6950 CF OC or Flash?

[Veriitas]

Hey guys!

I tried to search the forum but I couldnt find an answer to my question.
I bought 2 6950 2gb club 3d coolstream edition. I am very satisfied, but I would like to overclock or flash the bios.

Which one is the best to do? or maybe both?
My psu is 750watt and my cards have a bios switch on them.
Do i only have to switch it to flash the card?

I hope you can help me out!

thanks in advance.

 

[lehtv]

Hi again Veriitas

First off, overclocking will have more effect than unlocking. Usually overclocking can increase performance by up to 10-15%, while the unlock will improve performance by under 5% if I'm not mistaken.

This Finnish thread has reports of successful unlock for the Club3D 6950 2GB CoolStream. The BIOS was downloaded from here: http://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/89592/Club3D.HD6970.2048.101124.html

6950 2GB unlocking guides google search

 

[Veriitas]

hello lehtv

thanks for the info! but is it safe to unlock and overclock?

 

[lehtv]

Unlocking is safe because you have the dual-BIOS switch. If the unlocking doesn't happen to work, no worries - you can simply flip the switch and you'll have the original 6950 BIOS and the card will work again. When unlocking two GPUs you should probably do them one at a time. When you've confirmed both unlocks are successful, set up crossfire again.

Overclocking is safe as long as you're careful. Use MSI Afterburner. Proceed step-by-step, don't make too big changes to frequencies/voltages, and watch the temperature when stress testing the GPU. OC'ing a 6950 also requires you to adjust PowerTune in the Catalyst Control Panel. PowerTune limits the maximum power consumption of the card; if the GPU uses more power than allowed by it at the present clock frequencies, it'll downclock the GPU to decrease power consumption. So because overclocking increases power consumption, all you'd achieve is throttling of the clock frequencies at load, if you didn't increase PowerTune.

Each card needs to be OC'd separately (I'd take the other card out of the case during the OC process), but when you set up CF they obviously need to have the same clocks.

Of course all this requires that you know what you're doing and how. Read the guides

Finally, I'm not 100% convinced you'd benefit from overclocking just now. You already have excellent performance, and overclocking will only make the cards run hotter and louder. Are you comfortable with the noise they make currently? How are the temperatures?

 

[deadseasquirrel]

Finally, I'm not 100% convinced you'd benefit from overclocking just now. You already have excellent performance, and overclocking will only make the cards run hotter and louder.

This ^.

I have CF 6950s myself and can't imagine needing more speed at the moment (res is 1080p). BF3 and DX:HR run very fast all on Ultra/Max. Maybe a few other upcoming games will stress them more and give me a reason to overclock, but as for now, both are at stock. Temps are great and noise is low. I see no reason to change that.

 

[Silverforce11]

Buying a 6950 and not OC is intentionally crippling the card. It's not designed to run that slow. At least run it at its bigger bro's 6970 speeds.

 

[Veriitas]

Finally, I'm not 100% convinced you'd benefit from overclocking just now. You already have excellent performance, and overclocking will only make the cards run hotter and louder. Are you comfortable with the noise they make currently? How are the temperatures?

Noise is much better than I expected. FPS could be a little better on the bigger conquest maps. So I would like to try to flash and overclock them. I will check it temperatures today. I think they are not above 65 orso.

And thanks for your detailed information!!

 

[Veriitas]

AAAH panic! Flashing won't work, just a black screen after reboot.. flipped the switch to get my pc working again.

I tried atiwinflash, cmd commands and a bat file.. all did not work..

So my card won't unlock? Or did I forget to do something.