Sapphire HD 6950 Dirt 3 Edition = Happiness

[NTAC]

When oclocking these cards, what Temps are you trying to keep it under at full usage?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Mine never goes above 75c in furmark

 

[tweakboy]

Nice Im glad Dirt 3 runs good. What Cat version you using ? gl,

 

[Alienwho]

Is it worth waiting for the new generation if I don't NEED this card right now? I'm still packing a 4870 512MB. I want to play BF3 and skyrim during the holidays, but don't absolutely need this card to do it. I just would hate to get this card to have a new one come out in two months that blows this out of the water. I would also hate to wait for the new gen only to have the same price and performance with a 7 thrown on the front instead of a 6. What do you guys think?

 

[lehtv]

You'd more double your FPS and quadruple your VRAM with a 6950. Only you can say if that's worth it / needed . BF3 and Skyrim will definitely run nicer - I doubt you could get 60fps constant in Skyrim on a 4850 with anything but low settings.

7950 will hopefully blow the 6950 away, but it will probably also cost more (and reference cooler only). 7850 should only slightly outperform the 6950, being the same GPU architecturally but on a smaller die. But it'll obviously cost less

 

[Alienwho]

Well, just impulse bought one on newegg. I wouldn't by the 7950 anyway. Now I just need to figure out what to do with my 4870.

 

[sep]

I didn't like how choppy bf3 was with my 8800GT with all settings on LOW @1080. So it was a smart purchase for me. I agree with OP

 

[trexpesto]

Garf! What am I doing wrong, my Dirt 3 no unlocky!
Tried the switch, atiwinflash+RBE, atiflash, wizzard script tells me there is something wrong with the file, missing bytes or something. Restored the original bios w/winatiflash - now it says not modified by RBE.
Sounds like nowadays there is just the switch.
Please tell me some good ideas! Drivers? Can I look for a laser-cut on the pcb?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Garf! What am I doing wrong, my Dirt 3 no unlocky!
Tried the switch, atiwinflash+RBE, atiflash, wizzard script tells me there is something wrong with the file, missing bytes or something. Restored the original bios w/winatiflash - now it says not modified by RBE.
Sounds like nowadays there is just the switch.
Please tell me some good ideas! Drivers? Can I look for a laser-cut on the pcb?

When did you purchase your card?

Generally, all the Dirt 3 cards purchased within the last month or month and a half unlock just by flipping the switch and NO FLASH. You do not need to flash/mod the BIOS at all. It is possible that if you tried to flash it, you broke the BIOS that Sapphire put on there that was already unlocked for you.

 

[SkyBum]

Just got my Dirt 3 Sapphire a few days back. Flipped the switch, installed the card and voilla, 6970 shaders. This card came from newegg on wednesday.

 

[RaulF]

Just got my Dirt 3 Sapphire a few days back. Flipped the switch, installed the card and voilla, 6970 shaders. This card came from newegg on wednesday.

I had the oposite luck.

I both two of them. Flip the switch and nothing. I am ruining them x-fire. Not sure if that is the problem.

Do i have to do one at a time?

 

[lehtv]

You should give them a try one at a time

 

[hondaf17]

You'll like the 6950. I had a 4890 and my FPS doubled from a 4890 to 2GB 6950. So you'll experience an even greater increase. My 6950 also overclocked well, so you're looking at a major upgrade, well done.

My 4890 is going on Ebay, unless someone here wants it send me a PM. XFX with double lifetime warranty.

 

[RaulF]

You should give them a try one at a time

Do I have to uninstall driver again. Or just pop one card out and, and switch tithe other card once I get the first one running?

 

[RaulF]

Sorry, I should mentioned first thing I did was flipped the switch and installed them with the switch away from the x-fire connector. GPU Z shows regular 6950 shaders. I never put the switch back to the factory position.

 

[trexpesto]

I'll try to get a correct bios off of somewhere. Thanks!

 

[Gaidal80]

Sadly I just received my Sapphire Dirt3 and it did not unlock to the 6970 shaders. I flipped the switch before I installed the card (in the direction AWAY from the Crossfire link, correct??) and installed the card, and then the Catalyst drivers. GPU-Z has 1408 shaders.

Anyone going to take a stab at flashing the second bios?

 

[Jhatfie]

Sadly I just received my Sapphire Dirt3 and it did not unlock to the 6970 shaders. I flipped the switch before I installed the card (in the direction AWAY from the Crossfire link, correct??) and installed the card, and then the Catalyst drivers. GPU-Z has 1408 shaders.

Anyone going to take a stab at flashing the second bios?

I am at work so I cannot check the switch position on my card, but I believe you are correct. Would not hurt to try the other switch position just in case. You can try to mod the bios using RBE to unlock the shaders. Worth a try. But I would check and see if you have a good overclocker or not before you feel too bummed out, the shaders alone only add about 3% performance or so, but overclocking can gain you a ton more than that. I tested my card at the same clock speeds (970/1370) with and without the extra shaders and the performance difference was rather small.

 

[NTAC]

Sadly I just received my Sapphire Dirt3 and it did not unlock to the 6970 shaders. I flipped the switch before I installed the card (in the direction AWAY from the Crossfire link, correct??) and installed the card, and then the Catalyst drivers. GPU-Z has 1408 shaders.

Anyone going to take a stab at flashing the second bios?

I'm running mine in crossfire and the shaders unlocked without any problem just by flipping the switch.

Luck of the draw I suppose, but either way, don't be too disapointed, unlocking the extra shaders is not really going to prdouce any significant performance gain. Overclocking the cards (which you should be able to do regardless of the shader unlock) is where you'll get most of your boost.