Radeon HD 6950 Into a 6970 With a BIOS Hack

News
By Marcus Yam
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Free performance!

AMD's freshly released Radeon HD 6950 and 6970 are the new leaders for the chipmaker's graphics offerings.

Interestingly, both graphics parts are based off of the same Cayman core. We're not talking about just the same underlying technology, but apparently the cores are the same in both graphics parts. The only difference is the software that's flashed on the BIOS.

It turns out that those who have a Radeon HD 6950 can simply reflash their graphics card BIOS to enable those dormant parts of the GPU.

The process is outlined by TechPowerUp, so click through to check out how to unleash more power out of the Radeon HD 6950.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
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77 Comments Comment from the forums
  • stingstang
    It would explain why their prices are so close to each other. This really is a fantastic breakthrough, until the new drivers stop allowing this.
    Reply
  • borisof007
    AMD Fail, isn't the first time this happened. Anyone remember the triple core into a quad core a while back?
    Reply
  • scook9
    this used to work on nvidia cards too, now they laser cuts the SPs to prevent it
    Reply
  • rmmil978
    scook9this used to work on nvidia cards too, now they laser cuts the SPs to prevent it
    It still works on some GTX 465s, that's a pretty new card.
    Reply
  • Harby
    borisof007AMD Fail, isn't the first time this happened. Anyone remember the triple core into a quad core a while back?
    You're clearly not old enough to remember ATIs 9800GTs into XTs BIOS mods.
    Plus, what's the fail about it? Did you maybe buy a 6970 and now you feel cheated out of 70 bucks?
    Reply
  • zackh411
    Its not a fail, its just chip binning. Unlock at your own risk, there is a reason the chip in your 6950 went into a 6950 and not into a 6970.
    Reply
  • 9450392956
    Whoa cool....
    Getting a HD 6970 at lower price
    Reply
  • tmk221
    Unlock at your own risk, there is a reason the chip in your 6950 went into a 6950 and not into a 6970

    you don't risk much since 69xx series has double bios ;D one that you can change and one pernament.

    I wonder why they made it so easy to mode that card...
    Reply
  • borisof007
    HarbyYou're clearly not old enough to remember ATIs 9800GTs into XTs BIOS mods.Plus, what's the fail about it? Did you maybe buy a 6970 and now you feel cheated out of 70 bucks?
    I'm not aware of the 9800 GT XT issue, and my first PC had a TNT2. I just never heard of that. And the fail about it is that AMD is going to lose money, and face, over the fact that 2 products within the last 2 years have had simple BIOS bypasses to make them equal to their superior products that they sell.

    Who would buy a regular dodge avenger over a charger if you could simply update the ECM in the car and all of a sudden gain a whole bunch of horespower? Same difference.

    Additionally, I'm quite happy with my GTX285. I just think that AMD would have learned its lesson the first time
    Reply
  • misry
    Because if 1337 boyz talk about it wannabeez will follow. There's 150 wannabeez for every real 1337.

    Salez.
    Reply