MCW60-4870 on a Radeon 6950

[d0gr0ck]

Look what just came in the mail

This is to replace my remaining 4870. I'm fairly certain the MCW60-4870 should fit on just fine since the screw holes around the GPU die are unchanged so far in reference Radeon to tier cards. I'll make sure to put up a few pics so people know what it looks like.

But first, I've got one with that lovely dual BIOS switch. Let's give that shader unlock trick a whirl.

 

[orangejuice789]

Wow nice... thats quite the card! From what i read it's a fairly substantial step up from the HD 6800 series and the HD6850 specifically.

 

[d0gr0ck]

So ummm... that was easy. GPU-Z is showing a full 1536 Shaders. I'm going to poke at it a bit more, but it looks like I've now got a fully fledged 6970 right down to the clocks.

Boy oh boy temps pop up from 50 to 80C really quickly when benchmarking though. Guess that's what manual fan control is for.

 

[d0gr0ck]

Hmmm... As expected the VRM cooler part of my old block will only have one screw in. I'm not sure if I can make good contact with the single screw. But that's not my real hiccup.

There's also another voltage regulation chip between the BIOS switch and crossfire notch that had a pad on it. I've got no way to cool this sucker off.

The core of the MCW60-4870 will work just fine though, but before I go though with the block I will have to find some heatsinks of the voltage curcuitry. Back to the stock shroud for now. I'll probably keep it on 6950 settings so the heat doesn't go nuts.

 

[rubix_1011]

If you look around, you can find some site that have RAMsinks for odds and ends sizes. I've seen them...just don't remember exactly where...

 

[d0gr0ck]

Yeah, I need one lone tiny one and another strip shaped one. It's annoying because the main VRM area is just under a centimeter longer than it is on the 4870.

Edit: Well look at that, these might be just the ticket.

 

[rubix_1011]

Told you...I've seen them elsewhere besides Newegg...there are some that are designed to fit VRMs as well.

 

[d0gr0ck]

It looks like there isn't anyone making dedicated VRM strips for the 6900 series cards. There's a pile of Enzotech motherboard MOFSET strips lying around in retailers. They could be easily adapted, but I think they may be too wide.

Right now the Enzotech MOS-C1 seems to be the best bet and is avalible cheapest after shipping from [strike]Newegg[/strike] Sidewinder. Still looking around right now.

 

[rubix_1011]

They could be easily adapted, but I think they may be too wide.

Eh, nothing a Dremel and bench grinder couldn't take care of.

 

[d0gr0ck]

Eh, nothing a Dremel and bench grinder couldn't take care of.

Got one to loan me?

Actually, I might just know someone local to me who has a Dremel. Unless you're for the idea of loading yours into a cannon and shooting it over here.

Either way I would still need a mini-sink for the one VRM hiding by the BIOS swich.

 

[rubix_1011]

More than happy to lend it, but the fact that it would need to be shipped or otherwise fired using military ordinance, the cost to buy one is relatively low these days. Plus, it's one of the most-used tools in my garage...you can use those things for almost anything depending on the bits you have.

 

[d0gr0ck]

I got those little MOFSET sinks today. They are a pretty good size for this application. I've been cleaning, cleaning and doing some more cleaning. Every time I shine a light there is more darned waxy residue from those OEM pads.

Also, I guess I had some pretty good mounting pressure on the block when it was on my 4870.

That's the logo on the die etched onto the base!

EDIT (so no extra posting)

I finished mounting the little heatsinks on. Protip for 3M 8815 thermal tape: you're going to want a surprising about of mounting force to get the adhesive to properly wet out. It says no cure time needed, but from my experience with adhesives testing allowing for cure time will generally allow bond strength to increase. Even if only a minor improvement it's still useful.

Here's the card with a trial mount (no TIM) of the MCW60-4870 sans the VRM heat pipe. You can see a bit of the RAM chips poking out. I think this will be a non-issue since I've never known RAM to get fiery-hot.

 

[d0gr0ck]

Well I'd call this a roaring success. I've yet to crack 40C on whatever GPU-Z is measuring outside of what it calls the VReg. I've now got the card using a shader unlock only with manual overclocking.

That's on stock voltage. Sometime when I get a nice chunk of time I'll see how far that core will go with a bumped voltage. It would be pretty cool to pull off that 1GHz core clock.

 

[rubix_1011]

I <3 MCW60's.