7970m in a M15x....Why yes

Hi Mexic00ls,

How can you get 16gb of ram in your m15x?? I just saw your specs and thought id ask...

thanks,

 

It supported as easy as plug & play.. Some members (inc me) here have been using it in their M15x for few months..

from ATI spec & info pages, it does have Zero core or something similar to it if i'm not read it wrong...

EDIT :

Yep, i read it right,

too bad, it still unclear whether this technology will work well on intel platform or not...

 

Right now a lot of games. I have the 5870's back in. Sold my 6990's and was going to get a pair of 7970s, but there was a deal on the R4 I couldn't pass up. But eventually I'll get a pair of cards for the R2.

 

Would you be kind enough to see if the display port works on this card. My 6990m's DP is non-functional, and I have tried EVERYTHING!

 

Thanks for Table21 the remarkable thread posted by for letting us know 7970m works well for M15x

Wanna u know, I've successfully put 7970m ordered from dell into my M15x.

Everything goes well: the driver(Thanks to SlickDude80), temp, benchmark, games...

After 2-day-test, I've achieved P5886 in 3d mark 11! (overclocking 7970m to 1000/1350)

I'd like to upload the result screenshot

but it always reminding me that "This is not a valid image file." and I can't upload the pic.

anyone knows how to solve this??

Thanks!

Also, I'm facing another problem - refresh Vbios to reduced voltage for stability testing

I've successfully extracted the vbios of 7970m but seems even the latest version of RBE can't identify & load the vbios.

Any idea for this?

 

May I know how much did Dell charged you for the card?

What are the max temps and is undervolting required to reduce the temps?

 

price may a little bit sensitive....but, I can let u know that it's less than ￥460

Actually, the temp goes well

Under the extreme mode of Furmark, the maximum temp is 81℃

When running 3d mark 11, it never hits more than 70℃

 

Dell Parts (US) is quoting $565 for the 7970M, but says none are currently available for upgrade sales.

 

not in China bro : )

 

So what is the situation in China?

No, not yet.

 

@lthuiyi: Which CPU are you using? P5800 seems a bit low for your clocks, I got P6000 with 940 core.

 

Ithuiyi, do you have fan issues? Does the gpu fan work like stock and speed up accordingly? Or do you have to set the fans with HWInfo?

Sent from my Samsung Captivate/ICS using Tapatalk 2

 

This I would also like to know very much. Please do some thorough temp and fan behaviour reporting. Do you need to force fans to max speed using HWinfo to get 81C in furmark?

If not pretty unbelievable considering my 6990M will hit 85C inside a few mins in furmark at undervolt 1V and full fan speed!

Info please

Either way very good job. This is sounding more and more like a viable GPU upgrade for the M15x

 

It's under a little bit shortage for M15x/M17x R3 upgrading to 7970m, especially for the coming days

Luckily, I ordered the card a bit earlier from a staff I know in Dell

More luckily, I'm in Shanghai & seems the supply is adequate (cuz I have a friend in Beijing who ordered even before me, but haven't got his card as the short supply)

For the price, it's less than $565...

BTW, any idea on modifying the vbios of 7970m?
seems the latest version of RBE(1.28) can't support on this

Hi Svl7!!
It's great to meet u here. I've read ur post about the performance of 7970m in M15x in other forum. Also, I know u r facing the black-screen issue when running Hwinfo cuz I had the exact same issue lol!
My Cpu is 920. Yeal, u r right. It's a little bit low for the overclocking @ 1000/1350. The reason is also clear...it's caused by the less performance of 920xm.
For example, with a default set(24,23,17,17). I can only get the CPU score of 4800+, which is absolutely too low. I usually will get a score of 5500+ with 5870m before upgrading.
The reason for this, I think is caused by the 150w power limitation. When running 920+7970. the limited power probably stretched by 7970, 920 thus couldn't get enough power. Even if I opened the Throttlestop, the problem remain the same.
So, I'm wondering how u could run 940 even @ 25 for all the 4 cores. Wouldn't u meet any problem of unstable or clock dropping?

Hi bro, the fan and temp goes perfectly! No need for the use of HWInfo

Hi, no need to force fan run @ max speed. The system will just adjust the fan perfectly!
For the temp, I run furmark at extreme mode for 3. 5 minutes, and get a stable temp of 81.
Especially is game, the gpu temp will never hit over 72C with the test of SCIi and Crysis2

 

Dammitt!
Why did I sell my M15x???
I knew I would regret it but great job guys.

 

Excellent news. I just cleaned my vents and cut all the plastic away from the intake vents for increased airflow and got 78C after 5.5 mins with fans at full speed. Ambient 22C.

I think I have reached the heatsink's max thermal transfer rate as even with the increased airflow from cutting away the plastic the temps held exactly the same. It is after all pretty small.

Btw was that 3.5 or 35 mins? If 35 mins then this really is fantastic as it means the 7970M is definitely lower tdp than the 6990M as I had mine undervolted at 1V for my tests. Meaning 80-90W tdp max.

Ikas V you can easily upgrade your clevo although the P15HM is more of a side step from a fully specced M15x

 

Looking forward to grabbing one of these when they are more readily available. The fan control issue on the 6990M always put me off grabbing one of those, and going from my 5850M will give my laptop another 12-18 months of life!

Does anyone know if we will be able to order directly from Dell in the UK to upgrade, or do I have to go through the eBay / third party routes?

Boz

 

Oh I know upgrading my current laptop should be no problem but it would have been nice to have the M15x to experiment on and see it do all these amazing things.
Don't get me wrong my current laptop is the best and most powerful laptop I have ever had and can basically max out any game but there was something special about the M15x.....sigh anyway great job guys.

 

good job lthuiyi,i saw your excellent on IT168,may i ask how much voltage is your 7970M?

 

Anyone got a part number yet?

 

There is no issue with fan with 6990M. You simply need to get a Dell card (black pcb) I have one and it works fine.

@IKAS tis kinda funny I left Clevo and came running to a used M15x when my W860cu motherboard died for second time and you did the opposite hehe. M15x tis indeed a good un. With this 920xm I can even keep pace with a 2860qm when heavily OCed! Maybe even a stock 2920xm!! Alot cheaper too. Only things that sandy bridge bought are sata III and usb III which aren't life changing, especially when pcmia slot usb 3.0 exists

Another card to look out for is the 7870M. Perhaps a side step from the 6990M but much cooler!

 

Hi bro, currently I'm running at the default voltage : 1.05v

 

Nice thread This i7 Clarksfield holds back a bit the 7970M 3dmark wise - other than that you will never be CPU limited ofc.

FYI I run a MSI 16F2 (15,6") and the 7970M performs P6632/P22668 @ 3dmark11/Vantage with 984/1500 (max) - max gpu temps 62/69 respectively (with cooler boost)

This card is a beast and I assume you would better have a i7 non-extreme and 7970M so the 150W PSU cope well with both of them.

 

How exactly did you get to this value? Last time I checked all monitoring software failed to report a voltage value.

 

Hi svl7, actually I'm using a gadget called "GPU Observer" to show GPU info including voltage, clock, and core usage...it's developed by Orbmu2k. Here is the link: OrbLog
It shows the voltage for default full clock is 1.05 and the idle voltage is 0.82 respectively.
But, like u say, I've not confirmed the info via other software like GPU-z...

wa! that's an amazing score!
May I ask what CPU u r running?

 

I run an i7 2720qm and 220w psu (useless now as the 7970m consumes 40w less than my 580m overvolted.

 

Ok, thank you!! The readings are correct, I can confirm this. At least they match the ones in the vbios, the actual voltage might still be slightly different.

 

Thank you for confirming this : )
May I ask how u get the info of 7970m's vbios?
I've stretched the default vbios in DOS, but unable to find the software to read it, not even to modify...at least RBE can't read the vbios of 7970m.

 

pair of cards = 7970m or even 680m ?
lol, man you're really pushing the r2 to the limits but it is really one of the greatest systems and I think you should hold on to it...

 

So guys, how soon can we get this, how much will it cost?

 

No idea why your DP isn't working for the 6990m, for me it worked fine, same as with the 7970m, including sound per DP/HDMI.

 

Do you have a Dell part number?

 

Hi guys,
I find...with 7970m, running Crysis 2 is almost impossible as the GPU will throttle from time to time.
I've monitored the CPU/GPU both and find 920xm is stable.
I've tried to limit CPU power consumption by making the CPU run at stock(24,23,17,17), even limiting the TDP/TDC within 50W.
But seems still can't give 7970m enough power she needs. and the result is the clock frequency keep dropping from 850/1200 to 450/300 from time to time...(GPU temp is absolutely ok as it never hit over 76C)

To be frankly, I'm a little frustrated now and don't know what more I can do to stop the GPU throttling.
the only thing I can think of is to lower the voltage of 7970m. But still, it can't be done now as the vbios can't be modified...
Any thoughts from you? I really need ur suggestions.
Thank you!

 

I am afraid it depends on the motherboard. People here have had the same problem with the 6990M and 6970M. It is a question of luck as many also have no issues with throttling such as myself.

The only proven solution 100% so far for those affected is to skip any 100W card to begin with. That puts the 6990M, 580M and 7970M out and get yourself a 75W card. The 7870M should be releasing soon perhaps this will be a good card to test out.

This might sound harsh but it is true. The 6990M consumes just as much power yet I run battlefield 3 at a good 22/22/25/25 at 75W tdp. I do run the 6990M at 1V and stock clocks as I find the card powerful enough for my needs and also hot enough at 1V but these settings along with my mighty CPU gaming OC would cause throttling instantly for those affected.

Sorry to hear your problems that card is a beauty. Perhaps for now try to lock the clocks with RBE in all the voltage tables at something more conservative such as 700mhz core clock and see if you can maintain the clockspeed. I think so long as you can keep the GPU power requirements under 80W the throttling issue would subside. Not an easy thing to do

 

Thank you for ur kind reply : )
I've got three questions:
1) why set the CPU @ 22/22/25/25, doesn't it more power consumerable than 25/25/22/22?

2) Any progress on modifying the vbios of 7970m? seems RBE no longer support 7970m

3) do u think getting a 240W power adapter will help?

 

well it wont work in our laptops, its pretty much optimus, and i dont remember us having a intergrated also built in. so... i doubt this would work

 

That's not what I was acutally talking about. Zero Core is where the GPU is almost fully shut down, bringing low idle down to just a few watts.

 

Modifying the VBIOS won't do anything, when the card throttles, it pulls the clock settings from the driver.

Mine throttles on CPU load, 20/19/17/16 fixed it for me in games. But if I run Prime95 across 8 threads, it needs to go down to 13x before it won't throttle the GPU.

 

Just wanna u know that throttle problem for 7970m in M15x is perfectly solved!!
By reducing voltage from 1.05V to 0.975V
All the throttle just gone with the wind!! Cheer!!
I wanna thank Svl7
Thanks to his great work to modify the vbios of 7970m, the problem is solved.
however long I run the Crysis 2, no throttle at all!
Thank you again Svl7!!
I love u man!!

For those who has the same throttle issue like me,
Here is ur cure:
http://forum.techinferno.com/general-notebook-discussions/1736-amd-7970m-modified-vbios.html

 

Any danger of a Dell part number PLEASE??!!!

 

Dell Part Numbers for 7970M (from R4 Parts List).

747M2 AMD Wimbledon XT 7970m
8DG8P AMD Wimbledon XT 7970m Kit (Video card 747M2 + Support Plate 3PVGK)

 

OK,thanks,I see someone down to 0.975 volts, this is the case thermal pressure should be smaller?However, overclocking ability declined.What is your maximum overclock frequency and score?

 

By saying someone, u mean me? hahaha
I recently flashed the modified vbios to reduce the voltage to 0.975v to stop the GPU throttle when running tough game like crysis 2 and it works perfectly!

For ur question, yes, u can always get a smaller heat from a lower voltage and a narrower space for overclocking.

Before reduce the voltage, I get P6100+ in 3d mark 11 with 920xm + 7970m

 

Ithuiyi how is the 7970m working out for you? No problems at all after undervolting?

 

Just got a quote from Dell Australia for the 7970m: $598 AUD. Whoa.

 

Now to wait for the 7950m with 55W tdp!! Performance somewhere around a heavily OCed 6990M

 

^^^^ Hopefully thats how it turns out

 

Well I checked out some chinese website after getting excited about the news you told me lol and seems interesting! Although same website puts the 7970M at 60-65W which must be an understatement of power draw...?

Perhaps this means the 7950M will be more like a 75W part...

 

OMG.. I can't believe it but.. Its true!!! XD

 

thanks bro, now the only thing for me is to wait for my card