Ati 4870 in m17 possible?

I've searched the forums and I couldn't find an answer to this question but I was wondering if the 4870's would work in my m17 and if they do could I get crossfire enabled.

 

If you can find one with the right connector yes it will work. They are prone to overheating in the m17 though which is why Alienware didnt offer them

 

isn't 4850 the best that fits in m17 ?

 

It's not the best that 'fits' but it is the best that works without overheating.
There was a post a while back regarding how the OCZ whitebook resellers got the HD4870 in there but it would overheat without heatsink modification.

 

oh, ok, so it's possible to have a crossfire 4870 setup on it ? (with modified cooling of course)

 

Basically...

The 4870 WOULD work, yes. If it could fit. There are NO mobility 4870s in existence that will fit in the M17, as the M17 uses MXM 2.1 slots, and the current standard is MXM 3.0b.

You CAN, however, find MXM 2.1 mobility 4850s, which were sold for the M17 temporarily before it was discontinued altogether. You won't really need cooling mods, just provided you use good thermal paste (and rip the useless dust covers off), although they will run hot (you might want to run cooling mods).

And yes, you'll be able to run two in CrossfireX if you get two plus the connector.

The problem will be finding the MXM 2.1 4850s, as (ironically) they were only produced as a very limited run to get a few extra M17 sales before it was discontinued. There were no other laptops ever sold with the MXM 2.1 variant. So the only way to get some now would be from some other M17 owner who bought them.

 

They did produce a very few 4870's in MXM 2.1 spec (hence why I said one with the right connector), that is how the whitebook resellers got to try it out. Your right however that the more common MXM 3.0b 4870's dont fit.

 

It wasn't the 4870s that they sold, it was the 4850s.

Although they are really just underclocked 4870s. Because of the massive heat.

 

they didnot produce 4870s with the 2.1 connector. they produced 4850s with that connector. every single 4870 in the world has the 3.0b connector. the best you can put in the m17 is the 4850, which is why i got an R2.

 

Thanks for the responses guys. upset that I have to hunt down 4850's though, so hard to find someone selling them. Ah well, what sucks more is it won't let me overclock the 3870s. Everytime I use Amd program to overclock it doesn't change clocks. Anyone know why?

 

I believe there were (very) old ATi drivers that actually worked with overclocking on the M17.

But when I say old, I mean 8.xx old. The performance hit from using such old drivers would far outweigh the advantage of overclocking them.

Just keep up to date with the latest drivers, and if you can overclock the processor. Overclocking the processor should boost the GPU power a little as well. Be VERY careful though, as you know the M17 doesn't have superb cooling (while the cooling is good in the fact that it keeps the components around 80-85C under max load, so it shouldn't overheat) and overclocking produces more heat as well. If you overclock at all, keep a VERY close eye on temperatures.

 

Thanks for the advice!

 

just use Gputool, it worked fine for me. I was able to OC the crap outta the 3870s, i was using 10.3 when i last used the m17, was able to get 625/1075 outta the 3870s for benching without any issues what-so-ever

GPU TOOL DOWNLOAD

 

Thank you for the link! Definatly going to try it out.