

I got myself a pair of XFX 6950's and bios flashed them to the 6970 spec. Kept getting artefacts in 3D, so decided to backtrack and reflash them back to their original bios's.
First card flashed back smooth, no problems....
But then i take out the first card and stick in the 2nd one to go to flash that back too, turned my pc on, and BAM... instant artefacts all over the place, from the moment i turn my pc on and it starts loading up the motherboard welcome screen, windows 7 loading screen, desktop etc etc, wobbly artefacts are everywhere.
So i uninstall CCC, do the usual safe mode driver sweeper thing, then boot again (artefacts still everywhere) and reinstall CCC, hoping it may fix things. After its done installing it of course tells me to reboot, so i do, except now whenever i get to the Windows 7 logo loading screen, i just get a blue screen of death, stating something about a Video driver reset timeout error. So now i cant get back into windows to unflash the 2nd card!
I've tried flicking the switch on the card to reset the bios, but i still get the same scenario of artefacts straight away from boot, straight into a BSOD at windows loading screen.
So i'm guessing that i must have done something wrong and fried something like the core or the memory... and now i cant flash it back, meaning its doubtful i can get a refund on the card (even though it would be dishonest to do so now of course, but that kind of cash is a lot for someone who only works a part time job :\)

Any suggestions, ideas, advice, cash donations (joke) would be very helpful.:\:'(
Thanks.

 

[hclarkjr]

Hey all, new to the forums, and starting off with some bad news (for me at least anyway) and a word of warning about attempting this bios flash if you are an idiot noob like me.

I got myself a pair of XFX 6950's and bios flashed them to the 6970 spec. Kept getting artefacts in 3D, so decided to backtrack and reflash them back to their original bios's.
First card flashed back smooth, no problems....
But then i take out the first card and stick in the 2nd one to go to flash that back too, turned my pc on, and BAM... instant artefacts all over the place, from the moment i turn my pc on and it starts loading up the motherboard welcome screen, windows 7 loading screen, desktop etc etc, wobbly artefacts are everywhere.
So i uninstall CCC, do the usual safe mode driver sweeper thing, then boot again (artefacts still everywhere) and reinstall CCC, hoping it may fix things. After its done installing it of course tells me to reboot, so i do, except now whenever i get to the Windows 7 logo loading screen, i just get a blue screen of death, stating something about a Video driver reset timeout error. So now i cant get back into windows to unflash the 2nd card!
I've tried flicking the switch on the card to reset the bios, but i still get the same scenario of artefacts straight away from boot, straight into a BSOD at windows loading screen.
So i'm guessing that i must have done something wrong and fried something like the core or the memory... and now i cant flash it back, meaning its doubtful i can get a refund on the card (even though it would be dishonest to do so now of course, but that kind of cash is a lot for someone who only works a part time job :\)

Any suggestions, ideas, advice, cash donations (joke) would be very helpful.:\:'(
Thanks.

i doubt they will give your money back being that it is still flashed to 6970. they more than likely will check that out.