WynnTTr Posted January 1, 2011 Posted January 1, 2011 I'm surprised this hasn't been mentioned here yet but you can flash update your 6950 to a 6970. The dual bios of ATI cards makes this pretty safe to do. The shaders are bios locked and not hardware locked, so all you need to do is flash your 6950 with 6970 bios. If you have any problems you can always restore your 6950 bios. I'm running my 6950 at 900/1380. Stock 6970 speeds are 880/1375 while 6950's are 800/1375 with locked shaders.
chokko Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 wow, i thought my 6950 was blazing fast as it was (havent tried it in DCS sims yet though, only fps/rpg) ...look fwd to trying this tonight. [sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]
Kuky Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 (edited) People should also be aware that if you flush the BIOS on the video card and it messes up your card for what ever reason you won't be able to boot into windows as you won't be able to see anything so you will need to have another available video card to be able to restore BIOS on the first card. I had this happen to me when I bought 2x HD4870 and at that time all BIOS files were of incorrect size and would cause the video card to fail... the card would still be fine but would not boot... solution was to use second video card which would boot and flush the original BIOS on the first card to restore it. So, if you only have 1 video card and BIOS flash fails for what ever reason you will be stuck and will need to find another card to be able to boot and flush it back... only think that might make things different is if this particular video card has 2 BIOS-es and possibly if one fails second one can still boot the video card... but since I don't have this card I can't know for sure how this would work Edited January 4, 2011 by Kuky PC specs: Windows 11 Home | Asus TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi | AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + LC 360 AIO | MSI RTX 5090 LC 360 AIO | 55" Samsung Odyssey Gen 2 | 64GB PC5-48000 DDR5 | 1TB M2 SSD for OS | 2TB M2 SSD for DCS | NZXT C1000 Gold ATX 3.1 1000W | TM Cougar Throttle, Floor Mounted MongoosT-50 Grip on TM Cougar board, MFG Crosswind, Track IR
WynnTTr Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 Yes the 6xxx has dual bioses. There's a switch on the top of the card which selects which bios to use. The link has the instructions to ensure you're flashing bios 1 and not 2. I must say though that I did this more out of curiosity than any real need. The 6950 is only 10% slower than the 6970 so in game fps didn't jump that much. I got my 10% increase but given my fps was already good it wasn't as noticeable as actually upgrading from my old gtx260 to the 6950. The process was fairly well explained and the whole thing took me less than 5 minutes to do.
Kuky Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 yeah flashing the BIOS is not such big deal at all... if you know what you're doing :) so hey, it's good that it has 2 BIOS-es, I wonder why they have 2 to begin with? PC specs: Windows 11 Home | Asus TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi | AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D + LC 360 AIO | MSI RTX 5090 LC 360 AIO | 55" Samsung Odyssey Gen 2 | 64GB PC5-48000 DDR5 | 1TB M2 SSD for OS | 2TB M2 SSD for DCS | NZXT C1000 Gold ATX 3.1 1000W | TM Cougar Throttle, Floor Mounted MongoosT-50 Grip on TM Cougar board, MFG Crosswind, Track IR
WynnTTr Posted January 4, 2011 Author Posted January 4, 2011 Yeah it's almost as if they encouraged ppl to give this a shot. For them, being in the industry for as long as they have, a bios instead of hardware block just screams for ppl in the know to tinker. Given this age of oc'ing I almost reckon they did it deliberately to boost their sales.
Succellus Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 Yeah it's almost as if they encouraged ppl to give this a shot. For them, being in the industry for as long as they have, a bios instead of hardware block just screams for ppl in the know to tinker. Given this age of oc'ing I almost reckon they did it deliberately to boost their sales. Would also be my bet. HaF 922, Asus rampage extreme 3 gene, I7 950 with Noctua D14, MSI gtx 460 hawk, G skill 1600 8gb, 1.5 giga samsung HD. Track IR 5, Hall sensed Cougar, Hall sensed TM RCS TM Warthog(2283), TM MFD, Saitek pro combat rudder, Cougar MFD.
RSharpe Posted January 4, 2011 Posted January 4, 2011 THe 6950 exists only as a marketing strategy to fill a price point that didn't exist. It's doesn't exist because of technological reasons. The technology is forced artificially to fit in that price point.
genbrien Posted January 6, 2011 Posted January 6, 2011 I flashed my 6950 with the Saphire 6970 BIOS, and after playing 1h Crysis, 1h BFBC2, after the AvP benchmark and after the Unigine benchmark I got those Temps: I'm very satisfied with that card, so awsome!!!:D:joystick::thumbup: Do you think that getting 9 women pregnant will get you a baby in 1 month?[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC] Mobo: Asus P8P67 deluxe Monitor: Lg 22'' 1920*1080 CPU: i7 2600k@ 4.8Ghz +Zalman CNPS9900 max Keyboard: Logitech G15 GPU:GTX 980 Strix Mouse: Sidewinder X8 PSU: Corsair TX750w Gaming Devices: Saytek X52, TrackIr5 RAM: Mushkin 2x4gb ddr3 9-9-9-24 @1600mhz Case: 690 SSD: Intel X25m 80gb
WynnTTr Posted January 7, 2011 Author Posted January 7, 2011 It would if you left the 6790 bios on it for it to be found. If they have a logging system set up on the card that logs all bios flashes then you might be in trouble. But if you flashed it back to 6950 bios then rma'd the card - who's to know? And would they really care to check?
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