MSI Radeon 6950 Options - Which to Get?

[Fireball]

Hey guys,

Just looking for some quick advice - at the same price point, would you prefer the Twin Frozr II 2GB version, or the Twin Frozr III 1GB version?

As I understand, the Twin Frozr III should be unlockable even at 1GB due to the dual bios switch, but I'm wondering if the extra shaders / speed would be worth the tradeoff for half the VRAM?

Resolution will be 1920x1080.

Thanks!

[Ed103194]

Only the first revision 6950's could be unlocked to 6970 shaders, all the new ones have the cores laser cut so you cannot unlock them. Between the two I would pick the 2gb because for me, I am using the same resolution and bf3 easily uses ~1.3gb vram

[Dzzope]

Also at that res you should be fine for about a year before ram remotely becomes more of an issue than the raw power of the card.

[Dragonstongue]

Dual bios switch, has more or less nothing to do with the unlocking of the card, its usually so the user can screw around with a different bios and if things go bad, you revert to older bios.

Also the 2gb cards were the only ones that could have a "chance" of unlocking, and very very few of them now do that, as someone mentioned they disable permanently these extra shaders, but I believe the tiwn Forzr 3 2gb and XFX XXX(830 core) are among the only ones left that still have a chance (65% or so) if unlocking, even if they dont get the extra shaders, they usually will up the ram clocks-core clocks and such, but not power tune limits.

[maverick_brent]

Go with the 2gb version.

[Kommie986]

I'm pretty sure the power edition unlocks.

MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition Unlocking - Unlocking Guide

[Eluder]

That's a really old article, plus, I don't think I've ever seen the power edition being sold in Canada.

[Fireball]

Hey guys,

Thanks kindly for all the help! I ended up going with the MSI 6950 2GB. Fortunately, it appears I was lucky and was able to unlock the shaders on the card, so I wonder if some of the newer cards in circulation have not had the shaders lasered?

Sorry for not having any pre-unlock screens, but here is the GPU-Z screenshot of the shaders (apologies if it's the incorrect format - I'm new to this!.



At this point, do the usual GPU overclocking principles apply, or would I be able to immediately apply 6970 clocks and expect it to run hunky-dory?

As always, thanks kindly for all of the advice and insight.

[Dzzope]

You won't get full 6970 oc clocks.

Just oc as normal and see what you can reach.

[Eluder]

I'd be surprised as heck if you can't OC to 6970 speeds easily because my reference XFX 6950 has no problem surpassing stock 6970 speeds without any voltage increase.
Mind you I have aftermarket cooling, but so do you.