ATI 6970M in GT-680R

Good news for guys who concern about high-end graphic cards in this beast. After several days working and testing, I finally finished the construction for the GT-680R.

Several significant points need to take care by my experience.

First, I would like to talk about the heat sink. The heat sink is not totally fit, you need to do some little modification, which is re-shape some part of the heat sink.

Second, cooling is another issue in this machine. As we know that 6970M’s TDP is around 75-100, over-heat might be another headache for the machine. However, functional turbo fan switch solve this issue. The temperature can be controlled under 93°C after two hours FurMark burn-in, setting with 1920X1080 4AA

*Do not try FurMark burn-in without turbo fan…..Or you will see the hell….

Third, you need to calculate the total Watt of machine. Take example for me, 6970M+2920XM+16G Ram+3Hdd=No booting with stock PSU. So, I switched to 180W PSU. However, GTX 460M+2920XM+16G Ram+3Hdd= works fine: D

Fourth, device problem…..another headache!! The laptop doesn’t recognize 6970M. What I’m doing is use “mod driver” force the system to handle this card. Therefore, if you guys want to try 485M, I suggest use the mod driver instead of stock ones.

Well, that it from my experience. Now, turn back to happy things. 6970M is a good card, with 3.7G O.C 2920XM, we got a wonderful score in 3DM 06, which is 20229 points. Surely we got a nice score in 3DM V, which is over 13000 points in P mode.

That it, hope the information helpful. Now, moving forward folks

GOURRYNSX

 

Wow gratz bro

 

Congrats

 

93c O_O

theres absolutely 0 hope for putting this in a GTX740 then

 

Well, hope is still there: P

After several hours testing, I successfully dropped 6970M’s voltage in highest clock profile (which is profile 0) to 1.00V, the original setting is 1.10. The temperature now finally under 90°C after an hour FurMark burn-in: P Also, the setting is still with 1920X1080 4AA: P.............What this means?? It means that combine under voltage and better cooling compound, larger laptop and internal space will probably be cooler than mine



P.S. Anyone knows how to control the fan speed of this beast?? I’ve try many fan speed control utilities, it’s seem that fan speed is related with CPU Temp and controlled by bios. So, I’ll be appreciate if anyone knows how to rewrite or modify the bios fan setting

GOURRYNSX

 

the 5870m used to hit around 93c before a bios update came. now it hits around 80c. the gpu cooling in the gx740 is really really bad. it can barely cool up to 60w. that's with IC diamond paste too lol.

 

Mobility 5870 consumes ~75W. When OC'ed, it consumes even more. With some mods and Zalman ZM-NC3000U, the 5870 (running at 840/[email protected]) in my GX740 hits up to 85C while running Furmark extreme burning mode, with ambient temperature of 32C.

 

GOURRYNSX:

What graphics card was in your laptop before you installed the 6970m?
Whats the difference between the GX660R and the GT680R?

 

The original graphics card was GTX-460M

Difference between GX660R and the GT680R ?

1. cpu
2. one more SODIMM slot (I think) & supports up to 32GB
3. Graphics card

I think others are pretty similar

 

I think that if you originally had an ATI card in your laptop then there wouldn't be any problems.

Did you think about upgrading to a 485m?

 

Well, don't know about the recognized issue would be happened or not. It seems that MSI preload some graphics card data in the 680R’s bios….not sure, just guess.. For me, instead of 485M, I will think more about 470M (or 570M).

Why?

First of all, heat problem is still there. For the regular spec of 680R, I’m convinced the maximum thermal management ability probably between 75-100W level cards’ TDP. From the case of 6970M, you can figure out that full loading is still hot for this laptop. For 485M, with heat sink and voltage modification, chance is still there. However, several hundred dollars with several percentage upgrades is not a good deal.

Second, compared to 485M, I think 470M (or 570M) will be a better option. From 460M’s 72W TDP to 470M’s 75 TDP, 470M’s heat will be similar to 460M. Therefore, it will be a great change to over clock and hit 485M level’s door. Not only in tweaking, but also in bios and driver modification, we can get tons of 470M MOD bios profiles.

Btw, I probably will try the 470M someday in the summer, still not sure it’s worth or not. Well, just wait and see….


GOURRYNSX

P.S. 7000M’s AMD cards will be out in winter, can’t wait about trying that

 

Would be nice to see some pictures of all this work...!

I have a 6970m and it works fine with my 150W PSU... only when benching I'm getting limited, the 3dMark11 combined test uses about 160-170W when having the GPU and CPU overclocked.
What was your stock PSU rated? Because just using a higher rated PSU usually doesn't mean the system can draw more power... it's limited by some parts on the mobo, the BIOS, or both.

Which driver are you talking about? Is there a problem with the device ID? Doesn't the regular AMD driver work?

The fan speed is controlled by the EC, depending on your BIOS/EC manufacturer there might be some software that is working for your system, but I never heard of any that works for MSI...

I'll try to do a little mod with the fans when I find time... I can let you know in case it works fine. Atm I'm using software to control the fans.

Edit: BTW, how far can you push your card? And another question...you say undervolting works... Did you try to overvolt it? I haven't found a way to increase the voltage so far.

 

I will take the picture in the thermal compound upgrade (From AS5-MX4, not sure it’s upgrade: P). I probably will do it several weeks after ( Now, I’m busy grading my students’ research papers….)

For the 680R, stock version is 150W PSU comes with 2630QM and 460M; I think the power consumption is below 150W. Why? I had be try O.C. the 2630QM and 460M, and stock PSU worked fine. I still not sure what is the condition limited inside this laptop, it can be booted and works fine in a combination of 2920XM and 460M. For 2920XM + 6970M, booting and normal duty in windows is fine, but heavy duty is not going well with the stock PSU. Thus, I fetched another PSU out of 180W. For 2 weeks using and working without shutdown, my laptop is working fine. Thus, I assume 180W PSU is fine.

The driver I used is the mod early 11.4, AMD 11.3 wouldn’t work and stock 11.4 early preview neither. Well, for the ID, still don’t know why it doesn’t show up the right number of my 6970M.

How far can I push my card? I’ve tried the 750/1150 with this card with stock voltage, and it worked fine. Unfortunately, overheat problem is still there in the heavy duty mode with overvolt in my 6970M. It forced my laptop to shut down when I try the games or benchmarks, that’s why I didn’t post any result of OC. However, RBE 1.28 works for my 6970M overvolt or dowmvolt. Isn’t works on yours?


GOURRYNSX

 

Strange... the 2920xm has the same TDP as the 920xm, and it works fine for me... the rest of your system must draw quite some power. Anyway, good to hear you got it to work!

No, I don't know of anyone who could successfully overvolt the card... I tried it of course, but the card will automatically downclock itself to 400/900 and the voltage goes back to 1.00... What's the manufacturer of your card? Is overvolting really working? I'd love to see this.

 

Indeed nice work on your new gpu upgrade .

 

Hey, I tried a couple of things but never managed to overvolt it... what kind of card do you have (manufacturer)? Which entries did you edit?

Could you make a copy of your vbios (with nvflash, per DOS boot) and upload it?

 

Do you undervolt in the BIOS or with a program?

 

Undervolting works for me. Either with editing the vbios or using ATI tray tools. However, when I edit the vbios I'm only able to bring down the 3d voltage. With ATI tray tools I can also lower the 2d voltage (assuming the values that GPU-Z reports are correct.)


I'd really like to know how GOURRYNSX overvolted the card, I'd love to see this. Would be a lot of fun for benching, hahaha