Which ATI 6950?

[sygnus21]

Yeah XFX make premium quality products...go for XFX

I've already got the Sapphire (bottom card). This thread was started back in Jan 2011.

Thanks.

 

[cody471]

damn didnt see the date =)
anywayscongrats on your new card u f%^king rich man =D

 

[mickey megabyte]

it's a 2 gig version.

i'm not 100% sure about non-flashability, maybe there's a way, but i don't think it's as simple as a 'standard' 6950 - it also doesn't have the second bios chip:

While the AMD reference design had a Volterra voltage regulator and a dual BIOS switch, MSI has chosen to go without the switch and a CHiL voltage regulator. The CHiL controller is supported in MSI's excellent overclocking software Afterburner, so this shouldn't be a problem. When we tried to unlock the additional shaders to turn this card into a HD 6970, we were out of luck. It seems the ASIC on our test sample has the shaders properly locked, so a BIOS mod is not possible. Whether this is the case for the HD 6950 Twin Frozr II production cards is unknown at this time.

source

and

Now one point we have to mention - with the first revision of the reference models you could flash in a R6970 BIOS into a R6950 graphics card, and get extra shader processors enabled. That trick won't work here as this card is not reference. However, we do wonder a little what would happen if you'd flash an MSI R6970 Twin Frozr II BIOS into this product

source

 

[mickey megabyte]

i notice it's quite a bit smaller than yours, drew - here's old vs new:



notice the cobwebs on old card

 

[sygnus21]

Yeah it seems MSI took that BIOS tweak ability away

This is interesting......

Now one point we have to mention - with the first revision of the reference models you could flash in a R6970 BIOS into a R6950 graphics card, and get extra shader processors enabled. That trick won't work here as this card is not reference. However, we do wonder a little what would happen if you'd flash an MSI R6970 Twin Frozr II BIOS into this product

I wonder too....? Will have to look around the net to see if it's been done yet.

Anyway I'm glad I got the reference card with the dual BIOS.

Oh and I got you on it being the 2gig version. That's good.

Thanks.

 

[sygnus21]

i notice it's quite a bit smaller than yours, drew - here's old vs new:

View attachment 148747

notice the cobwebs on old card

Yeah, that is curious. Does it still take two 6-pin PCIe connectors?

You have a link to that card? - Duh...... Never mind.... you gave me a link

 

[mickey megabyte]

yes it's got two power connectors, at the side of the card, rather than back.

linky linky

i think the reference card would have been a tight squeeze in my case. (forgive the pun)

 

[sygnus21]

Yeah I just took a gandor at it. The specs are pretty much on par with the reference card all the way round, and as you noted, the extra 10MHz doesn't seem to add anything. Nice card though. Good.

Now all you have to do is run a few games through it to get the enjoyment out of it. I love mine, does what I need it to do, even without the BIOS tweak

 

[Solarstarshines]

Hi everyone don't mean to intrude on the 6900series post but just wondering about this score i have on Unigine Engine

Im running a 6870 couldn't wait for the 6900's to come out

so i took a gamble now im a little embaressed hahaha at what im going to show you vs the impeckable specs on everyone else's in here

Unigine

Heaven Benchmark v2.0

FPS:32.5
Scores:819
Min FPS:17.9
Max FPS:65.9

Hardware

Binary:Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1500 Release Mar 7 2010
Operating system:Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1) 64bit
CPU model:AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 965 Processor
CPU flags:3400MHz MMX+ 3DNow!+ SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSE4A HTT
GPU model:AMD Radeon HD 6800 Series 8.831.2.0 1024Mb

Settings

Render:direct3d11
Mode:1680x1050 fullscreen
Shaders:high
Textures:high
Filter:trilinear
Anisotropy:4x
Occlusion:enabled
Refraction:enabled
Volumetric:enabled
Replication:disabledTessellation:normal

Unigine Corp. © 2005-2010

just curious if this card performs like it should or do i need to do more tweaking thanks in advanced

 

[mickey megabyte]

my results are from a different benchmark.

i used the tropics demo (because it was a smaller download) - looks a bit crysis-y, with tropical beaches and palm trees.

 

[Solarstarshines]

keep in mind screen resolution comes into play


Mode:1680x1050 fullscreen

 

[sygnus21]

Second image is from single 6950..... http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/138499-ati-6950-a-6.html#post1236506 using the full version of Heaven Benchmark.

OK here's the image. Note the settings....




As for tweaking your 6870 I'm sure you could use Catalyst Center's Control overdrive tab to get a little more juice out of your 6870 but bear in mind the 6950 is a stronger card.

Sorry

 

[mickey megabyte]

the cpu will make a difference too.

not sure by how much though :huh:

 

[Solarstarshines]

Second image is from single 6950..... http://www.sevenforums.com/graphic-cards/138499-ati-6950-a-6.html#post1236506 using the full version of Heaven Benchmark.

OK here's the image. Note the settings....




As for tweaking your 6870 I'm sure you could use Catalyst Center's Control overdrive tab to get a little more juice out of your 6870 but bear in mind the 6950 is a stronger card.

Sorry

oh i know it is a strong card especially 2 gb i was just wondering for my card was it good at all

 

[sygnus21]

the cpu will make a difference too.

not sure by how much though :huh:

It's not going to affect it that much that it'll raise his score that significantly. If we all had the same system but he has a 6870 and we have 6950's, our scores would be higher. On the flip side if he had a better processor than us, but still had the 6870 and we had 6950's we'd probably still have higher scores as Heaven Benchmark is a GPU based benchmark....

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine™ engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Heaven DX11 Benchmark 2.5 | Unigine (advanced 3D engine for multi-platform games and virtual reality systems)

oh i know it is a strong card especially 2 gb i was just wondering for my card was it good at all

For that card I would say yeah, but you could search the net for benchmark scores to see.

 

[mickey megabyte]

ok, three can play at this game.

just downloaded heaven 2.1

what aa settings are you using?

 

[sygnus21]

Default.....



Oh.... AA settings is off.

To be honest I really haven't played with this benchmark too much. I just downloaded it and ran it twice. Once for single card, once for Crossfire. Both done with the settings above.

 

[mickey megabyte]

lol - i'm one point behind you drew



and that's with my super-factory-overclocked card at an incredible 810 (yes, count them - 810! ) megs!

i notice my min is a lot lower (19.9 vs 32.0) - temporary glitch? - max slightly slower too (129.9 vs 131.2), but it all evened out in the end...

my gpu model is different to yours as well - i'm using latest official 11.3 drivers and app profiles - and no ccc.

 

[sygnus21]

Any GPU benchmarking score is going to depend on drivers - one set my get you higher numbers, another set may get lower numbers, so.....

Anyway the score posted there was sometime in Feb 2011 so we're talking Cat 10.12, maybe 11.1. What drivers are you using?

I suppose I need to run a new bench to see what score I get with the old Cat 11.4 preview drivers.

Edit: Score as of 5 minutes ago.....



This is with the "old" 11.4 Catalyst Preview drivers.

 

[essenbe]

Heres mine at several resolutions and a picture of the card. I can't tell how much difference it makes, but I have it in an x8 slot.


1366X768



1680X1050



1920X1080