Radeon HD 6950 Into a 6970 With a BIOS Hack

[rbarone69]

[citation][nom]Kileak[/nom]Hopefully this will grab some of the people that were going to be heading over to Nvidia.More money for AMD means better products down the line, which in turn means better competition which means lower prices, which means more fun gaming with awesome graphics for cheap!!![/citation]

Ya, the low end 9xxx's that Dell was selling in their systems were the same way. Then again, it's about the same as overclocking the Core I7 920 to 4ghz on air... Pay a fraction of the price and get the top end performance.

 

[Lutfij]

apparently, all's fair in nvidia's and amd's war 😛

 

[painis]

Unlocked and running at 6950 clocks. I fail to see how this can be more dangerous than usual overclocking and additional heating.

"Unstable cores" HURRRRRRRRRRR

 

[buzznut]

[citation][nom]nevertell[/nom]This is not fail. It's a marketing WIN![/citation]
Yes it is. The 6950 and 6970 have had a lukewarm reception. The 6970 will sell to the top end enthusiasts but the 6950 value is a little weak. Now it has a shot in the arm to boost sales.
Its not likely AMD is counting on selling a whole bunch of these cards anyway. They're planning on selling a whole bunch of 6850's.

I do think AMD knew exactly what they were doing with the unlockable CPU's. Everyone knows you can OC a core i5/i7 to the moon. But you can't take a Intel dual core and unlock it to a quad. AMD has something the competition doesn't, which has increased interest in their lower end CPU's during this time when their upper range processors are not matching up well with Intel.

I think this is a win for AMD and certainly intentional, it does increase interest and speculation about a ho hum product.

 

[korsen]

You knuckleheads are arguing over a factoid that will really only be taken advantage of by the small minority of consumers. Everyone else buying AMD cards will shell out the 70$, it's more of the enthusiasts that get to take a 6950 and boost it up because we're the ones spreading the information about what the average user should buy. If an enthusiast would buy a 6950 over a nvidia card just for the unlock, AMD just got an experienced user to not buy from nvidia for another 2-5 years and spread AMDness for a while if they really enjoy the card's capabilities.

 

[hardcore_gamer]

[citation][nom]borisof007[/nom]AMD Fail, isn't the first time this happened. Anyone remember the triple core into a quad core a while back?[/citation]

Its a win for the customers.You can always expect that from AMD. It may look like a fail from a troll's perspective 😉

 

[verbalizer]

I do not know if I should comment on the actual article or all the 'bitchin' that's going on like a bunch of school girls..

 

[warmon6]

[citation][nom]res1i3js[/nom]Ah hell, I don't know how to edit my post. I meant to say 6970. >.[/citation]

If you got to just above the comment and below the add your comment button, there a link to the forums talking about this article with all these comments.

It there where you can edit your comments.

Hopefully in the near future, when the forums are updated, these comment will be updated to allow edit from this area instead of the forums.

Hope this Helps.

 

[bhaberle]

[citation][nom]Harby[/nom]You're clearly not old enough to remember ATIs 9800GTs into XTs BIOS mods.Plus, what's the fail about it? Did you maybe buy a 6970 and now you feel cheated out of 70 bucks?[/citation]

Wow someone is a moody. You clearly are having your period. lol That guy said nothing to anger anyone.

 

[englandr753]

[citation][nom]Soldier37[/nom]Meh, waiting on the 6990 4Gb card for my 2560 x 1600 res I game at. Wont have to worry about any sort of flashing of the bios to get more performance.[/citation]

No, you will just have to worry about the flashing of your wallet and corrupting the BIOS on your credit card...

 

[akhodjaev]

Does it bother anyone the pop-up on each article you go in?
Is any way to get rid of it? any good websites compared to this one?
This is really sh*tty. at least this is my opinion.

 

[cookoy]

looks like you're paying a price premium for a 6970 so you don't have to do the bios flashing process on a 6950

 

[kikireeki]

wow what were you thinking AMD?

 

[verrul]

9500 pro was a rocking card bios flashed to 9700 and sold it for same price i bought it for a year later

 

[Guest]

Rather silly commentary - It is cool that AMD has done this and allowed enthusiast to mess around and step the product up. If it hurts their sales it won't be by much, and it will certainly encourage people to buy the cheaper card, like anyone reading this, rather than a more expensive competitor. Echoes of ham radio, here, guys, which is what system building is all about. Than you AMD for the fun you have brought us!

 

[Swimsquirrel]

[citation][nom]borisof007[/nom]Who would buy a regular dodge avenger over a charger if you could simply update the ECM in the car and all of a sudden gain a whole bunch of horespower?[/citation]

Because you shouldn't be buying a Dodge. 😉

 

[dlux]

Jeez, reading these comments, haters gonna hate.

 

[mikem_90]

[citation][nom]akhodjaev[/nom]Does it bother anyone the pop-up on each article you go in?Is any way to get rid of it? any good websites compared to this one?This is really sh*tty. at least this is my opinion.[/citation]

Firefox + Noscript + Adblock + Flashblock. I don't think I've seen an advertisement hardly at all since I installed those.

 

[bsnowman17]

Thats pretty cool, makes me wish I had one

 

[luke904]

has anyone ever thought that maybe AMD sees this as a positive side effect? This is just a thought but it enforces the idea that when you buy AMD you get an excellent value. which is cooler? an overclocked phenom x2 unlocked to a quad... or a core i5? If i bought the intel i would be pretentious.. the amd and I would be resourceful and cool. thats the image that comes to my mind.

 

[bildo123]

[citation][nom]borisof007[/nom]AMD Fail, isn't the first time this happened. Anyone remember the triple core into a quad core a while back?[/citation]

Ya, but that was really even worse than a coin toss. The cores were disabled for a good reason however, due to stability issues. Those lucky enough to actually unlock the fourth core without crashing usually had a big damper on the OC potential.

 

[verbalizer]

Firefox + Noscript + Adblock + Flashblock. I don't think I've seen an advertisement hardly at all since I installed those.

^+1
nice call, that's my configuration when in Firefox..

 

[shrapnel_indie]

[citation][nom]borisof007[/nom]Who would buy a regular dodge avenger over a charger if you could simply update the ECM in the car and all of a sudden gain a whole bunch of horespower? Same difference.[/citation]

Lessee... The technology exists and is being marketed to modify the ECM of the Avenger to accept turbos and superchargers, tweak the timing, etc. Don't even think for an instant, that someone hasn't worked out how to tweak the Avenger's engine into performing as well as or equal to the Charger's engine. There are those who WILL do this, others that won't because they don't like the Avenger enough to even buy it, and others that will just be happy with the Avenger the way it is. Same goes for the HD6950.

So yes, same difference, as in no difference, and NOT a fail by any means in any form on the part of the video card or the Car. Research your reasons better and maybe they won't be shot down in flames so easily.

EDIT: fixed citation and added a little more detail.

 

[andy5174]

^+1
nice call, that's my configuration when in Firefox..

Same here!

PLUS the most most most important TAB MIX PLUS!!!

I can't live without tmp and it's the only reason that I didn't moved to Chrome.

 

[daveyjane]

wow