Unsure whether your MSI R6950 Power Edition will unlock? Check the guide from MSI themselves.
Product on Review: MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition
Manufacturer and Sponsor: MSI
MSRP: Not listed
Street Price: £203.99
From MSI:
It is a common misconception that MSI’s 6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition cannot be unlocked because it’s not a reference design.
The fact is, despite sporting a fully custom PCB with Military Class II components and the epic Twin Frozr III cooler it WILL unlock to 1536 shaders.
That said, it will only unlock because MSI are so confident about the capabilities of the card that they wrote a custom BIOS themselves.
You must use MSI’s custom BIOS and NOT any reference BIOS/bios editor otherwise you are at high risk of killing the card
Please read this guide below first and then if you feel confident enough download the BIOS here.
Follow this guide and you will have 1536 Shaders AND an Unlocked Overclock Limit – but you do so at your own risk.
It is a common misconception that MSI’s 6950 Twin Frozr III Power Edition cannot be unlocked because it’s not a reference design.
The fact is, despite sporting a fully custom PCB with Military Class II components and the epic Twin Frozr III cooler it WILL unlock to 1536 shaders.
That said, it will only unlock because MSI are so confident about the capabilities of the card that they wrote a custom BIOS themselves.
You must use MSI’s custom BIOS and NOT any reference BIOS/bios editor otherwise you are at high risk of killing the card
Please read this guide below first and then if you feel confident enough download the BIOS here.
Follow this guide and you will have 1536 Shaders AND an Unlocked Overclock Limit – but you do so at your own risk.
Just to add my personal note on this matter. There have been many reports of people not being able to unlock their cards despite MSI’s confidence that the card will unlock. This may be due to recent batches of the cut down Cayman GPU being laser cut and thus rendered unable to unlock. So please do this at your own discretion and beware that in flashing the card, you will also void your warranty but there are ways to avoid that… Should the flash be successful but fail to unlock the extra shaders, you will still get the benefits of an increased overclocking headroom in MSI Afterburner. As soon as more info is available from MSI, the article will be updated.
Procedure
Disclaimer: We take no responsibility for any fault that may develop and unlocking should be done at your own risk. I’d like to thank MSI for bringing this to our attention. For a taste of what you can expect of this card’s unlocked performance, have a look at our MSI R6970 Lightning review.
