Guide Simple way to unlock Sapphire HD6950 Dual Fan Editions to HD6970

Card Used/Needed -

SAPPHIRE HD 6950 1GB GDDR5

SAPPHIRE HD 6950 2GB GDDR5

SAPPHIRE HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 Dirt3 Edition

Stock Settings (I am using a 1GB version) -

A Little Story Behind -

I had overclocked my card to 900/1275 and was going to overvolt to get further. Before that i decided to read some user experiences at newegg. Saw this -

Bios Switch unlocks 6970 shaders.

So thats how the fun began.

How to Unlock -

1. You need to have a Sapphire HD6950 with a dual fan cooler. 1GB or 2GB both have good chance of unlocking.

2. Make sure the card is running at stock 800/1250.

3. Turn off the system, open the cabinet side panel and locate the BIOS Switch on the card. Its near crossfire bridge connector.

4. Flip the switch towards right.

5. Reboot.

6. Open GPU-Z and you shall see this hopefully -



7. Now you can overclock it to 880/1375 (the HD6970 speeds) (Note - Every card is different. Some cards may need overvolting to get to 880/1375. Overclock at your own risk)

My Overclocking Update -



This is at Stock Volt.

Temps during BC2 (UPRIVER) -



Benchmark Comparisons -









Metro scores in line with HD6970 (settings same) -

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-560-ti-448-core-review/18

AvP Comparison -

Spoiler

AvP D3D11 Benchmark Report

==========================

**************************************************

* Report Created: 2011-12-15 @ 11:12:39

**************************************************

* Executable Build: V1.03, Apr 19 2010

**************************************************

*DX11 Hardware Detected*

Using Video Settings from file <C:\Users\Jassu\Documents\AvP Benchmarks\Tests\avp_tool.txt>:

Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Texture Quality: 3

Shadow Quality: 3

Anisotropic Filtering: 16

SSAO: ON

Vertical Sync: OFF

DX11 Tessellation: ON

DX11 Advanced Shadows: ON

DX11 MSAA Samples: 4

Benchmark Summary:

Number of frames: 4959

Average Frame Time: 21.1ms

Average FPS: 47.3

Use command-line option '-logframetime' to report performance frame-by-frame.

Scores in line with this -

http://www.techspot.com/review/348-amd-radeon-6970/page7.html

UNIGINE -

Spoiler

880/1375 (1536) -

http://img607.imageshack.us/img607/1679/capture5yb.png

800/1275 (1408) -

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/6215/afterdb.png

 

[mrcool63]

the 1gb has only 30 percent success rate for unlocking.

here is the bios flash method

http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/159

 

[Faraz]

How safe is the bios flash for 2gb twin frozr III? Dont want to get into rma hassles as i have had a pathetic experience with msi.