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BIOS upgrade turns AMD Radeon HD 6950 into HD 6970

by Pete Mason on 29 December 2010, 10:51

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

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When we reviewed AMD's recently released Cayman GPUs, the Radeon HD 6950 found our favour for its impressive performance and relatively reasonable pricing. But imagine getting HD 6970-level performance for the cost of the cheaper card - now that would be bang for the buck.

According to TechPowerUp, that's exactly what you can do, courtesy of a simple BIOS upgrade. Obviously both of the HD 6900-series cards use the same basic GPU, but it appears that the shader count on the current crop of HD 6950s is locked in the firmware, not by a physical change to the silicon. This means that the lesser card can be transformed with nothing more than a new BIOS.

Making the change is as simple as replacing the standard HD 6950 BIOS with one for the higher-spec GPU, which will magically increase both the shader count and the clock speeds. As well as the stock manufacturer BIOS, it's possible to use a partner-specific version, which could come with higher frequencies or voltage limits and enable compatibility with proprietary overclocking tools.

Since all of the first-generation HD 6950s are identical - with the exception of the logos stuck to the casing - this should work on all of the cards that are available now. Obviously it's carried out at the owners risk, but thanks to the dual-BIOS switch on each of the 6900-series cards, it'll be easy enough to revert to the factory settings in case something goes wrong. Having said, of the 79 cards that TechPowerUp and its readers have tested so far, every single one has worked without any problems, so it looks to be a fairly safe upgrade.

Having said, only serious testing will determine whether or not the HD 6950's two six-pin PCIe power-connectors are sufficient for the beefed up GPU, which would normally require a six-pin and an eight-pin connector.

If you fancy monkeying around with your shiny new graphics card, full details on the procedure can be found here. And after you're done, why not let us know how it went in the HEXUS.community.



HEXUS Forums :: 9 Comments

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Thats almost enough to make me want to upgrade now instead of waiting for the 32mn version next year :)
Been wanting a 6950 for a while now, after seeing this i just dropped the money for one. Will report back when i receive it.

As for the power pin's it seems the extra 2 pins needed on an 8 pin connector is two earth's. So as long as you have a half decent PSU you should be fine.
dfour
Thats almost enough to make me want to upgrade now instead of waiting for the 32mn version next year :)

There will not be a 32nm version. Cayman was originally supposed to be 32nm. The next step will be 28nm and it's probably a year or more away.
This is worrying. You can see that AMD owns ATI now … “what do we do when our competitors have a better line of products than us?” “Just make our mid range products upgrade to our high end products with bios updates”. Hope like they don't just surrender the market to nvidia now and give up. Would upset me if they did.