My HD6950 -> HD6970 experience

[KIAman]

I finally finished building my new rig and was excited to flash my XFX HD6950 to just unlocking the cores. I have never had so much pain from simple soft mod and took several hours to finally make everything stable.

Here are my trials.

Trial1: Saved default bios, used unlocker to unlock shader, used RBE to edit fan profile to be a little more aggressive and up the voltage by .1.
Result1: The card worked great for 30 min then wierd sprinkly, sparkly stuff starting showing up on the screen. Wasn't memory tearing, I've seen plenty of those but looked like fairy dust.

Trial2: Took default bios, used unlocker to unlock shader, used RBE to edit fan profile to be a little more aggressive and leave voltage stock.
Result2: Rig bluescreen on startup, qqing about ATIMAGSOMETHING.DLL.

Trial3: Took default bios, didn't unlock shader, used RBE to edit fan profile, upped voltage by .1
Result3: Rig bluescreen a second after loading to desktop, qqing again about ATIMAGSOMETHING.dll

Trial4: Downloaded unlocked sapphire 6950 bios, used RBE to up voltage by .1
Result4: Boots fine, desktop is fine, getting fairy dust only in 3d mode in games.

Trial5: Downloaded unlocked sapphire 6950 bios and flashed unmodified.
Result5: Boots fine, desktop is fine, even more fairy dust in 3d mode.

Trial6: Took default bios, used RBE to up the OC limit to 950.
Result6: Rig bluescreen on startup, qqing about ATIMAGSOMETHING.DLL.

Drink lots of beer.

Trial7: Downloaded unlocked XFX 6950 bios, flashed unmodified
Result7: Everything was fine, until 30 minutes into a game and fairy dust again!!!

Trial8: Downloaded unlocked XFX 6950 bios, used RBE to lower voltage by .05.
Result8: Everthing was fine, 15 minutes into a game, blue screen qqing about ATIMAGSOMETHING.DLL.

Drink more beer and wonder why I am so afraid of just flashing to full 6970 bios.

Trial9: Downloaded ASUS 6970 bios, used RBE to change OC limit up to 1000/1400, flashed.
Result9: Works great, temps went up about 8c idle/load but stable in games for 1 hour.

Trial10: Upped the clocks to 950/1400.
Result10: Works great, temps went up another 5c load but memory tearing in games after 1 hour.

Trial11: Adjusted clocks to 920/1350
Result11: Works great, everything stable for 2 hours of gaming. Temps around 50c idle, 84c load. WIN!!!!

Drink 1 more beer and fall asleep at 2am.

EDIT: For those who are considering doing something similar, RBE does not work with HD6XXX cards. Most likely a lot of my issues were due to this.

 

[Mistwalker]

Glad to see a happy ending.

Upping the voltage by .1 out of the gate seems excessive (given the stock 6950 is 1.1V and the 6970 is 1.175V, so you're overshooting even a 6970 by jumping to 1.2V). Still, impressive overclock and the performance should be stellar for the price of a 6950.

Post benchmarks!

 

[Adam8281]

Thanks for the extensive write-up! Been considering whether or not to flash my Sapphire 6950.

 

[brencat]

Is it me or do a lot of the guys with XFX 6950s seem to be running much hotter temps than most other brands? 50c+ at idle seems so high. Does pushing the voltage up from 1.1 to 1.175 really boost idle temps almost 20c ??

I have a HIS 6950, using the HIS "shader-unlocked-only" bios, and am @ stock 800 / 1250 clocks @ 1.1v. Temps are 32c idle / 52c load (BFBC2)...same as before the flash.

 

[KIAman]

Is it me or do a lot of the guys with XFX 6950s seem to be running much hotter temps than most other brands? 50c+ at idle seems so high. Does pushing the voltage up from 1.1 to 1.175 really boost idle temps almost 20c ??

I have a HIS 6950, using the HIS "shader-unlocked-only" bios, and am @ stock 800 / 1250 clocks @ 1.1v. Temps are 32c idle / 52c load (BFBC2)...same as before the flash.

The strange this is that the default fan profile has it spinning at 30% fan speed until well into the 50c mark. At load and running 84c, the fans are only spinning 45-50%. That's why I was trying to adjust the fan speed profile. And before anyone suggests, I'd rather have the fan follow its own curve from bios rather than running software tweaks to change it.

Good news is that I can barely hear it. Bad news, it gets toasty hot.

I'll post some benches when I get home from work.

EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention I am running dual screens. This supposedly forces the GPU to run higher core speed to maintain thus raising idle temps.

 

[dust]

It seems you had the right tools(e.g. beer) and in the right amount. Actually how many beers did you have(what's the MUST figure). It would be interesting to see if adding several more cans to the amount, results in successful flashing of a 580 bios on your card

 

[brencat]

EDIT: Also, I forgot to mention I am running dual screens. This supposedly forces the GPU to run higher core speed to maintain thus raising idle temps.

Bingo -- that explains your temp differences. Your temps are inline with other multi-LCD users.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Bingo -- that explains your temp differences. Your temps are inline with other multi-LCD users.

3 displays, 60c and fans at 30% on my main 6970. I should check the temps with my 4 monitor on see if it increases further.

 

[badb0y]

RBE doesn't fully support the 6900 series yet, it can only be used to change the voltages I think. Most of your problems came from trying to change other things using RBE besides the voltage.

 

[WelshBloke]

RBE doesn't fully support the 6900 series yet, it can only be used to change the voltages I think. Most of your problems came from trying to change other things using RBE besides the voltage.

Yeah, I'm surprised he managed to get into windows at all after changing anything other than the voltage.

 

[Spike]

3 displays, 60c and fans at 30% on my main 6970. I should check the temps with my 4 monitor on see if it increases further.

58c here (idle) and 88-90c full load (BC2) with dual screens. My lack of air flow in my P180 seems to up the temps at load higher than usual. I may get a case with side fans soon, that should help the cards temps.

 

[lyang238]

I have an Asus HD6950 (shaders unlocked) @ stock voltage getting 900/1450 stable with idle of 43C and 60-65C load. It could be that the Asus has aluminum casing for better heat dissipation.

 

[Aikouka]

Fan speeds seem to be the biggest problem when doing the 6950->6970. I tried it out and I saw around 85C as my highest temp with only the default 6970 clocks. The thing is, the fan would only go to around 32% speed, but that's typically where it goes around 70C as a 6950... not 80C.

I ended up flashing my original 6950 BIOS back.

 

[Zargon]

this is my worry with doing the flash, but I'll only have one display on the machine with the 6950

I'm mostly interested in just a shader unlock and maybe a slight OC

 

[brencat]

I have an Asus HD6950 (shaders unlocked) @ stock voltage getting 900/1450 stable with idle of 43C and 60-65C load. It could be that the Asus has aluminum casing for better heat dissipation.

Wow nice... @ stock 1.1v ?!

I'm going to try 840/1325 (the official max) @ stock 1.1v tonight. I'm running the HIS "shader-unlocked" 6950 bios as well.

 

[HumblePie]

I personally took my two XFX 6950's and unlocked them with the XFX 6970 bios with no problem. Well, I had the SubsystemID Mismatch problem at first, but that just means I had to use atiwinflash through the command line to unlock the current bios on the cards before flashing with the 6970 bios.

After that, I've just pushed them to 900 core now and they have been running fine.

But I did try to keep up with the beer drinking to keep the experience similar.

 

[badb0y]

if you guys are worried about the temperatures, you can use MSI Afterburner and use a user defined fan curve.

 

[KIAman]

RBE doesn't work with HD6XXX? Wow, good to know after the fact lol.

Well, that forces me to use Afterburner to change my fan curve rather than in the bios. I'll try that tonight.

BTW, beer of choice was Fat Tire followed by Sierra Nevada once I ran out.

 

[lyang238]

Wow nice... @ stock 1.1v ?!

I'm going to try 840/1325 (the official max) @ stock 1.1v tonight. I'm running the HIS "shader-unlocked" 6950 bios as well.

I'm running on Asus "shader-unlocked" 6950 bios.

 

[ViviTheMage]

I am at 840/1325 @ stock 1.1v with my XFX 6950 flashed with the XFX shader unlock.

I am also xfiring two of these bad boys. I had zero issues, flashed, oc'd, DONE.

 

[itsmydamnation]

i just flashed a 6950 with unlocked shader bios(not a 6970 BIOS) on and then used afterburner. currently stable 950 core/1375 memory 1.250 volts. used afterburner for the fan profile.

very simple and no issues/drama.

 

[dust]

I have an Asus HD6950 (shaders unlocked) @ stock voltage getting 900/1450 stable with idle of 43C and 60-65C load. It could be that the Asus has aluminum casing for better heat dissipation.

I don't know about the casing, but having it running at stock voltage should keep the temperature lower than most of the other unlocked cards here.

 

[Synomenon]

Is it me or do a lot of the guys with XFX 6950s seem to be running much hotter temps than most other brands? 50c+ at idle seems so high. Does pushing the voltage up from 1.1 to 1.175 really boost idle temps almost 20c ??

I have a HIS 6950, using the HIS "shader-unlocked-only" bios, and am @ stock 800 / 1250 clocks @ 1.1v. Temps are 32c idle / 52c load (BFBC2)...same as before the flash.

I just got a XFX HD6950 and my idle temp. is usually around 63C w/ fan speed at ~ 33%. The temp. seems really high to me. I do have a U2410 (1920x1200) and two U2211Hs (1920x1080) running off of it though.

 

[brencat]

Okay update...played another 3 hrs of BFBC2 last night this time using the official maxes of 840 core / 1325 mem via Afterburner + 10% power control in CCC. All at stock volts (1.1v). No issues at all and it was super smooth.

Going to try 880 core / 1325 mem tonight @ stock volts...

 

[namtran512]

Don't mean to burst your bubble, but weren't there some issues with the 6950 flash to 6970, some people having their card die within a week or so even if they reflashed back to stock bios?