[HOW TO] Flash your REFERENCE 6950 2GB to a 6970

[Locutus]

Okay guys, so many of you know that the 6950 2GB reference model is pretty much the best single GPU video card on the market, but some of you may not know why... Well you can easily flash it from a 6950 to the top-of-the-line 6970 even from your desktop! There's two ways of doing this, you can either grab a 6970 bios and flash it that way, or you can "soft mod" it so that you don't have to worry about over-stressing your card. Basically what I'm going to show you is the soft mod, and the main difference will be that you will be unlocking extra shaders. This won't increase your GPU clocks or your memory clocks, keeping the card stable and keeping the overall change very simple. But you will more than likely see a good increase in performance!

 

First off, you'll want to download two programs. RBE or the "Radeon Bios Editor" is the first one. The other will be ATI Winflash which will allow you to flash your cards bios from your desktop.

 

Before you begin, please PLEASE please make sure your BIOS switch is in the correct position. Here's a picture of my card. Notice that the switch is to the right, farthest from the crossfire bridge connectors. (click to zoom)

 

Next, you'll need to grab your bios off the card. Open up ATI Winflash (you'll need to run it as an Administrator) and "SAVE" the current bios to your HDD. I put mine on my desktop.

 

Here's where we finally get to change the BIOS. Open up RBE, then "LOAD" the BIOS that you just saved to your hard drive. The "Load" button is at the bottom.

Once you have it loaded in it should look something like this. Next, go to "Additional Features" tab (towards the top of the program) and you'll see something like this:

Since we're changing only the shader count, we'll click the "Unlock shader count" and change NOTHING ELSE.

 

From there, we just save the BIOS back to our hard drive. I suggest naming it something different than the original, so that you can keep a backup in case you have trouble.

"Load" the new BIOS into ATI Winflash, then "Program" it to your card. From there you'll be prompted to restart your computer.

 

Et voila. You can check to see if your handiwork is done by opening up GPU-Z or a similar program.

As you can see, I have the standard 6950 clocks, but I have the full shader count of a 6970! From here you can easily OC your card via CCC, without having such a high frequency floor to worry about in case of artifacts or other issues. In addition, I think (not positive on this one) that the 6970 voltage settings are a bit higher, so it should save you a bit on temps. :3

Edited May 6, 2011 by Locutus

[F13Bubba]

Nice tutorial mang

[Black64]

Thanks! I will use it when I get my new 6950!

[Locutus]

Thanks! I will use it when I get my new 6950!

It's definitely worth thinking about.

 

My 6950 runs all the shaders fine, but when I had the clocks at 880 I'd get a weird purple screen between loading (like when windows starts up, instead of it flashing black between screens it would go all purple and artifact-y)

 

This soft-mod fixed it.

[El_Capitan]

Added to the tutorial list.

[AsGodsChild]

I was going to buy 2 6870 but now with this CLEAR guide i am buying 2 6950s because i thought flashing them was going to cost so much stress. I can already see the performance boost

[Locutus]

I was going to buy 2 6870 but now with this CLEAR guide i am buying 2 6950s because i thought flashing them was going to cost so much stress. I can already see the performance boost

Yep, took me like 15 minutes the first go around.

 

I could probably do it again in 10 minutes, counting boot-up times. XD

[Black64]

It's definitely worth thinking about.

 

My 6950 runs all the shaders fine, but when I had the clocks at 880 I'd get a weird purple screen between loading (like when windows starts up, instead of it flashing black between screens it would go all purple and artifact-y)

 

This soft-mod fixed it.

 

Thanks for the update. I am just waiting until they drop in price a little more.

[AsGodsChild]

Thanks for the update. I am just waiting until they drop in price a little more.

 

I Have To Wait Too. No Reference Models in Stock

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007709%20600083901%20600095873&IsNodeId=1&name=Radeon%20HD%206950

[LuckyDeath]

Just want to make sure people are clear that quite a few of the newer models of this card have locked BIOS, and attempting to flash them can brick your card.

[Locutus]

Just want to make sure people are clear that quite a few of the newer models of this card have locked BIOS, and attempting to flash them can brick your card.

Right, it has to be a reference model card.

 

But either way, you can still flash your bios back since there's a handy little switch and you can't flash over the default bios when the switch is to the left. (it's ROM)

[AsGodsChild]

Just to make sure, Can this card be flashed??

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161359