FirePro w7170m, testing install in Precision M6600

No, WX7100 is eDP only and even at that refuses to post if the panel is at a frequency the GPU doesnt like.

 

I see... Shame, but TBH, the price of upgrading to a RGB panel was so steep that you could buy a m6700 or m6800 for the same price if you are lucky. Still... it would have been cool.

 

7970m maybe 8970m probably the best its going to get.

 

If the M295x was offered in MXM form factor, it would work as well. It's essentially the exact same as the W7170m and the M390x, all 3 are Tonga GCN 1.2 with 2048 shaders and 4gb vram. The M295x is a smidge faster, and was in some Alienware machines (and some iMac all-in-ones) that were LVDS, but are all soldered on. Sadly, the Tonga 2048 chip has no place in the ol' M6600! Bummer.

 

Should work though one should expect there to be no fan control and I know the 7970m will boot outright.

 

I dont know why I thought that there was a specific version needed like 1.1 vs 1.2 version of said cards so I kind of stayed on stock until I eventually sold it after getting the m4600.

 

Yeah. 7970m, 8970m or M290x. Amazing how they could rebrand the same card over 3-4 years, lol. That really is about as good as it gets. I've got a m290x, and it's fine for work.

Thankfully the M6600 has GPUs with DX12 support, otherwise it would slowly die off. M6500 will never run windows 11, :O

Just wondering though. If someone wanted to run the machine as a literal desktop, how much better is the W7170m vs M290x?

 

Depending on the game you'd like to run, the w7170m is only up to 20% faster in some games where its higher shader count and higher memory bandwidth can be leveraged right. In some games, it is slower at higher detail. In most games, it seems to be only about 10% faster. It IS technically faster than the M290x, but the benefit of your laptop remaining a laptop is huge and most people would take that 10% hit gladly (EDIT: for the M6600 only, that is!).

 

I think I'll keep the %10 hit lol.