Triple 6950's... unlock & o'clock?

CrackityJones

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The model is undecided... I f'ed up and ordered the sapphire dirt3 edition x3 and then noticed there's only one xfire connector per card *facepalm*, so I'm returning for another triplet that can be unlocked AND trifired. Leaning MSI Frozr II though. Suggestions?

Cooling: Air! Thermaltake level 10 gt is the case.

Need?: That's my q. I somehow doubt @ 5760 x 1080 I'll NEED anything more than trip stock 2gb 6950's for ~100 fps in any game on the market. Just verifying w/you guys. :hello:
 

Motopsychojdn

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Jan 26, 2010
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2x 6950 2Gb's should handle that easily,
Stolen from http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/amd-radeon-hd-6000/hd-6950/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6950-overview.aspx#2

under the specifications tab.

■AMD CrossFireX™ multi-GPU technology6
◦Dual, triple or quad-GPU scaling
■Cutting-edge integrated display support
◦DisplayPort 1.2
•Max resolution: 2560x1600 per display
•Multi-Stream Transport
•21.6 Gbps bandwidth
•High bit-rate audio
◦HDMI 1.4a with Stereoscopic 3D Frame Packing Format, Deep Color, xvYCC wide gamut support, and high bit-rate audio
•Max resolution: 1920x1200
◦Dual-link DVI with HDCP
•Max resolution: 2560x1600
◦VGA
•Max resolution: 2048x1536

The reason I ask about your cooling is that crossfire/ SLI'd cards can suffer, especially the top card in the set up, if your watercooling its not an issue but with air its vital you are on the ball to avoid cooking the cards, the gt's sidefan better be up to it lol
I assume your looking for dual slot editions, not the triple slot?,
You must be there aren't enough pci slots for three triple cards :p

and different cards can have differrent pcb's, a lot of them the bios switch lets you flash the cards on a secondary bios chip, if it goes wrong then you have your 'backup' bios (which cannot be flashed)
on my Asus 6950's though, that switch is used to alter a display port/dvi function,
So options really at this point are,
research different manf's cards and decide which you want,
decide if you still need or just want trifire instead of crossfire with two cards
and possibly think about watercooling the cards, if not the Processor,
If you do have three cards in there I strongly recommend that as your cooling
Moto
 

CrackityJones

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I don't want to deal w/microstuttering so 2 cards is out. Definitely want 2 slot. I'll keep an eye on temps for sure!

So should I keep 2 sapphires & get one card w/2 xfire connectors? That would work right? So the one in the middle would take two connectors and top & bottom take 1?
 

Motopsychojdn

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I'm not sure if there are any issues with different manufacturers cards mixing,
certainly none I've heard of yet :)
but yes, the middle card would need two connectors,
on a sidenote, I quite fancy another 6950 now hehe
Moto
 

Motopsychojdn

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I would but I'm on one monitor and dont think theres a mobo capable of holding three tripleslot cards hehe,
Plus the better half may object, I want more watercooling and haven't 'found' the money yet :)
Moto
 

Motopsychojdn

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Yeah, that would be an intel plate though, I'm on a 975BE with the latest build,
Timing was all wrong on this build, it was meant to be for sale but bulldozer blew that out lol

looking at that Mobo though I think you could do it hehe, although the speeds would be 16/8/8 I don't think anyone could moan with three huge gfx cards there
you don't get a lot of space between these puppies,
IMAG0350.jpg

IMAG0352.jpg

And watercooling those three cards would be the best solution for you in my opinion, but unlocking the shaders if you can is the least you can do, overclocking them is just going to ramp up the heat something crazy once they get going
Moto