M15x + ATI 5870 (MOD)

Can always count on wattos+inap for providing the best advice and recommendations... The heart of the M15x community... Props to you both

 

Sorry to bring my problem back up again but I was just wondering if you guys think my card would work in a clevo? because like dttran83 said it could just be the clocks.

 

Is using an Asus 5870m bios safe? or will it brick the Clevo cards like the Dell vbios does?

 

Most likely brick. I wouldn't do it.

 

Just played SC2 for an hour, GPU temp was 66 C, acceptable? 5870m

 

yes very much so.

 

I'm getting very bad performance in games for some reason.

I was playing League of Legends @ 1080p and everything on high and frame rates jump around from 20-50fps, but averages about 40fps which is bad considering the 260m was doing a solid 60fps constant.

I was looking at AMD GPU Tool and it shows the link speed at 2.5 GT/s. The MSI bios I was testing before it had it at 5 GT/s. What does that mean exactly? If there something wrong?

 

SC2 Played for an hour on ultra with a cooler and the room temp of 25celcius still gives me 70celcius or a bit higher. OC'ing it to 870/1100 for an hour gave me 77celcius max....

 

GT/s stands for GigaTransfers per Second.
it's refering to the theoretical maximum data rate the pci-e lane can handle. the clevo 5870m's seem to be running at pci-e 1.1 rather than 2.0. its the same as saying 2.5gbps of data in both directions vs 5.0gbps of data in both directions... thats raw prior to the required encoding (8b/10b) where you effectively loose 20% (or 2bits out of every 10bits) as overhead.

don't forget that this is per lane so you need to multiply it by the bus width (16). afaik when refering to GT/s it normally stands for bidirectional (2.5 in and out) whereas GB/s refers to as a whole and is split if both happening at the same time.

if i remember correctly the 5870m has 64GB/s bandwidth while we have a total of 40 GT/s active on our bus. shouldn't be capped me thinks.

meh i may have totally gotten it wrong though.

i wonder what official dell cards have. 2.5 or 5 gt/s.

i really should have paid more attention in my friends lecture on hardware (yeah i sneak in now and again... they were talking about this crap on bus speeds).

about your issue EGM92,
it's something else not that which is causing it.
load up gpu-z and run it in the background (make sure both log and background running is checked)

fire up the game and see if its clocking upto 700/1000 (for 5870) or 625/1000 (for 5850)

my bet is it's not.

 

SC2 won't heat it up, try crysis or metro 2033 and report back what you get.

 

seconded......

 

Try the new bios A8, it solves throttling issues.

 

Just a note, users with extreme CPUs will need the throttle stop to get same performance.

 

before the patch, SC2 was actully frying video cards haha.
just cause 2 is another good one, heats up pretty quick.

 

Here is your answer about the dell card:



@LOUSYGREATWALLGM: As far as I understood the problem you wrote is solved in the latest bios, which has been confirmed in the throttling thread on this forum. I didn't read the latest messages in that thread so I could be wrong about it.

 

thanks for that, yeah mine is definately running at pci-e 1.1... not that it matters however since the bandwidth isn't capped. its like being on a highway with a bycycle, no matter how fast you pedal, you're not gonna get over the speed limit.

about the extreme cpu's Lousygreatwallgm is right. prior to a08 it was max multi across the board even with 4 cores at 100%, now it's the default intel multi's. you need throttlestop to get the same performance prior to this update.

 

But gaming with a bios prior to version A08 was almost impossible because of the throttling, so throttlestop is not needed for gaming anymore with A08. Before A08 you need throttlestop or else it was almost impossible to play games. So it's more like: before A08 use throttlestop to play games and with A08 you don't have to use it.

That dell decided to clock the cpu not as high than before is only to prevent that the adapter will not becoming to hot because the system uses more than the adapter can provide.

The throttling causes the most framedrops and that has been solved.

 

For gaming with a 920xm or 940xm you will need throttle stop to reverse what the bios is doing which is lowering the multipliers and reducing performance by 25%-35%

 

with the 5870 +920xm i havn't been able to get over 150w rating from the PSU. once i got it to 147w but that was with 26x multi across the board on the cpu and 900/1100 on the 5870. In contrast with the 260m i managed to get 160w before it shut down the psu (blue ring light off).

of course the difference is not as large in gaming compared to your gpu actually throttling back, but its there. i know it is, i can feel it. for people with extreme cpu's who want similar CPU performance prior to A08, you still need throttlestop. The difference now is instead of having to correct your cpu clock modulation every once in a while, it's now having to correct your cpu multiplier every second, fighting against the bios settings. It does this, and it does it well... however it requires more resources in order to do so. In it's current state, the 920xm only performs slightly better than the 820qm.... prior to a08 it left the 820qm in the dust... the first true "extreme" processor by intel... so much so that most people here recommended either going cheap or going extreme because the middle was not worth it!

 

Everyone needs to relax about the performance penalty suffered by the extreme processors at the hand of the A08 bios. The actual loss of performance attributable to the change in stock or default multipliers in the A08 bios is minimal. For the 920XM, reducing the default from 24-24-24-24 to 24-23-17-17 results in approximately 3.44% reduction in performance at full load. The reason is that the TDP, then and now at 55W, serves as a governor that limits the actual operating capacity to about 17.5x for 4 cores at full load regardless of default multipliers being set at 24x across the board. It was mostly just eye candy. It takes over 80W to provide the 920XM the power it needs to run 4 cores at 24-24-24-24 under load. That power was never there under the previous bios, and therefore the imagined performance was never available. It is only through Throttlestop's recent ability to manipulate multipliers and, most importantly, TDP, that the 920XM's potential can be tapped. It has nothing to do with checking boxes to prevent clock or chipset modulation.

(The 940XM reduction is greater, estimated at 7.5-8.0%, based on simulations using a 920XM set to 940 multipliers and TDP, but without a 940 to confirm actual performance delta, it remains an estimate.)

 

An update: when I press the stealth mode I got this information:


So when you have there standing 1x on the bus interface the laptop is on stealth mode.

 

not quite the same, for stealth, the clevo does not react. its all 16 lanes still, however it runs at 1.1 rates not 2.0. this is regardless of stealth mode active or not. i suspect this is a driver issue more than anything else, i've used some system tools including astra, sisoft sandra, everest and they all say that both the card and the port support 2.0 however its running at 1.1



good thing is, it doesn't effect the speed whatsoever, i'll play with some other drivers at some point, however don't have the spare time atm.

 

This is weird
Mine supports 1.1 only

 

That's really strainge. For LOUSYGREATWALLGM there seems to be more wrong, the card is not recognized (driver failure?). I only get the 5800 as card with the wrong drivers.

PS I've used the dell beta drivers (you can also use them with modifications if I'm correct).

 

i believe i heard someone around the forums say this happened (support on 1.1) and the fix was to reseat the card, that is, open up the laptop remove the graphics card and insert it again into the slot, the idea being that contact was poor on some points.

i can't seem to find the post however.

 

Here's mine:



says running in 1.1 but 2.0 is supported, Clevo card.

 

As long as you are the full x16 you do realize that the difference between 2.0 and 1.1 will pretty much be immeasurable right? Even in synthetics it wont make a difference. You only run into bandwidth problems from PCIe when doing something like 3-way sli or dual 5970s....(obviously only a desktop problem)

 

Here are the details of the Dell ATI HD 5870 in a m15x.

Pros and Cons compaired to the Clevo 5870
Pros:
+faster than other 5870 cards (compaired to ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 - Notebookcheck)
+audio over displayport works
+stealth mode works
+automatic clock down in Windows

Cons:
-Hard to get and/or expensive (I checked ebay often for it).

Laptop details:
Alienware m15x
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-720QM Processor (6M Cache, 1.60 GHz)
Memory: 8GB DDR3 1333MHz
HD: Seagate Momentus 7200.4 ST9500420AS, 500GB SATA-300, 16MB, 7200rpm
Graphics Card: Dell ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 1024Mb
Screen: 1920x1080 wled

Card details:


Highest temperature during Heaven Benchmark 2.0

Code:

        Date        , GPU Core Clock [MHz] , GPU Memory Clock [MHz] , GPU Temperature [°C] , Fan Speed [%] , GPU Load [%] , Fan Speed [RPM] , GPU Temp. #1 [°C] , GPU Temp. #2 [°C] , GPU Temp. #3 [°C] ,

2010-09-13 12:45:44 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.0   ,            70.5   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:45 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            71.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:46 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.5   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:47 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:48 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.5   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:49 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.5   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:50 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.5   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:51 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            71.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:52 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:53 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:54 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            66.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:55 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:56 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:57 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            71.0   ,            66.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:58 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            71.0   ,            66.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:45:59 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            66.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:00 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            71.0   ,            66.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:01 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:02 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            71.0   ,            66.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:03 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            71.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:04 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            70.5   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:05 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.5   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:07 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            66.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:08 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:09 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:10 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.5   ,            70.5   ,            66.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:11 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:12 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.5   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:13 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.5   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:14 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:15 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.5   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:16 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:17 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:18 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               71.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            71.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:19 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.5   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:20 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:21 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.5   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:22 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            71.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:23 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:24 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               70.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            66.0   ,            70.0   ,            65.0   ,

2010-09-13 12:46:25 ,              700.0   ,               1000.0   ,               69.0   ,          30   ,         99   ,            24   ,            65.5   ,            70.0   ,            64.5   ,

The maximum temperature is 71 degrees celcius with Arctic Cooling MX-3.

Vantage Benchmark:


Heaven Benchmark 2.0 Score:
FPS: 17.6
Scores: 443
Min FPS: 10.0
Max FPS: 43.8

Hardware
Binary: Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1500 Release Mar 7 2010
Operating system: Windows 7 (build 7600) 64bit
CPU model: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU Q 720 @ 1.60GHz
CPU flags: 1596MHz MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 SSE42 HTT
GPU model: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5870 8.763.0.0 1024Mb

Settings
Render: direct3d11
Mode: 1920x1080 fullscreen
Shaders: high
Textures: high
Filter: trilinear
Anisotropy: 4x
Occlusion: enabled
Refraction: enabled
Volumetric: enabled
Replication: disabled
Tessellation: normal

 

well the clevo card performs with identical performance actually.
@ stock i got same the same gpu score however cpu and total score differ due to different hardware.
i didn't expect any different either since the cards have the same spec/speeds.

i agree though, it's worth getting the dell variant for the other things you mentioned such as the sound over dp and powerplay/stealth options.

 

Your also forgetting the Overclocking ability of the Dell 5870m is FAR superior than the Clevo 5870m (Forum member Inap's OC'd 5850m from Dell, surpassed his Celvo's OC'd 5870m)...and it runs cooler...and most importantly, is covered under warranty .

 

thats a little far fetched imo.
when it comes to overclocking, it's always the luck of the draw with max stable (assuming the skill, time, effort and tools are all there of course).

for example, a friend of mine and i bought the same parts, built our own pc's. mine overclocked way more than his for some reason... same parts, not all equal, need luck too.

warrenty, sound over dp, driver installation ease... all good and valid reasons to go with dell... if i had the option i would have as well, alas, i did not. i believe the other reasons given are kind of fairy tales.

 

that is true about some parts doing better than others

but the vbios also plays a huge part in overclocking. With the M17x R1 vbios in the 4870s, 675 is the absolute max you can do on core (not very stable either). With the vbios from the R2 you can go past 700 core

 

very true.
i tend to forget about stuff like that. the vbios ram timings may be tighter not allowing as much movement, etc.

the voltage is editable however, and this is usually the biggest factor in achieving high core speeds (well this and cooling of course).

absoloutly correct. i would also agree that the dell vbios is better for the dell since it can actually work 100% (powerplay etc etc). this is another reason to go for dell rather than the clevo.

i just don't want people to get a dell only to be disappointed that they can't overclock as high as they expected.

in short,

seperate what IS the difference
from what MIGHT be a difference

 

well i had 2 clevo cards and both maxed out at 950 core for vantage, and thats on a good day.
and i also had 2 dell 5850 and both of them max out 985 core on vantage. and from every other bench i've seen for the clevo card max is around 950-960 for core.

so the dell cards do overclock much better then the clevo, well at least in my case. but i haven't seen anyone else push it as high as i have though.

 

I have a Clevo MR5870 back in my M15x, and a quick OCCT run got it up to 90 Celsius (on the vram), so I'll do a vbios flash to take it from 1.15v to 1.05v when I have time. This time I won't flash a Dell vbios to a Clevo card though.

 

so you got another clevo card sircz0r? using my dead one as a drink coaster, heheheh

 

It's just the one I got from the RMA and hadn't installed. I'd rather get a Dell one, but this was already here and dealing with Dell is such a pain. What do you think killed your Clevo card? I'm planning to avoid overclocking with it since I know it's not as reliable, and I'll do the undervolt.

 

i did the same thing you did, hahahaha tried flashing the dell bios to a clevo card. not sure who did it first but oh well, lesson learned.

yeah i'd undervolted and underclocked my old clevo card too when i had it. much happier with the new dell card though.

 

I plan on getting a Sandy Bridge/ Fermi GF104 system at some point, and it'll be either the new version of an M17x or M6500, so once I have that I'll start overclocking again, knowing the Dell warranty can save me if I kill something.

That's pretty funny that you killed yours the same way. It seemed like it was worth a try.

 

I didn't add OC to the post because I didn't tried that part. Also I wasn't sure about my clevo results in the past so I compaired my speed with notebookcheck.

I still have no answer if a wrong flashed card can be reflashed, but I'll report it as soon as I have that answer.

PS There is NO warranty when you use the dell 5870, dell doesn't support a 5870 in a m15x. So if there goes something wrong with my videocard I'm still out of warranty, offcourse the rest of the laptop is still covered (I just need to switch the videocard back with the 260m).

 

how do you bought dell 5870?? just call them and asked for the card..how muchh??

 

Just check ebay:
NEW M17X ATI 5870 VIDEO CARD CROSSFIRE KIT 0731MJ 4870 - eBay (item 270633657649 end time Sep-17-10 16:26:02 PDT)

New Alienware Dell m17x 1GB ATI 5870 Video Card C8245 - eBay (item 150491028135 end time Oct-08-10 18:14:17 PDT)

Search keywords: "5870 m17x"

EDIT: A WARNING FOR EVERYONE WITH A DELL 5870 IN THE m15x:

Do NOT flash the vbios with the new version recommend for the m17x R2 (thread: Dell ATI 8.763 (M15x/M17xR1/M17xR2) Driver/AMD 5870 VBIOS **READ POST 1 AND 2!!!!!**, direct link to the flash site: New 5870m Xfire vbios beta), that vbios will make the card malfunction in the m15x. The colors are incorrect after the flash. It is possible to flash back to the old working vbios (also described on that site).

 

^^ good to know, the issues weren't there for the m15x anyways right? i mean the suspend/sleep (and obviously the crossfire issue will not be apparent)

 

just be thankful you didn't kill the card this time, heheheh

 

I just flashed mine to have the values be 1.05v wherever it was 1.15v by default. It all went smoothly (once I fixed my DOS flash drive, I messed it up the first try, but it wasn't a big deal). OCCT got it up to 90 Celsius before (I think it was still going up, so I ended it because I don't want to fry this card), and now it maxes out in OCCT at 8x Celsius, but so far in gaming the maximum has been 73 Celsius. It all seems good other than the fact that my GPU fan bearing is noisy (this was like that before the GPU swap, but the fan spins faster now that I have the MR5870, and it's actually audible), but that's not worth getting a replacement. If it fails I'll get it replaced.

 

I don't know if those issues exist on my laptop because I've never put my laptop in suspend/sleep mode.

I've never expected that there were problems with it in a m15x by flashing it with an original bios.

 

So I posted in the sticky thread but I think I should ask here, but can your 5870m do 1680x1050?

My dell 2209Wc is 100% capable of doing it, even says it's optimal. I used to use the monitor on my GTX260 and it did the resolution easily. Now my 5870m can't do it. The highest it can go is 1600x1200, next is 1440xsomething (I'm at work not at home sorry)

any solutions? ATI drivers are 10.8, dell drivers are up to date downloaded from support.dell.com for the monitor.

Tested on a 2209Wc as well as a E207WFP, none worked at 1680x1050 (doesn't even list it).

 

you just found one of the major weaknesses the ati drivers have. custom resolution support is bleh... trying to add in resolutions which the automatic detection does not find is a PITA.

i used to use a program for it, however with the 5870m and current drivers it crashes the computer as soon as you load it. in fact it was so bad on the current system i'm afraid to even mention it should someone try

there is one more app however you may destroy the driver settings and require a re-install of the driver should things go awry. i have not tested it, but it may be worth a look... note, this software is powerful and incorrect settings may be dangerous for your hardware! it will automatically try to find the right settings but will not stop you from trying the impossible and possibly damaging it.

EnTech Taiwan | Utilities | PowerStrip

oh and it's not free either but comes with a 30 day trial, might be just what you need however since you don't really need it once you add the custom resolution to the driver.

*edit*
oh and 1 more thing, if unsure about timings etc, its usually safer to take a HIGHER resolution and lower it rather than take a low resolution and raise it. The reason behind this is that the timings will be too high otherwise.

 

bleh so the 5870m just has set resolutions no matter the monitor?

I currently use the VGA output since I never got the Displayport adapter with my M15x.

I was almost going to just get another monitor and sell the Dell to try to fix this issue. Right now I'm running 1360x768 to try to maintain the same ratio as the 1600x900

 

Both the 5870M and the 10.8 drivers support 1680x1050; it's one of the resolution choices on the M15x with the 1080p screen. I suspect that you just need a monitor .inf file to tell Windows what resolutions the monitor is capable of supporting. If you have already tried to install one, be sure it ended up in the right location.