AMD Radeon HD 6950 Reportedly Shipping with Unlockable Shaders
AMD Radeon HD 6950 Reportedly Shipping with Unlockable Shaders
Posted 12/27/2010 at 9:20am
| by Paul Lilly
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The fellas over at TechPowerUp have posted a guide detailing how to mod a Radeon HD 6950 (Cayman Pro) videocard into a Radeon HD 6970 (Cayman XT), both of which are based on the same GPU design. The main difference comes down to the number of shaders -- 1408 on the 6950 and 1535 on the 6970.
According to TechPowerUp, the 6950's missing shaders are the result of a deactivation scheme in the card's BIOS. That's good news for modders, as unlike hardware locks, software locks are usually easy to reverse.
Bear in mind that you're on your own should something go wrong, but according to the guide, activating those dormant shaders involves nothing more than flashing the BIOS. Once you're finished with that, you can goose the clockspeeds to match that of a 6970 videocard.
TechPowerUp tested its method on 14 cards from 7 different vendors and in each case determined that the mod "unlocks and works fine" without any errors.
Image Credit: AMD
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Travatron
December 28, 2010 at 4:02pm
I did this with my XFX 6950 a few days ago and have had zero issues! It runs a little hotter with the "overclock," but still perfectable acceptable temps.
Nexangelus
December 27, 2010 at 10:01pm
Sweet. Thanks for the info. Probably gonna use this card in my upcoming build in February.
triclops41
December 27, 2010 at 5:19pm
that should only affect overclock headroom, running the 6950 at a 250w tdp would be fine
Nexangelus
December 27, 2010 at 12:08pm
I'm not for sure if it actually makes a differance, but the 6950 uses 2 6-pin connectors while the 6970 uses a 6-pin and 8-pin. Would anyone be able to clarify?
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