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AMD Radeon HD 6970 Reviews

Wild-Bill

Wild-Bill

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Jan 10, 2007
2,539
617
bleep
Well,

I've seen a lot of HD 6970 reviews hit the streets today. Can we hope to see some "investigation" from Cindori & company in the near future??? ;)

I would love to stick a modded version in my 2008 Mac Pro.

Retail on these cards is looking at about $370.00 (Yeah... 80 bucks cheaper than Apple wants for their single-DVI 5870 :rolleyes: )

Requires 1 8-pin and 1 6-pin power connector.
2 GB of memory on-board. :D
 
Although the Radeon HD 6000 series are somewhat supported in Mac OS X, we still have no framebuffer driver for it, so no display, managing resolutions, multiple displays, power management and all that jazz.

It would actually just suck power without providing anything useful.
 
pressure got the point

not really much to do for me, im waiting around for a new binary to leak from apple before I can extend the use of my Zeus

was going to do an "rom-converter" for 5870 but as Zeus cant flash it, it seemed a little unnessecary
 
Wild-Bill said:
Retail on these cards is looking at about $370.00 (Yeah... 80 bucks cheaper than Apple wants for their single-DVI 5870 :rolleyes: )
Click to expand...

Why is single DVI so upsetting? I would rather have MDP instead of DVI, as going from DVI->MDP is not cheap, but going from MDP->DVI is pretty cheap.
 
goMac said:
Why is single DVI so upsetting? I would rather have MDP instead of DVI, as going from DVI->MDP is not cheap, but going from MDP->DVI is pretty cheap.
Click to expand...

Neither of my two displays has mini-DP. They do, however, both have DVI. I have DVI cables already as well.
 
Wild-Bill said:
Neither of my two displays has mini-DP. They do, however, both have DVI. I have DVI cables already as well.
Click to expand...

Still not sure what the complaint is about... MDP lets them fit more ports on a card, and the adaptors are cheap. Plus MDP is more future ready. It would be like someone with VGA displays complaining about cards that ship with DVI ports...
 
Pressure said:
Although the Radeon HD 6000 series are somewhat supported in Mac OS X, we still have no framebuffer driver for it, so no display, managing resolutions, multiple displays, power management and all that jazz.

It would actually just suck power without providing anything useful.
Click to expand...

Probably a dumb question but it should work under boot camp though, right?
 
goMac said:
Still not sure what the complaint is about... MDP lets them fit more ports on a card, and the adaptors are cheap. Plus MDP is more future ready. It would be like someone with VGA displays complaining about cards that ship with DVI ports...
Click to expand...

Agreed. Sadly, they still manufacture VGA ports! DVI was a fine port, but its time has come and gone. I'd much rather Apple look forward, as pretty much anybody actually buying desktops these days can certainly pony up the freaking money to buy an adapter. Especially people with a Mac Pro.
 
Requires 1 8-pin and 1 6-pin power connector.
How can you use this in a MacPro, which had two 6 pin power connectors on the logic board?
 
By a) using an adapter, which you don't need to do, or b) using two six-pin cables.
 
davegregory said:
If you're only going to use it windows, you could get a 6950 and flash it with 6970 BIOS. The 6950 is EXACTLY the same as the 6970 just with features turned off in software. Reflashing it turns it back into a 6970.
Click to expand...

This kind of works, and it kind of doesn't. For me, whenever I flashed a 6970 bios onto my 6950, windows wouldn't load and the card wouldn't respond. But when I flashed it with a modified 6950 rom that unlocks the additional shader cores it booted just fine. There are scripts for both methods in the forum thread about this.

I tried this with two different brands (XFX and Diamond) and each had the same result. Luckily the cards have a switch that lets you go back to a "safety" rom if you brick your card. :D
 
Hi

I just bought a 6970 for use in boot camp on my mp3,1. What should I do for the 8-pin power connector? Is it completely fine to use the 6-pin cable? If so, where would I get one?

The card came with an 8-pin to 2 molex connector and I have many molex connectors/extensions, so could I connect the 8 pin to the spare optical drive? I would rather do this if I don't have to buy anything.
 
It's fine to use a 6-pin cable. You could use the optical bay power but I wouldn't recommend that. As to where to find such a 6-pin cable… here's one from Amazon, and I'll bet Google has a few links as well. :D
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
@Bosma

Hey, so you got 6970 for bootcamp? does it work under osx as well? or do you use an other card for osx?
thx in advanced

cheers
jason
 
jasonxp said:
@Bosma

Hey, so you got 6970 for bootcamp? does it work under osx as well? or do you use an other card for osx?
thx in advanced

cheers
jason
Click to expand...

I'm just using windows right now. I had the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT also in and when I booted into OS X it ignored the 6970 and just used the 2600. It wouldn't work all by itself.
 
Hey Bosma, have you read this http://forum.hardmac.com/index.php?showtopic=9418

Probably its too much for me to ask for... but have you tested the 6970 using latest os 10.6.6? My Graphic card broke yesterday and i have to get a new one emidiatly by tomorrow... if 6970 works on 10.6.6 i would buy it instead of "standard" expensive apple graphic cards.

It would be of great help for me and probably for others if you could please please please test under 10.6.6 :) please? :)

cheers and billions thanks
Jason

ps: thanks for your reply aswell :)
 
It won't work until Apple decides to adopt the card. Get a PC 5870 instead, if you want a bad a$$ graphics card.
 
OS X Lion and Netkas

So, regarding the 6970:

Netkas discovered that in OS X Lion there is everything we need to boot a number of these cards will near 100% functionality. I'm talking PC cards, OFF THE SHELF, WITH NO HACKING - are working on the developer preview of Lion.

There is a way to use the kexts from Lion in Snow Leopard too. I have a 6970 on the way to do some testing.

Let's hope this trend continues and Apple stop putting our graphics options on lockdown.
 
colorkite said:
So, regarding the 6970:

Netkas discovered that in OS X Lion there is everything we need to boot a number of these cards will near 100% functionality. I'm talking PC cards, OFF THE SHELF, WITH NO HACKING - are working on the developer preview of Lion.

There is a way to use the kexts from Lion in Snow Leopard too. I have a 6970 on the way to do some testing.
Click to expand...

That's fantastic news!
 
Unfortunately, the 6900 series don't work on Lion yet. Tester at netkas' forum and insanely Mac are trying to figure this out.

However, the 6800 series appear to work nicely.
 
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