M15x + ATI 5870 (MOD)

Isn't there another alternative card that will basically be equivalent to if not better than the 5870 soon anyway? Possibly some form of GeForce series card from Nvidia?

 

mobile fermi will require desktop like fans/chassis/PS, we'll see if it ever gets into a 15" system, lol.

 

I could get a mobility 5870 from a clevo reseller for 450,-€ (600,-$). But i'm not sure, whether I really shall buy one.

Would the change be worthwhile from a 285M GTX to a 5870?

 

Only for benchmarking and DX11 games.

 

What about the DX10 performance? It seems to be that the mobile 5870 is much faster than the 285M GTX, isnt it?

 

There would still be a hefty boost in DX10 performance as well due to the increase in core frequency compared to the 4870

 

Did I miss something?!

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=477789&page=3

 

Ya I am caught up now, and in a responsibility conundrum!

 

One of the reasons that 5870 idle temps are so high is that it never downclocks to 2d speeds. The card always runs at full 3d clocks (700/1000), regardless of what you're doing. This is caused by a temporary driver fix to address the problem of the atrocious 2d performance of 5000 series cards due to a failure to uptick under increased load, first raised by Tom's Hardware. The recent drivers force clocks high and remove or disable PowerPlay so that they stay there. This will be fixed in future driver releases, but in the meantime, the high clocks result in increased temps. Using AMD GPU Clock Tool to reduce the clocks to 250/300 will drop idle temps 7-8 degrees C. By leaving the Clock Tool minimized, you can almost instantly restore the card to stock clocks as needed.

I think you'll find it worth trying. The lower clocks have no effect on performance for everyday (2d) tasks.

(A message from the dark (Clevo) side.)

 

I was wondering when you overclocked this card, what do you use to check it stability? Like when I had my 260m overclocked I use ATITOOL to scan for artifact. For this can i still use the ATITOOL?

 

Play Crysis for 20 minutes.

 

thanks for the tip bro, will gave it a try.

 

This is 100% correct.

After downclocking my card, my idle temps were great - mid 50's.

 

so what is your highest temps sleey0? thought i did a real sloppy job with the tim but right now idling around low to mid 50's on 3d clocks. hahahah

 

Highest temp while gaming would be 83 in crysis. Furmark hit 90C within minutes. lol

Idle temps are fine.

Overall, I am very, very pleased with this system's performance and I haven't even touched any oc settings yet.

It's strange because, in a way, I am glad that Dell isn't releasing the 5870's for the M15x. It makes our systems very unique

 

haven't had time to put in real game time yet, but everything looks awesome.
is gpu-z working for anybody?
yeah i love the feeling of having something almost nobody else has.

 

Na, gpu-z doesn't really show much.

Needs updated, is all.

 

That's strange, why did they update the bios then? And can they please update the bios for the 3700M Quadro and 360M cards please?? (and the rest)

 

Nice temps in Crysis!
I get the same with the 4870s, so your cooling is perfect.

Yeah, it's good to have the most powerful 15" system in the world up to date

 

Thanks!

I just wish more people would come over to the benchmarks thread - I feel like I am all alone in there. lol

 

Lol, I can come and watch, for now... till my bullet-proof-book arrives with virtually the same card, so we can bench

 

Once I'm home tonight and get my 5870 installed (sitting on my desk) I'll be joining you on sleey0 with some bench's and temps

 

Yes, please come join the fun. lol

I am amazed by what the 5870 can do. I mean, 9600 points in vantage on a laptop from a SINGLE gpu?

Nuts I tell ya..... Absolutely nuts!

 

Ain't new toys fun? Particularly when they equal or exceed expectations?

 

Wow thats an awesome score! I hope the 5870cf will be somewhat better.

 

The mobility 5870 is now official available by alienware for the M17x. I think i will order one from Alienware, directly.

 

M17x + single or dual 5870 + RGB LED >> M15x >>> Clevo >>>>>>>Asus/MSI/HP/Toshiba etc.

 

Thank for the tip, idle at 49C now

 

Coo! So the 5870s don't run any hotter than the 4870s. If the next driver update will polish the Power Play - we're set!

 

so the M15x is not going to be updated with the 5870 ?

 

As of right now sleey0 said that it will not be update with the 5870.

 

hmmm so then its going to be fermi lol

 

Yea I don't think Dell gong to update the M15x with the 5870 because it release on the M17x.

 

Pretty much, AW is probably supply locked as it is for trying provide enough 5870's for the M17x and considering the mobile fermi is rumored for a June release it would make sense.

 

Great to hear. Sure feels better at the lower temps.

 

For some reason Alienware seems to also want to keep the M15x crippled compared to the M17x

GTX 260m when the GTX 280m's were in the M17x remember?

 

Thanks a lot for the info & my GPU thanks you too.

 

Maybe they will just offer a Mobility Radeon 5850 instead of 5870.

 

Is the 5850 pretty much on par with the GTX260m?.....apart from DirectX 11?

 

Depending on the clocks, a 5850 would most likely be closer to a 4870. Which is better than a GTX 280m in most applications (my opinion there)

 

So if Dell is not going to update the M15x with the ATI 5870 then what going to happen with future bio update. This mean people who upgrade their gpu to the ATI 5870 stuck with AO5 bio forever?

 

Well I'm installed and running guys, loaded up the 10.6 alpha drivers though for some reason I have no catalyst control panel, and after running the setup I had to manually go and install the driver on the card under device manager.

So far temps are hovering 64c in windows (HW monitor), lowest I've seen is 60c in windows, running bad company 2 max settings online produced around 86c or so. About to run 3dmark Vantage and see how that goes.

I don't know if I should give the MX3 time to break in or if I should double check and make sure there is enough or not to much on there (reapply maybe).

Also notice GPU-Z can't read clocks or GPU sensor (assuming others have this issue as well).

 

Still not showing in the US, maybe Monday.

 

That temp is a little high. what is your room temperature? That could effect your overall temperature. Also use the AMD GPU Clock Tool to down clock the gpu to 250/300 when you not gaming. Then you should ilde around 49-50C.

 

Room temp is curently 72F (22.2C). Might pull it back off and reapply some mx3 and check my thermal pads (bought a sheet of 1mm, maybe i should thicken some up).

Interesting and wierd I did 3dmark Vantage (@ 1280x720, no access to an external right now). Befor and after results

GPU SCORE: 3038
CPU SCORE: 18984

GPU TEST1: 8.95 FPS
GPU TEST2: 8.84 FPS

CPU TEST1: 1510.65 PLANS/S
CPU TEST2: 53.19 STEPS/S
---------------------------------
GPU SCORE: 10618
CPU SCORE: 10768

GPU TEST1: 33.44 FPS
GPU TEST2: 28.69 FPS

CPU TEST1: 1512.61 PLANS/S
CPU TEST2: 13.71 STEPS/S

240m to 5870 huge leaps in score and frame-rates, why did my cpu test2 bomb so much? I thought it was completely reliant on CPU, nothing was changed from the first test before swapping cards to the test after swapping cards. For reference my old laptop with a core 2 duo t9500 pulled 51.1 STEPS/S but it had a 8800gts mobile card in it (nvidia). Does this test somehow effected with a non physics ATI card? (coming from nvidia physx and an nvidia card)

 

Are you OCing? 10k+ GPU is nuts if youre not.

 

No overclock, thing runs a tad warm don't want any extra heat if possible. Remember those numbers are @ 1280x720 (vs 1280x1024). Might not make a huge difference from what I remember on my last laptop (using an external to do the 1280x1024 tests).

I'm using the 10.6 alpha drivers (not the 10.3 on ATI or the 10.4 preview drivers). Verison the driver is 8.740.0.0

 

haha yea how you get your gpu to 10k +?? Mine is alway at 7500 but I think mine run at 1600x900.

 

all default performance settings only changing resolution to 1280x720 (can't run 1280x1024 on this 1600x900 screen, no external to test on right now).