Softmod an AMD Radeon HD 6950 to an HD 6970

Hardware enthusiasts are always on the look out for ways of getting something for nothing or expanding the use from a given piece of equipment. Overclocking, soft-modding, anything goes for squeezing those precious few flops or frames out of their hardware, or making it perform like a much more expensive model. AMD CPUs with core unlocking, converting NVIDIA GeForce cards into Quadros, even using software to gain added abilities with soundcards. A couple days ago, a softmod was released that allowed the conversion of an AMD HD 6950 into a 6970, not just a mere overclock, but actually re-enabling the extra shaders as well.

TechPowerUp released a rather interesting article as they convert a stock 6950 into a 6970, with most of the perks that come with it. All that’s involved is a bios flash and some tweaks to the base clock frequencies and you’ll be saving yourself about $70 in the process. The new 6 series comes with a dual bios option making the process a lot less painful and reduces the chance of turning your new card into an expensive paperweight.

The conversion is not a complete one, as is detailed in the article. Some adjustments still need to be made to the power profile and frequencies to match the upgraded model in performance, since a straight mod will actually give you no performance boost at all, but increase the power draw significantly. The other thing to bare in mind is that a 6950 has 2x 6pin power connectors, while the 6970 has an 8pin and a 6pin, allowing it to be overclocked a little easier.

If you’re interested in squeezing a little more power out of your purchase and don’t mind dabbling with bios flashing, then hit up the source link for the details. It’s worth bearing in mind that most conversions will work with reference designed GPUs, custom designed and various overclocked versions may not be compatible.

A few weeks ago AMD released the Radeon HD 6970 and Radeon HD 6950. Both cards are based on AMD’s new Cayman core which is their first graphics processor to use a VLIW4 shader configuration. Just like on all other similar products, AMD’s two Cayman variants, called Cayman Pro and Cayman XT, are based on the exact same GPU silicon. The model variant a GPU chip becomes is decided after the die is produced, at some point before it is put on the card. Creating new SKUs from the same silicon by locking features has been common practice in the industry since at least the Radeon 9500 in 2002.