Just got Gigabyte 6950 and unlocked it!

KAC · Jan 4, 2011, 02:41 PM

So, I went to purchase a GTX 570 and came back with HD 6950. GTX 570 was selling for 425$ equivalent in my country and at that obscene price I was almost second guessing my decision to purchase. To add insult to the injury I found out that the ASUS 23" LCD w/ 120 Hz gaming and 3D glasses from nVidia will knock me down about 650 bones on top of that. Granted my total new system budget is 1000$, I am not willing to put that much money into gaming just yet.

So all said and done, I found this Gigabyte HD 6950 for approx 360$. Given I will be selling my current card for 200$ equivalent and have some money saved up from selling off used console games, this card is now practically free for me

.

So how does the free card perform? Long story short, card unlocks to 6970 using script posted at Techpowerup in less than 10 seconds

. Boots up fine and all tests ran flawless but fan speed now throttles to 57% max that I have seen (which is quite annoying) and overall tempratures are hovering around 92 C which is also annoying.

Here is the test setup:
Q6600 @ 3.0 Ghz
4 GB Ram
Win 7 64 bit
Cat 10.12 for Radeon 5850
Cat 10.12 on CD for Radeon 6950
Radeon 5850 @ 800/1150
Radeon 6950 @ default
Radeon 6970 @ 880/1375
AA set to Adaptive for all tests

All tests ran at 1680*1050 resolution with vsync disabled in CCC (because last time I kept it enabled and people on this forum had a fit

). All tests had app preference set in CCC unless required by game (e.g. NFS HP). All games ran at maximum possible in game setting unless noted. Powertune set to +20% so that card doesn't run out of juice.

The best part of all of this is that I didn't purchase a 6970 or even a GTX 570. Given my system I don't think I would have gained anything in real world gaming terms. Also with my resolution the only games that were running like crap (Metro 2033 and Lost Planet 2) are fixed at stock 6950 settings. I will keep the card at 6970 settings for now but might revert back to 6950 since extra performance is not worth the card life deterioration. Second best part is that Gigabyte has 3 year warranty here which rocks my balls.

Nice little table for you gays to chew on. Am a happy camper and glad I stayed with ATi for now.

Danny Nissan · Jan 4, 2011, 02:47 PM

Aww you should´ve installed the current hotfix driver

Anyways enjoy your new card!!

KAC · Jan 4, 2011, 02:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danny Nissan

Aww you should´ve installed the current hotfix driver

Anyways enjoy your new card!!

Maybe, if I am crazy enough, I might re-run the benches tomorrow to see wtf is hotfix about...

**acroig** · Jan 4, 2011, 02:52 PM

Congrats bud! Great purchase.

BababooeyHTJ · Jan 4, 2011, 04:36 PM

You made the right decision.

I love my card too.

Eluder · Jan 4, 2011, 11:16 PM

Interesting, you have a fairly similar rig to mine, including the overclock, and I upgraded from a 5850 to the 6950.

I'm waiting for Metro 2033 to arrive to see how this new card does.

KAC · Jan 5, 2011, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eluder

Interesting, you have a fairly similar rig to mine, including the overclock, and I upgraded from a 5850 to the 6950.

I'm waiting for Metro 2033 to arrive to see how this new card does.

Can you please bench 3dmark11 and UniEngine 2.0 benches so that I can see if performance is what should be expected.

.

KAC · Jan 5, 2011, 04:38 AM

New drivers with very slight performance improvement.
3dmark11 for 4604 score
Uniengine 2xAA, 16xAF Normal tesselation for 53.4
Nothing ground breaking and unnoticeable real world performance improvement so not going to re-do the complete benching set.

GanjaStar · Jan 5, 2011, 05:48 AM

cpu limited in nfs most likely. great upgrade though, and a free 10% boost on top of an already 30%+ boost.

I approve

KAC · Jan 5, 2011, 06:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GanjaStar

cpu limited in nfs most likely. great upgrade though, and a free 10% boost on top of an already 30%+ boost.

I approve

Actually I get no tearing in NFS HP so that is why I think vsync never gets disabled. And yes, it is a fantastic upgrade. I got a 6970 at 9$ less than retail with an overall ~30%+ boost across the board with no out of pocket expenses.

.

Also real world gaming tempratures are around 85 C and fan speed never goes above 40% which is fine by me.

GanjaStar · Jan 5, 2011, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KickAssCop

Actually I get no tearing in NFS HP so that is why I think vsync never gets disabled.

don't know if it works for ATI but you can try

Go to Documents\Criterion Games\Need for Speed(TM) Hot Pursuit
open with notepad "config.NFS11Save"
change to FitToVertical=false

then force vsync off in nvidia game profile, that's working for me

becco · Jan 6, 2011, 02:22 PM

Congrats for the unlocked, HD6950 @ HD6970 is known the king of price and performance.

KAC · Jan 6, 2011, 02:52 PM

It's unlocked and it is a beast. I don't know wtf happened yesterday or day before when I benched and got 92/93 C temps w/ 57% fan speed. Today I overclocked the card to 950 core and 1425 memory (memory is rated for 1425 MHz and core was maxed out in MSI afterburner) and temps remained below 90 C and fan speed at 40 C whilst running 3dmark11.

Final score of 6970 @ 950 core / 1425 memory is P4854 using 3dmark11 1.01.

**acroig** · Jan 6, 2011, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KickAssCop

It's unlocked and it is a beast.

You gonna keep the card or get a 570?

KAC · Jan 6, 2011, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acroig

You gonna keep the card or get a 570?

Keep it. Saved the 60+ bucks and also heard that for 3D I need SLI. I hardly have time to game and am not willing to part with 650$ for LCD+Glasses and another 425$*2 for 570 SLi.

Not my cup of tea especially considering my lowly Q6600 which will run me another 600-800 bones to upgrade to core i7. $2000+ on a computer is not my thing seriously.

**acroig** · Jan 6, 2011, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KickAssCop

Keep it. Saved the 60+ bucks and also heard that for 3D I need SLI.

Got 'cha, enjoy.

minaelromany · Jan 7, 2011, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KickAssCop

Keep it. Saved the 60+ bucks and also heard that for 3D I need SLI. I hardly have time to game and am not willing to part with 650$ for LCD+Glasses and another 425$*2 for 570 SLi.

Not my cup of tea especially considering my lowly Q6600 which will run me another 600-800 bones to upgrade to core i7. $2000+ on a computer is not my thing seriously.

Nope

For Surround (3 Monitors) you would need SLI , but 3D runs on a single card (You will need another card only becaue your fps would be cut into half

)

Enjoy your card

KAC · Jan 7, 2011, 05:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by minaelromany

Nope

For Surround (3 Monitors) you would need SLI , but 3D runs on a single card (You will need another card only becaue your fps would be cut into half

)

Enjoy your card

That's what I meant. My focus is always real world gaming performance and not on a feature that I have in my pocket but is unusable due to lack of sufficient horse power.

**Higgy10** · Jan 15, 2011, 09:21 AM

You going to use eyefinity or sticking to a single monitor?

KAC · Jan 15, 2011, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Higgy10

You going to use eyefinity or sticking to a single monitor?

I am not a fan of multiple monitors. When I tried it, it was extremely distracting to have a second monitor on the side whilst gaming. Additionally, I do not like Eyefinity at all due to bezels showing up. I can see bezels even in single monitor and can't possibly ignore bezels on multi-monitor setups.

If anything, I need to upgrade my monitor to 1080p resolution before I even think about multi monitor setups

.

**acroig** · Jan 15, 2011, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KickAssCop

I need to upgrade my monitor to 1080p resolution before I even think about multi monitor setups

.

Agreed. Now that you have a powerhouse of a card hook it up to a big monitor.

KAC · Jan 15, 2011, 11:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acroig

Agreed. Now that you have a powerhouse of a card hook it up to a big monitor.

But I think I might be CPU limited...

Sound_Card · Jan 15, 2011, 11:24 AM

Your improvements would of been even higher if you were benching on 1080p. For most titles today, I would consider 1680x1050 the middle child resolution where it's stuck between CPU and GPU limitations. Nearly becoming all CPU limited.

**Higgy10** · Jan 15, 2011, 11:29 AM

Ahh for sure then, pick up a nice 24" 1080p monitor

KAC · Jan 19, 2011, 12:12 AM

New drivers mean more performance. Now punching P4921 marks up from P4854.

Card at 950 / 1425 omgwtfmegahurtz...

KAC · May 23, 2011, 12:12 PM

So been a while since I purchased this. Card has been running smooth like butta since day of purchase. Can't stress enough how good value is on them 6950s. However, if only I could get rid of ATi specific features* for new games, I will be a happy camper.

*Such as hitching, lightmap issues, black boxes on screen, flickering textures etc

Jan 4, 2011, 02:41 PM	#1	Advertisement (Guests Only) Login or Register to remove this ad
KAC RGB mofo, do you have it! Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lahore Posts: 62,187	Just got Gigabyte 6950 and unlocked it! So, I went to purchase a GTX 570 and came back with HD 6950. GTX 570 was selling for 425$ equivalent in my country and at that obscene price I was almost second guessing my decision to purchase. To add insult to the injury I found out that the ASUS 23" LCD w/ 120 Hz gaming and 3D glasses from nVidia will knock me down about 650 bones on top of that. Granted my total new system budget is 1000$, I am not willing to put that much money into gaming just yet. So all said and done, I found this Gigabyte HD 6950 for approx 360$. Given I will be selling my current card for 200$ equivalent and have some money saved up from selling off used console games, this card is now practically free for me . So how does the free card perform? Long story short, card unlocks to 6970 using script posted at Techpowerup in less than 10 seconds . Boots up fine and all tests ran flawless but fan speed now throttles to 57% max that I have seen (which is quite annoying) and overall tempratures are hovering around 92 C which is also annoying. Here is the test setup: Q6600 @ 3.0 Ghz 4 GB Ram Win 7 64 bit Cat 10.12 for Radeon 5850 Cat 10.12 on CD for Radeon 6950 Radeon 5850 @ 800/1150 Radeon 6950 @ default Radeon 6970 @ 880/1375 AA set to Adaptive for all tests All tests ran at 1680*1050 resolution with vsync disabled in CCC (because last time I kept it enabled and people on this forum had a fit ). All tests had app preference set in CCC unless required by game (e.g. NFS HP). All games ran at maximum possible in game setting unless noted. Powertune set to +20% so that card doesn't run out of juice. The best part of all of this is that I didn't purchase a 6970 or even a GTX 570. Given my system I don't think I would have gained anything in real world gaming terms. Also with my resolution the only games that were running like crap (Metro 2033 and Lost Planet 2) are fixed at stock 6950 settings. I will keep the card at 6970 settings for now but might revert back to 6950 since extra performance is not worth the card life deterioration. Second best part is that Gigabyte has 3 year warranty here which rocks my balls. Nice little table for you gays to chew on. Am a happy camper and glad I stayed with ATi for now.

KAC's System Specs
Motherboard	MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk
CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 5900X @ 5.15 Gs
Graphics	EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra @ 2000 M
Memory	32 GB G Skill Trident Z NEO RGB @ 3733 C16
Cooling Solution	Corsair H150i Pro @ Quiet
Display	LG 55” CX OLED \| Samsung Odyssey G7 32”
Soundcard & Speakers	Logitech G332
Hard-Drives	660P 1TB, P1 1TB, MX500 1TB, 850 EVO 1TB, 840 EVO 512, 830 256 GB
Optical Drives	Dafuq dat optical drive?
Power Supply	EVGA G2 1300 W
Case	Phanteks P500A with extra gay RGB
Input Devices	Logitech G502 \| Corsair K70 MK 2 RGB
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro X64
Extra Info	Still pounding your mums

Jan 4, 2011, 02:47 PM	#2
Danny Nissan high quality troll Join Date: May 2007 Location: Sweden Posts: 4,041	Aww you should´ve installed the current hotfix driver Anyways enjoy your new card!! __________________ ASUS PG279Q \| ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti OC 2025MHz/12.2GHz \| Intel i7 3770K 4.7GHz [Noctua NH-U12P SE2] \| 2x8GB G.Skill TridentX DDR3-2400 10-12-12-31-1T \| Fractal Design R4 \| Be Quiet! Straight Power CM E9 580W \| ASUS Maximus V Gene \| SteelSeries Rival 310 \| Qpad MK-50 \| Sennheiser HD-555 \| SupremeFX III \| Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + 840 Evo 250GB \| WD Caviar Black 1TB \| Windows 10 Professional iPhone 8 Plus

Danny Nissan's System Specs
Motherboard	ASUS Maximus V Gene
CPU	Intel i5-3770K 4.6GHz
Graphics	ASUS Strix GTX 1080 Ti OC 2025MHz/12GHz
Memory	16GB G.Skill TridentX DDR3-2400 10-12-12-31-1T
Cooling Solution	Noctua NH-U12P SE2
Display	ASUS PG279Q
Soundcard & Speakers	SupremeFX III
Hard-Drives	Samsung 850 EVO 256GB
Power Supply	Straight Power 580W
Case	Fractal Design R4
Input Devices	Qpad MK-50, SteelSeries Rival
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro 64-Bit

KAC's System Specs
Motherboard	MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk
CPU	AMD Ryzen 9 5900X @ 5.15 Gs
Graphics	EVGA RTX 3090 FTW3 Ultra @ 2000 M
Memory	32 GB G Skill Trident Z NEO RGB @ 3733 C16
Cooling Solution	Corsair H150i Pro @ Quiet
Display	LG 55” CX OLED \| Samsung Odyssey G7 32”
Soundcard & Speakers	Logitech G332
Hard-Drives	660P 1TB, P1 1TB, MX500 1TB, 850 EVO 1TB, 840 EVO 512, 830 256 GB
Optical Drives	Dafuq dat optical drive?
Power Supply	EVGA G2 1300 W
Case	Phanteks P500A with extra gay RGB
Input Devices	Logitech G502 \| Corsair K70 MK 2 RGB
Operating System	Windows 10 Pro X64
Extra Info	Still pounding your mums

Jan 4, 2011, 02:52 PM	#4
acroig Master Troll Join Date: May 2004 Location: Troll Master of Manchesville Posts: 51,872	Congrats bud! Great purchase. __________________ By your retarded posts i can only conclude you haven't been spanked enough. yoz

acroig's System Specs
Motherboard	Asus ROG Strix Z370-H Gam
CPU	Intel i7 8086K @ 5GHz
Graphics	EVGA 3080 XC3 Ultra
Memory	16 GB Ballistix Elite 3600
Cooling Solution	Corsair H100i
Display	Samsung G7 32"
Soundcard & Speakers	Asus Xonar DGX with Logitech 5.1
Hard-Drives	Samsung 970 EVO + & Toshiba 6TB
Optical Drives	LG DVD-RW
Power Supply	Corsair HX 850
Case	Cooler Master 932 HAF
Input Devices	Logitech G910 & G520 Hero
Operating System	Win 10 Pro
Extra Info	Logitech G930 headphones

BababooeyHTJ's System Specs
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z77 UD5h
CPU	Intel i7 3770k
Graphics	GTX 980 ti
Memory	8GB Samsung
Cooling Solution	Corsair H75
Display	Dell U3415w
Soundcard & Speakers	Sound Blaster Z
Hard-Drives	too many
Power Supply	Corsar AX850
Case	Lian Li PC-7hx
Input Devices	Deathadder
Operating System	Windows 7 x64

Jan 4, 2011, 11:16 PM	#6
Eluder Radeon R420 Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: Toronto Posts: 252	Interesting, you have a fairly similar rig to mine, including the overclock, and I upgraded from a 5850 to the 6950. I'm waiting for Metro 2033 to arrive to see how this new card does. __________________ Asus P8P67 Deluxe Intel i7-2600k @ 4.5 GHz Corsair H100 w/2x Scythe GT AP-15's 16GB G.Skill DDR3-1600 2x EVGA GTX 780 SC ACX Crucial M4 256GB Seagate 4TB ST4000DM000 LG GGC-H20L Pioneer BDR-205 Seasonic M12D-850W Corsair Obsidian 650D Dell U2711

Eluder's System Specs
Motherboard	Asus P8P67 Deluxe
CPU	Intel i7-2600k @ 4.5GHz
Graphics	EVGA GTX 780 SC ACX x2
Memory	16GB G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3-1600
Cooling Solution	Corsair H100 w/2x Scythe GT AP-15
Display	Dell U2711
Hard-Drives	Crucial M4 256GB & Seagate 4TB ST4000DM000
Optical Drives	Pioneer BDR-205 & LG GGC-H20L
Power Supply	Seasonic M12D-850W
Case	Corsair Obsidian 650D
Input Devices	Logitech G110
Operating System	Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Jan 5, 2011, 04:38 AM	#8
KAC RGB mofo, do you have it! Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lahore Posts: 62,187	New drivers with very slight performance improvement. 3dmark11 for 4604 score Uniengine 2xAA, 16xAF Normal tesselation for 53.4 Nothing ground breaking and unnoticeable real world performance improvement so not going to re-do the complete benching set.

Jan 5, 2011, 05:48 AM	#9
GanjaStar Jalouise Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Strawberry Fields Posts: 14,762	cpu limited in nfs most likely. great upgrade though, and a free 10% boost on top of an already 30%+ boost. I approve

GanjaStar's System Specs
Motherboard	GA-Z87-D3HP
CPU	Intel i5 [email protected]
Graphics	MSI 4g gtx970
Memory	8GB corsair vengeance Pro 2133mhz
Cooling Solution	Xigmatek Aegir push+pull combo
Display	ViewSonic VX2262wm 22" 1680x1050
Soundcard & Speakers	X-Fi gamer edition
Hard-Drives	1x 256GB 840 PRO+ storage
Power Supply	Corsair TX 650W
Case	homemade
Input Devices	Logitech G300,Microsoft x360 gamepad
Operating System	win7 64 Ultimate

Jan 6, 2011, 02:22 PM	#12
becco Radeon Evergreen Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: in its right place Posts: 1,990	Congrats for the unlocked, HD6950 @ HD6970 is known the king of price and performance. __________________ “The person you love can only go as far as you let them in" - Billy Corgan My YouTube

becco's System Specs
Motherboard	ASUS P8P67 Pro
CPU	Intel Core i7 2600K
Graphics	EVGA GTX570 Superclocked 1280MB
Memory	Corsair Vengeance 8GB DDR3-1600 CL8
Cooling Solution	Cooler Master V6GT White
Display	BenQ G2410HD 24"
Soundcard & Speakers	ESI [email protected] l Behringer MS40 nearfield monitor speaker
Hard-Drives	G.Skill Phoenix Pro SSD (OS), 2xWDC Blue RAID 0 (games)
Optical Drives	Sony DVDRW
Power Supply	FSP Epsilon 700W
Case	Cooler Master 690
Input Devices	Logitech MX518 l X360 Controller
Operating System	Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Jan 6, 2011, 02:52 PM	#13
KAC RGB mofo, do you have it! Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lahore Posts: 62,187	It's unlocked and it is a beast. I don't know wtf happened yesterday or day before when I benched and got 92/93 C temps w/ 57% fan speed. Today I overclocked the card to 950 core and 1425 memory (memory is rated for 1425 MHz and core was maxed out in MSI afterburner) and temps remained below 90 C and fan speed at 40 C whilst running 3dmark11. Final score of 6970 @ 950 core / 1425 memory is P4854 using 3dmark11 1.01. Last edited by KAC : Jan 6, 2011 at 03:06 PM.

minaelromany's System Specs
Motherboard	Asus Rampage III Extreme
CPU	Core i7 920 @4.25Ghz
Graphics	Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB TRI-X OC 1GHz/5.2GHz
Memory	6GB Triple Channel OCZ Blade DDR3 2025 9-9-9-24-1T
Cooling Solution	Noctua NH-D14
Display	3 BenQ 2420HD 1080p 24" Widescreen LCD "Eyefinity"
Soundcard & Speakers	Sound Blaster Z
Hard-Drives	OCZ Vertex 3 Max IOPS 120GB SSD + 17.0TB of HDDs
Optical Drives	Benq 1640 / Pioneer 111L / LiteOn iHAS120 / Samsung 203B/NEC 7200S
Power Supply	Seasonic X-850
Case	NZXT Phantom Red Edition
Input Devices	Logitech G500s Mouse + TteSPORTS Knucker Keyboard
Operating System	Windows 7 64Bit Ultimate

Jan 15, 2011, 09:21 AM	#19
Higgy10 Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 8,321	You going to use eyefinity or sticking to a single monitor?

Higgy10's System Specs
Motherboard	Asus Prime X-570
CPU	3700x
Graphics	Gigabyte 2080
Memory	16gig Corsair
Display	34" acer fs ultrawide
Hard-Drives	1gig nvme and 34tb mechanical
Power Supply	pcp&c silenver 910
Case	corsair carbide
Operating System	os/2 warp

Jan 15, 2011, 11:24 AM	#23
Sound_Card Banned Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: Constantinople Posts: 14,533	Your improvements would of been even higher if you were benching on 1080p. For most titles today, I would consider 1680x1050 the middle child resolution where it's stuck between CPU and GPU limitations. Nearly becoming all CPU limited.

Sound_Card's System Specs
Motherboard	AsRock Extreme3 Gen3 z68
CPU	Intel i5 2550K 4ghz
Graphics	HIS HD 6950 2GB CFX
Memory	2x4GB G.skill Sniper 1833mhz DDR3
Cooling Solution	Corsair H60 2xNoctua NF-P12
Display	LG 23" IPS LED
Soundcard & Speakers	Astro A40 Audio system
Hard-Drives	2TB Seagate 5900rpm + 64GB M4 (SRT)
Optical Drives	LG 22x DVD RW
Power Supply	SeaSonic USA x850
Case	Lian Li K7B
Input Devices	Razer Deathadder Lefty, Filco Majestouch Tenkeyless
Operating System	Ubuntu 12.04 LTS

Jan 15, 2011, 11:29 AM	#24
Higgy10 Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Posts: 8,321	Ahh for sure then, pick up a nice 24" 1080p monitor

Jan 19, 2011, 12:12 AM	#25
KAC RGB mofo, do you have it! Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lahore Posts: 62,187	New drivers mean more performance. Now punching P4921 marks up from P4854. Card at 950 / 1425 omgwtfmegahurtz...

May 23, 2011, 12:12 PM	#26
KAC RGB mofo, do you have it! Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Lahore Posts: 62,187	So been a while since I purchased this. Card has been running smooth like butta since day of purchase. Can't stress enough how good value is on them 6950s. However, if only I could get rid of ATi specific features* for new games, I will be a happy camper. *Such as hitching, lightmap issues, black boxes on screen, flickering textures etc

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