There are more than a few poor 2011 iMac owners that for whatever reason either can't or won't go through with the bold move of installing an NVIDIA replacement. That leaves only one choice, right? get a re-balled
AMD Radeon 6970m off ebay. Which is not a comforting thought made even less comforting by the fact that for every listing, you're not entirely sure if it's:
1. an original card that's failed already and been baked.
2. an original card that hasn't failed. yet.
3. an Apple replacement card that's failed already and been baked.
4. an Apple replacement card that hasn't failed. yet.
5. an unbranded knockoff
Which leads me to some important questions.
A. Is there a way to tell the difference between the original 6970m's and the ones Apple supplied as part of their much-too-short recall? Or did they just replace a defective card with another identically defective card?
B. Is there a way to spot an unbranded knockoff?
I want to know:
are there certain makes of the 6970m cards that have a lower probability of failure?
Looking through pictures of 6907m listings on ebay you see some with the BLACKCOMB tag on the left or right in big or small text or not at all. Some have an additional HF / e l mark on there as well. Some sellers include the tag “Bespoke” as part of the item description. As for the chip itself, some have a clear AMD brand silkscreened on them and some don't.
Does anybody out there know what, exactly, a legitimate 6970m should/shouldn't look like? and if those markings and appearance could lead a buyer to get a make that had the best chance of survival.
I've posted some screen shots of some of the variances between card images. These are all listed as: APPLE IMAC 27" A1312 Mid 2011 RADEON HD 6970M 1GB GPU VIDEO CARD
except the last one listed as a 2GB
pics at:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2011-imac-graphics-card-upgrade.1596614/page-51#post-26792077
