Under-rated?

[mikeo]

I though unlocking the shaders required flashing to a 6970 BIOS? I'd be very interested to hear your method.

If you download RBE you can simply dump the stock bios via atiflash, open it in RBE and then only unlock the shaders. Afterwards you can flash the modified bios back to the card. On some of the OC boards people don't recommend the 6970 bios because it changes too many timings/etc.

Sounds resonable. Is there a code listing of the stock 6950 BIOS you can point me to that shows exactly what lines to modify? I don't want to screw it up just mucking around ;-)

[marvinmartian]

I am actually NOT a fan of the 6950s.  I run a mix of:

5770s
5830s
5870s
6870s
6950s

The 6950s run hottest of all and are the biggest pain to OC (in terms of getting them up to max temp of 72C while still getting some benefit from overclocking.  I'll be selling mine after I replace the slower cards in my mix.

For me, I can't even see the benefit to unlocking the shaders as that would just give me the "possibility" of more overclocking.  As it is, I can't clock any of them to max speed without overheating.  They typically run from 75% to 90% of their max overclock depending on time of day / room temp.

[epdp14]

I am actually NOT a fan of the 6950s.  I run a mix of:

5770s
5830s
5870s
6870s
6950s

The 6950s run hottest of all and are the biggest pain to OC (in terms of getting them up to max temp of 72C while still getting some benefit from overclocking.  I'll be selling mine after I replace the slower cards in my mix.

For me, I can't even see the benefit to unlocking the shaders as that would just give me the "possibility" of more overclocking.  As it is, I can't clock any of them to max speed without overheating.  They typically run from 75% to 90% of their max overclock depending on time of day / room temp.

What 6950s do you have? I have 2 x ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/1GD5 that get 380MH/s at 72c. Here are my settings if it helps you:
930MHz clock
625mhz clock memory
65% fan manual set
poclbm through guiminer with -v -w128 -f10
Mine were running high temps with an older driver. Make sure that you use the newest 11.6 available from ati/amd.

[marvinmartian]

Well, here's a snippet from one of my machines right now.  I forget the specific brand but they're similar to the one you reference:

Default Adapter - AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
                            Core (MHz)    Memory (MHz)
           Current Clocks :    730           1297
             Current Peak :    730           1297
  Configurable Peak Range : [500-840]     [1250-1325]
                 GPU load :    99%

Default Adapter - AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
                  Sensor 0: Temperature - 72.00 C
Fan speed query:
Query Index: 0, Speed in percent
Result: Fan Speed: 77%

It's cranking out 271 Mh/s right now.

[bigbeerjr]

...

Sounds resonable. Is there a code listing of the stock 6950 BIOS you can point me to that shows exactly what lines to modify? I don't want to screw it up just mucking around ;-)

There is a php script floating around on the forum somewhere that will modify a saved bios file if you don't want to use RBE.... RBE has a checkbox to unlock the shaders.

[jjiimm_64]

If you download RBE you can simply dump the stock bios via atiflash, open it in RBE and then only unlock the shaders. Afterwards you can flash the modified bios back to the card. On some of the OC boards people don't recommend the 6970 bios because it changes too many timings/etc.

I tried to do just that but:

this only works for the earlier cards...  they 'hard' locked the shaders now, requiring to open the card and connect two pins of a specific circut.



edit:  found the instruction on unlocking shaders for non-referenced xfx 6950's  http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=355592

[bigbeerjr]

I tried to do just that but:

this only works for the earlier cards...  they 'hard' locked the shaders now, requiring to open the card and connect two pins of a specific circut.



edit:  found the instruction on unlocking shaders for non-referenced xfx 6950's  http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=355592

I was under the impression that there were 1 of 2 things preventing unlocking the newer cards (or possibly a combination of both).

1 - The flash chip is locked, preventing you from flashing a new bios to the card. This requires a simple hardware mod to fix.
2 - Parts of the PCB are actually laser cut to prevent access the the necessary circuity. If this is the case you even a bios flash will not unlock them.

[cicada]

this only works for the earlier cards...  they 'hard' locked the shaders now, requiring to open the card and connect two pins of a specific circut.

edit:  found the instruction on unlocking shaders for non-referenced xfx 6950's  http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=355592

That's not quite right, and that thread has not come up with a method to hard-mod shader unlock quite yet, but someone who's good at tracing the leads may be able to find the anomaly and 'bridge the gap' so to speak.

That thread only shows how to jumper the write-protected BIOS to allow you to flash, it's hit or miss whether or not you'll actually be able to unlock the shaders.

[jjiimm_64]

this only works for the earlier cards...  they 'hard' locked the shaders now, requiring to open the card and connect two pins of a specific circut.

edit:  found the instruction on unlocking shaders for non-referenced xfx 6950's  http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?t=355592

That's not quite right, and that thread has not come up with a method to hard-mod shader unlock quite yet, but someone who's good at tracing the leads may be able to find the anomaly and 'bridge the gap' so to speak.

That thread only shows how to jumper the write-protected BIOS to allow you to flash, it's hit or miss whether or not you'll actually be able to unlock the shaders.

Roger that.  thxs.  then I am glad I did not try.  I am happy with my:

875 core/ 310mem 345Mhash bugzappers. 6 of them

[fcmatt]

MSI R6950-2PM2D2GD5 's can do 430 mh/s easy.
voltage 1200
core clock 970
mem clock 800
fan at 75
shaders unlocked.
good air movement around the cards. conditioned air that is.
using pocblm whatever with phatk kernel.. making sure it has all the lastest code tweaks.

and that is not pushing it to the max. i used to run 980 core clock but decided to take it a bit easier on the cards
and get excellent stability at a temp of ~54

the 6950 reference cards at a price of 250 are an excellent deal for mining and gaming.
but with the difficulty going up it will be hard to pay them off now days at a fast rate.
they had a rebate too just a while back.. but be careful you are limited to one rebate per household.

oh.. and be careful buying refurb cards. i bought a 5970 refurb and as soon as i pushed it
the 2nd core on it started giving me problems. it was obviously still bad in some way and i returned
it for a refund.. thank goodness. buying new or seeing it in action before you buy is probably the way
to go unless you can return it no questions asked.

How are you changing the voltage?

msi afterburner with the allow overclocking config in it's config file. also using an asus 6950 bios with shaders
unlocked but don't quote me on that...

[jjiimm_64]

MSI afterburner will edit the voltage of the 6950's.  but how did/do you unlock the shaders.  I dont think it is possible with the newer cards.

[bigbeerjr]

MSI R6950-2PM2D2GD5 's can do 430 mh/s easy.
voltage 1200
core clock 970
mem clock 800
fan at 75
shaders unlocked.
good air movement around the cards. conditioned air that is.
using pocblm whatever with phatk kernel.. making sure it has all the lastest code tweaks.

and that is not pushing it to the max. i used to run 980 core clock but decided to take it a bit easier on the cards
and get excellent stability at a temp of ~54

the 6950 reference cards at a price of 250 are an excellent deal for mining and gaming.
but with the difficulty going up it will be hard to pay them off now days at a fast rate.
they had a rebate too just a while back.. but be careful you are limited to one rebate per household.

oh.. and be careful buying refurb cards. i bought a 5970 refurb and as soon as i pushed it
the 2nd core on it started giving me problems. it was obviously still bad in some way and i returned
it for a refund.. thank goodness. buying new or seeing it in action before you buy is probably the way
to go unless you can return it no questions asked.

How are you changing the voltage?

msi afterburner with the allow overclocking config in it's config file. also using an asus 6950 bios with shaders
unlocked but don't quote me on that...

I guess I should have asked if you were on windows or linux. I am unable to change the voltage on linux.

[fcmatt]

MSI afterburner will edit the voltage of the 6950's.  but how did/do you unlock the shaders.  I dont think it is possible with the newer cards.

the cards i am speaking of are reference 6950s... so maybe i should have stated that better.
and i am on windows. i did not feel like dorking around with linux. win 7 prof x64

[marvinmartian]

What 6950s do you have? I have 2 x ASUS EAH6950 DCII/2DI4S/1GD5 that get 380MH/s at 72c. Here are my settings if it helps you:
930MHz clock
625mhz clock memory
65% fan manual set
poclbm through guiminer with -v -w128 -f10
Mine were running high temps with an older driver. Make sure that you use the newest 11.6 available from ati/amd.

Is there a way to set the card up with those clocks under Linux?  Aticonfig won't let me go outside the defined ranges of 500-840 and 1250-1325 for core and memory respectively.

I can see where cranking the clock that high would get more Mh/s.  Similarly, lowering the memory speed would allow the chip to run a bit cooler.

I'm still trying to figure out the optimal settings for core and memory.  Dropping either one lowers speed and heat.  Seems like core has a bigger impact on speed and memory a bigger impact on heat, but I'm basing that on what I'm reading in forums like this, not from any empirical testing.

[Keninishna]

I'm getting 440 mh/s on my ref unlocked shader card. Its doing 990 mhz 1.25v on core and only at 71c. My non ref frozr II with locked shaders is only doing 350 mh/s 875 mhz 1.1v on core and is around 81c. I don't know why temps seem strange but thats what they are.

[marvinmartian]

I'm getting 440 mh/s on my ref unlocked shader card. Its doing 990 mhz 1.25v on core and only at 71c. My non ref frozr II with locked shaders is only doing 350 mh/s 875 mhz 1.1v on core and is around 81c. I don't know why temps seem strange but thats what they are.

All the other GPUs I have running all run fine at close to 99% of max core AND memory clocks.  They also all run at or below 72C. 

I guess that's the main reason I find these cards so annoying.  They really do require you to drop the memory clock as low as you can while still keeping as high a core clock as possible.  Lot's of monkeying.  Other cards are much more "plug and play" so to speak.

I'll have to try to unlock shaders on one of the cards and see how that works.  I run mostly Linux boxes for everything.  But I'm sure I have a HD with XP around somewhere.  Seems like you can't unlock shaders w/o various XP apps.  ;-(

Well, the thing about these cards that I find annoying

[Swishercutter]

We get ~360mh/s from each of our Sapphire 6950's with 875/300 overclock on risers alone they were around 80deg most of the time...after Arctic Silver MX-5 69.5-72deg (in my shop that is  ~85deg (F) all the time).  There is a box fan directly above them blowing down also.

[Keninishna]

I'm getting 440 mh/s on my ref unlocked shader card. Its doing 990 mhz 1.25v on core and only at 71c. My non ref frozr II with locked shaders is only doing 350 mh/s 875 mhz 1.1v on core and is around 81c. I don't know why temps seem strange but thats what they are.

All the other GPUs I have running all run fine at close to 99% of max core AND memory clocks.  They also all run at or below 72C. 

I guess that's the main reason I find these cards so annoying.  They really do require you to drop the memory clock as low as you can while still keeping as high a core clock as possible.  Lot's of monkeying.  Other cards are much more "plug and play" so to speak.

I'll have to try to unlock shaders on one of the cards and see how that works.  I run mostly Linux boxes for everything.  But I'm sure I have a HD with XP around somewhere.  Seems like you can't unlock shaders w/o various XP apps.  ;-(

Well, the thing about these cards that I find annoying

actually atiflash is probably the best way to flash and its a dos app. Just make a dos boot usb drive put atiflash and the modded bios on there.

[nebiki]

I'm getting 440 mh/s on my ref unlocked shader card. Its doing 990 mhz 1.25v on core and only at 71c. My non ref frozr II with locked shaders is only doing 350 mh/s 875 mhz 1.1v on core and is around 81c. I don't know why temps seem strange but thats what they are.

1.25V - your cards probably eat about 30% more power. try a 1.1V OC setting, would be much more efficient. your card could probably even pull the same my card does, 950MHz at 1.1V and 424Mhash/s. think about the environment and all the CO2 you're producing. gosh!

[Keninishna]

I'm getting 440 mh/s on my ref unlocked shader card. Its doing 990 mhz 1.25v on core and only at 71c. My non ref frozr II with locked shaders is only doing 350 mh/s 875 mhz 1.1v on core and is around 81c. I don't know why temps seem strange but thats what they are.

1.25V - your cards probably eat about 30% more power. try a 1.1V OC setting, would be much more efficient. your card could probably even pull the same my card does, 950MHz at 1.1V and 424Mhash/s. think about the environment and all the CO2 you're producing. gosh!

MOAR HASH!!! I'll lower the vcore when I get my other cards in. 1.25v is probably overkill I haven't tuned it down yet, I just jacked it up to see what stable clocks I could get.