[Guide] Installing AMD Radeon Mobility 6970 / 6990 in your M17x R2 (Single GPU and CrossfireX)

Mmm a single 6970 should outperform dual 4870's or at least be close to it. I would guess between 60 to 80 % faster. I may be wrong.

 

Yeah, I can confirm that a single 6970 does outperform dual 4870's. I was able to test that much without the crossfire cable working. Plus you get directx 11 support. Obviously dual 6970's would be even faster

 

60-80% sounds about right. A single 6970 is weaker than dual 5870's and equal to dual 4870's.

@GreyWolf Man I hope you get that sorted!

 

Thanks Mkelliny,

Running into a bit of a snag right now regarding RMAing the bad card, but trying to sort it out.

 

Dual 4870's overclocked to 630mhz are about 10-15% faster than a single 6970 at 800mhz. (At least that's what I measured.)

 

Well, my 6990Ms just arrived today Should get a chance to install them by the end of the week.

On another note, Heard from jonnylcm15x, He got his cards today as well Looks like all worked out in the end.

 

Nice, can't wait to hear the results DR650SE!

 

Awesome!! Let us know how it goes!

 

Does anyone knows where to get 6970s? the pair.

 

you can get them of ebay only problem is the price

 

RJtech and Mxm-upgrade also have them, but again you're going to pay quite the premium to get them. Really unfortunate

 

Done a bit of testing with my psu adapter, voltage doesn't seem to be a problem but I haven't really tested it for very long
Temps of the bridge rectifiers started out ok but after 45min of off and on high power consumption they seemed a bit hot so I have bought some heat sinks today
Also one power supply is only giving a max power of 80w but I have a few ideas as to what the problem is with that

 

For buying the 6970m I've found this site, they seems cheap enough and from DELL which is probably a good thing.
But it's risky, and personally I want to wait a bit longer on the 7xxx serie to see if the rumors about the xdr2 ram are true.

 

Hi Iceforge

Nice find +1 Rep. One thing I noticed is that these are the cards for the Clevo P150HM, P170HM...so probably would need a vbios flash that Ichime references in his tutorial for Crossfire support (I assume anyway, please correct me if I'm wrong). But otherwise they look like the standard Clevo version of the card to me.

 

In relation to the 7000 series, I doubt the m17xr2 will be handle any more power draw than the 6990's...

Unless they make them MORE efficient, but we know that wont happen

 

Nice find Iceforge. They accept Paypal, doesn't that make them a smidge more legitimate? $350 is a really good price. $640 for two. I would bite, but I want 6990Ms. If I don't get them now, I'll end up selling the 6970s later to get them.

 

Yeh I doubt much more power then the 6990's as well, but new architectures usually mean better efficiency (performance vs power usage) especially if they are going from 40nm to 28nm fabrication!! and using this new type of memory.

I have put the heat sinks on the bridge rectifiers and heat is not longer a problem
But for some reason one of the plugs in my adapter (as it happens with both psu's) wont let much more then 100w though and when only one psu is connect via this port the power can go as high as 250w but jumps around alot with performance following the power usage.
So obviously that plug and or rectifier has a higher resistance causing the voltage drop in turn causing low and erratic power supply?
My question is which seems more likely, badly made rectifier or dodgy soldering on the plug (its just I don't what to open my wiring up if i don't have to and I haven't got a multimeter to check the rectifiers)

Edit: this is what it looks like now

 

WoWsers that looks truely Alien LIKE!

Cheers.

 

I've messaged them about postage to the UK, will they be crossfire enabled? I mean can you just get any 2 and they work (ports and connections) of do you need to buy a pair? Also what's with the bios flash if they are Dell cards? Did I read somewere that the fans don't control on flashed cards?

 

Haha thanks I'm kinda proud of how it turned out!

Yes these cards will be crossfire enabled, any two could work but for best results you want the same cards with the same vbios's and ichime at the start of this thread says that the clevo/resellers vbios works the best (least amount of issue etc)

 

Kenny, I would say variances in the diodes are causing the issue. I don’t have a perfect 50/50 split either, but it is pretty close.

As Aarpcard mentioned, using a combined diode reduces these differences and should give you a better split

 

Is this a compatible option? Laptop Video Cards :: ATI HD 6990M 2GB Video Card for X7201 - R&J Technology, Clevo Barebone Notebook kits, Laptop and desktop system builder

 

Nice link Grey!

how far is the X7201 model from what we need?

 

Ummmm i dont know much about them but from what I have read the X7201 uses an express port or something....

I have tried to find where I read that so i may be wrong.....I probably imagined it

 

"This video card only works with Clevo X7201 model - the one with express card slot version. It will not work with the other X7200 model - the one without express card slot version."

It's on the link in red. Guessing this wouldn't work as the X7200 is the model you would want for the 6970m's.

 

Ahh yes, that would be it

 

How is that a problem?

The card itself should be the same, you probably have to unmount the assembly they send you and build it back in the R2 right?

 

Not sure, but it appears that it doesnt use the MXM 3.0 slot?

EDIT:: On second thought, ignore me! That doesnt make any sense

 

Could be that the heat sync won't fit in the X7200 or some other architectural design difference. I would think the cards themselves could be made to work with a vbios flash if necessary.

But why would the 6990m CF be cheaper than the 6970m CF?
Laptop Video Cards :: ATI HD 6970M 2GB Video Card for X7200 - R&J Technology, Clevo Barebone Notebook kits, Laptop and desktop system builder
Unless something was different.

 

We won't know until someone tries it... alas

 

The X7001 thing is no sense for me, I really don't know what the hell the site is talking about. Anyway, if these cards are Clevo cards then it's the same as the cards used here. Clevo have ONLY one version of the 6990M cards.

I think their price of the 6970M has not been updated because it correspond to the launching price.

 

according to this:
Best Notebook Computers | Best Gaming Notebooks | Sager Notebook | Pro-Star.com

X7200 is with Nvidia 560m
X7201 is with ATI 6990m

but i could be wrong.

Anyway, i think the express card red line is just to differentiate both X7200and X7201 models...

 

Anyone can guide me on where to buy a 6990M that works in both the M17X R3 and the M17X R2?

Thanks.

 

It's probably because the X7200 BIOS doesn't support it, but the mobility 6990 card is only in MXM 3.0 type B format.

LE: i see that they state the same thing for the nVIDIA quadro 5010M, which is also a MXM 3.0 type B card.

 

Well, not to de-rail this chat (as I've been curious about the card differences myself). But I've RMA'd one of my 6970's again, so we'll see how it goes. Third times a charm?? or Three Strikes and I'm out?? Not sure yet.

 

Good luck man, you've put in more effort than most would have cared for. Not to mention time. Talk about frustration, but it is what it is right? Guess you just gotta roll with the punches, but sorry to hear about your bad luck. I'm thinking third times a charm

 

Thanks man! Appreciate that. I hope so, I'm getting pretty tired. I will say though that my skills of pasting and taking my laptop apart has vastly improved.

 

Haha, I know what you mean, when I was overseas, I spent my evenings in my room benching. Every night, for months. I dissassembled and swapped CPU's like 2-3 times a day. Got to where I could swap the CPU in < 20min. But it does get old.

 

haha awesome! Yeah I don't mind doing it (it was even fun in the beginning), but a bit discouraging when crossfire still doesn't work. Just hoping to get this crossfire business behind me, until the next big upgrade thing (which will probably happen sooner rather then later)

Currently I have my 4870's back in, and working in crossfire. I could have run on a single 6970, which I probably will, but I just wanted to see crossfire work...I've missed it so...lol

 

Good luck, Grey, this time you'll get it right, it's against nature's laws to have more bad luck than this lol.
Hope to see your positive posts when they arrive.

Cheers

 

Thanks katalin!! Appreciate that!

I hope I'm not scaring folks away from doing this upgrade...I promise this is just my luck (or bad luck as the case may be)

Will keep you all posted on my progress

 

I'm really wanting some compatible 6990s, is there anyone that can confirm that the ones in that link will work?

Also, if any of you have them and are wanting to trade for a Macbook Pro current model 13 inch I7 model w/8gb of RAM we may be able to work out a deal for a little bit of cash and an ssd thrown in.

 

The reason for this is because you're using two bridge rectifiers. Minor differences in the diodes in the rectifiers are resulting in different forward voltage drops when they heat up. And as they heat up, the difference in the forward voltage drop will only increase further adding to your problem resulting in an exponentially increasing bias towards 1 of the PSU.

You should only use 1 rectifier. I'm not entirely sure why you're using two in the first place. Before I got the diodes I'm using now I was using a single bridge rectifier and it worked perfectly. It should be wired like this.



As for the 6970m listed here, AMD Mobility Radeon HD 6970M GPU MXM 3.0B I'm fairly certain it's a Dell card. It looks identical to my Dell 6970, and doesn't look like the Eurocom or Clevo cards.

 

My system is under the knife. Putting in my 6990s and Bigfoot Killer 1103. Got the cards pasted padded and in. Just gotta put the system together and test. Ill do that after dinner. Going to put the benching drive in. Used the cheapest paste i had which was best buy dynex brand. Spreads easy, and its thin so it should be decent. Didn't want to scratch the die with ICD.

 

awesome DR650....looking forward to the results (and crossfire working)

 

So for those who are interested, this is what we think is the problem with the primary graphics card. Take a close look at the crossfire connector:

 

It looks like that would do it. I wonder how that happened? lol probably in manufacturing.

 

That sucks Greywolf. Hopefully your issues cease so you can start enjoying your beast.

 

Yeah, the other card's connector looks great to me, so I'm hoping that is the only problem and that once it's fixed it'll clear up my crossfire issues.

 

Man, it is getting soooo fricken tempting to purchase a pair. I've had my R2 for a year but would like it to last another