M6700 video upgrade - P5000 vs M5000m vs K5100m

Also with the mod, do I do both or do i have to choose Optimus on/off now and only do either or ?

thanks

 

You can apply both Optimus ON and OFF fixes simultaneously, that is fine.
The reason that this is needed is the hardware ID for your card depends both on the card itself and your system. NVIDIA has chosen to be pretty specific with their INF files. Taking the M5000M's ID:
VEN_10DE&DEV_13F8&SUBSYS_06DA1028

13F8 is the device ID for the M5000M. However, the first part of the subsystem, 06DA, only shows up if the card is installed in a Precision 7710. You have to change it to 153F which is the ID given by the Precision M6700. If you do not do this, the installer will not see the card as supported and will throw an error along the lines of "this driver doesn't support anything that is currently installed in your system." You can check the device ID in device manager in the "details" tab on the card.

I do not think that you need to worry about installing the modded driver until after the card is installed. You can use any driver that you like that supports the M5000M, you don't have to worry about it also supporting the K4000M.

 

thanks for all your help. will post back when done
Joel

 

Aaron,

So I'm up and running. Currently using 431 modded as you said. I rendered some previous projects in Max with Iray and ran a few benchmarks. generally seeing an over a doubling in performance, an increase of between 120-140% over the K4000M. Well worth the $400 I paid for the M5000M. It will pay for itself in save render times on the first job, so I'm very pleased with that. Temp is staying about the same as the K4000M at around 70-74c under full load.

I didn't have all the same "benches" you had listed in your install post but I did get the 2 Unigine benches you used. Your numbers are a little better than mine in both cases

Unigine "the Valley" yours 3737 / 89.3 FPS mine 3508 / 84.3
Unigine "Superposition" yours 6065 / 45.37 mine 5785 / 43.24

but then your K4000M numbers were better than mine also so could be some system or setup differences. I'm using a i7 3840QM 2.8GHZ - 32GB 1600 sodimm - ??? Win7pro ??

I do have a couple of issues I'm trying to sort out.

1st - Optimus. I usually run with Optimus OFF because of past issues with AfterFX and 3dmax using dual screens, but I turned it on prior to installing the M5000M so I'd have the Intel graphics during the install/Quadro switch. It seems to work fine except I can't turn it off without losing the M5000m. With it on I see both the intel and the M5000M listed in the device mgr and GPU-Z. But when I turn it off I lose them both and only have "std VGA card listed at 640x480" , no Nvidia or Intel control panel. When Optimus on it's all back. ideas ? Should I redo the install with Optimus off ?

2nd - I have and issue with IRAY in 3dsmax 2014 where it's not seeing the CUDA devices. It's sees the M5000M during render setup but then throws an error when the render starts. This is simliar to problems I had previously with optimus which is why i ran with it off BUT this time I also use 3dsmax 2015 and it's working great. So I'm thinking it might be a driver issue. Both these apps are "older" and IRAY is a GPU dependent raytracer. I think the M5000M came out around 2015 so it might be a compatibility issue with MAXWELL between Max 2014 and 2015. Thought about trying an older driver from 2016 that covered both Max versions. OR if I can get Optimus off seeing if that fixes it. Dealing with older graphics software with Max and CS6 so I might have to look at software independent GPU renderer especially after I have to go to Win10. thoughts ?

Anyway While I got it down and apart I decided to update all the drives to newer solidstate since these drives are approx 6 years old so due for one to fail. They will be in tomorrow. They faster r/w speeds and are cheap enough now where I can clone these and use the old ones as plug-n-play back-ups so it's a win win.

Thanks again for all your help. You helped make it easy

Joel

 

Do note that my original benchmarks are for K5000M and not K4000M so it is expected for them to be better. I can't explain the M5000M ones being off, though. I have the 3820QM CPU so yours should be a little better. I was running on Windows 10 though, and there has been a lot of optimization work done since Windows 7. (You should consider upgrading in the near future as support for Windows 7 ends at the end of the year. Upgrading is still free if you just run the tool.)

If you swap Optimus on or off, the NVIDIA GPU actually shows up as a new device to Windows, so you will need to run the driver install again. If you are having trouble with Optimus on, go to the NVIDIA control panel, "Manage 3D Settings", and the "Program settings" tab. Add a profile for your bothersome app and make sure that it is set to "High performance NVIDIA processor" under #2. (Edit - Note that if the rendering happens in a different process/EXE than the regular app, you'll want to make sure that you add a profile for that program too.)

I think that you'll love being all flash. I got rid of my last spinning hard drive in this system earlier this year. Flash costs more but it is more reliable and SO MUCH faster.

 

Optimus problem solved (thanks).

The other issue with IRAY in 3ds max 2014 is a MAXWELL issue. IRAY in Max 2014 was never updated to support maxwell so I guess I'll be rendering all my scenes in Max 2015.

Thanks again for your help

 

BTW with the optimus issue I did end up having to turn it off. The problem is the nvidia control 3d setup software, when customizing which programs use the card it seems to be program name specific and not path specific. In CS6 both PremierePro and AfterEffects use a program call GPUsniffer.exe to detect your card. GPUsniffer.exe in PremierePro has a default listing in the Nvidia control panel but AfterEffect does not. When you browse the GPUsniffer.exe instance in the AfterEffects folder and select it it reverts to the instance in the PremierePro folder, so when you start PremierePro it runs GPUsniffer with the Nvidia card, when you start AfterEffects is runs GPUsniffer with the Intel onboard card and doesn't setup GPU acceleration.

Its not a huge deal, I hardly ever work unpluged so the power issue is not a problem and I allways had it set that way before anyway.

Joel

 

M5000M costs only 50% of P5000M's price... and it'll be more stable than P5000M so I think I'll stick with M5000M.

 

That's what I did, for the same reasons. Very happy with the result.
Joel

 

You can also upgrade to the Quadro P4000
That what my M6700 is running with, no issue with it except low boost frequency that make it only a bit faster than the M5000M while consuming around 65w in game and 90w in furmark with no throttle.
If only this card had a high frequency boost it could be a beast and be very close to the P5000...