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

I used 2 x 1 inch (0.5mm thick) strips of thermal pads where the memory banks meet the heatsink. Didn't put any pads on anything else. What is a dc/dc chip? Also, am I correct in assuming that the 2 rows of 4 chips located around the GPU are memory?

 

The bigger ones? Yes.

 

They are the chips with the red boxes around them in the following picture. Cover them up with thermal pads.

 

Ah on the bottom of the cards. What does the thermal pad stick too? The casing? Or nothing at all? I would think that without having something to stick to, to dissipate heat, the thermal pads would be useless.

 

It will contact the metal part of the fan case.

 

Guess I will have to do that when I get my second card replacement.

 

For a pair of 6990s?!?

Man I'd love to score a deal like that...

 

this is the price i got my 6970s from him. it was even 470 euros for me. I think i m lucky finally watching people trying to find them even at higher prices



One question. Will the 0.5mm thermal pads be enough for the gpus to come in contact with the heatsink?i mean ar they thick enough because i have some doubts?

 

I think 0.5 are the best from my experiences with other Alienware laptops. I don't know much about the M17x R2 ones but from what I have seen, 0.5 is good. 1mm will lift the thing from the die if the pad isn't soft enough.

 

good to know that. but i dont think there is so hard thermal paste to cause that damage

 

Ok thanks for that learn something new everyday

well compared to the copper and the silver the thermal paste like an insulator so it wouldn't take much!!

 

I'm currently using IC7 on the memory and so far my temps top out at 88c including the shader. I used mx-2 on the die using the credit card method. The fan also tops out at 90% which is an improvement from the 109% (lol) hwinfo was reporting.

 

Congrats 88C is much better then +100C
if you decide to put thermal pads back on try 0.5mm pads, 1mm is obviously to thick for you system

 

Are these pads going to be any use?

Phobya Thermal pad Ultra 5W/mk 0.5mm (120x20mm) Set for ramplex [19080] from WCUK Online

 

You know what guys, I think I've bottled it.... Just been sat here for 10 mins with my finger on the bank transfer button for £702.00 (the cheapest I can find 2 Clevo 6970's in the UK) plus the various pastes and pads I will need and I just can't justify it to myself, Much as I would love the latest and greatest for my R2, this time I may just have to pass.

Maybe in the future if I can get em for -£500, I'll go for it.

 

ok i applied MX-4 (replaced MX-3) to CPU AND GPU, FROZENCPU 0.5mm thermal pads to GPU (replaced the much thicker clevo ones ) and CPU (replaced the dell one). All i can say for now is that all my temps dropped around 4-5 degrees celcius. I applied the frozencpu thermal paste on two extra parts of the 6970s (not all that clevo did because not all parts come in contact with the heatsink) . Thus i cleaned the whole machine from dust (especially cpu fan had much dust on it)

Here are my temps after i run 3dmark vantage. You can compare with my temps posted before a few posts.



Max 77 celcius for both gpus after 3dmarkvantage is very good dont you think? Now My fans are running so low during idle and browsing that i can hardly hear them.

 

@Jus71n if you have doubts, you took the right decision.
Upgrade when you really need to

 

I agree completely...the 5870's are still very fast cards and I think you are good for awhile. As the 6990's become more prevalent (or when the 7000 series comes out), I'd expect that we'll see the 6970's drop further in price. So doesn't hurt to wait until that time comes along if possible.

 

I know what you mean jus71n, the only things that justified the 6990s for me was i could afford (had to save hard tho) and I wanted them
And yes Aristotelhs2060 those temps are good

 

Just undervolted my primary to 1.0 down from 1.1 default and reduced temps by another 4c or so. Ran vantage and stable so far. I didn't change the slave card yet, temps are fine on that for whatever reason (Using 1mm thermal pads on it). Fan also maxing out less at 76% instead of high 80s low 90s.

 

Malignant, the secondary GPU will always be a tad cooler, It's not used as much as the primary one.

Glad to see you're having a good experience with your 6990s.

 

Thanks, haven't run into any throttling yet but I'm sure I will. I'll be trying crysis 2 with dx11 patch and high res textures pack next.

 

Awesome, looking forward to it

 

this is the only game i got throttling. with those things you said.

 

Yup definitely throttles, I'm using a G930 usb wireless heatset and the fps drops to around 20 and the sound starts to cackle like there isn't enough power driving the headset. That game has odd performance issues even on my xfire 6950 desktop. FPS will drop to the 30's or 40's for no apparent reason like in the very beginning on the sub I start off with low 30s/40s fps then jumps up to 60 then again down the the 30s/40s throughout the scene. It happens on my R2 too even without throttling (250-260 avg watts during scene). This is on ultra and whatever is 1 less than ultra with vsync and triple buffering on using d3doverrider, also 11.8s and CAP 4's. Oh and 60 fps doesn't feel that smooth either, like it's micro stuttering going from 58 to 59 to 60 to 58 etc.. too.

 

Nice guide!
Just wondering where do people get the 6990m in the UK? And what the price range is?

 

if even desktop ATIs have issues then i could easily say its just optimized for nvidia gpus. This was always the case for crysis

 

My installation.

I’m in the UK and I bought 2x 6970m from Eurocom via ebay. They work out to around £265 each with around £45 shipping. A total of £570. I specified Panther 2.0 when I ordered and they kindly include a crossfire cable.

They arrived via UPS in under a week and thankfully received no ‘interference' en route. They were well packaged and factory sealed in anti-static wrapping.

I found the supplied xfire cable to be almost perfect for the R2. The cable is not sealed in plastic and the wires are only held together in two places along its length with tape. I removed the tape and was able to spread the wires into the cable track and held it in a couple of places with electrical tape. So, no cutting etc.

I won’t repeat all the good advice found further up on this thread. But I did do some things different and I feel I should share my experience here.

I (using wire cutters) cut the ends off the old 5870 spreaders and re-used the threaded parts to hold the heat sink. These ensure an even and correctly limited mount of pressure exerted to the die.

The 5870m had a die cut Kapton tape protector that covers the very small capacitors etc that surround the die. My guess this is to protect them from the conductive thermal compound we use. I replicated this component for the 6970m using a roll of Kapton tape and cutting my own. I didn’t want to find out the hard way why this component exists.

Don’t use 1mm pads, I tried. I used the very softest I could lay my hands on too. I had elevated temperatures for the last two sensors. (~108c) Changing these pads to 0.5mm and they rarely seem to venture above 80c.

The Eurocom bios can be got working. However, I found crossfire issues where it would freeze the machine. I flashed both cards with the files from the OP and now they’re fine.

I’m running everything stock and the system is running sweet with my 940xm. Benchmark figures inline with others above. You can tell these cards were designed for DX11 where the 5870’s were for DX10. Everything seems better rendered and smoother.

I’ve found putting it all together to be very rewarding. If you take your time and take some care this is a safe and worthwhile upgrade.

Regards,
Paul.

 

Oh no, i'm thinking I could go for £570.......

 

Hard to shake that upgrade itch uh Jus71n

 

Good to hear another success story Paul5015!!

Repped!

 

@Paul

You bought the ones on Ebay from the Canadian seller, right? I just bought a single 6970M from them too. I'm glad to see that they are just plug and play. Where is the VBIOS you used, and did you just use ATIflash to flash? Thanks for the information.

 

sounds wierd is it ?
i got my r2 for 620gbp.....so these two 6970m's will make my r2 twice as expensive....HOLY TALKING FISH BATMAN !!!

 

Yes, I used the files from the first post
I made a bootable USB drive and ran it from that.

P.

Cheers buddy, returned.

 

Awesome Paul! Congrats!!

 

And twice as powerful (I assume you only have the one 5870?)

 

I might be getting a fair of 6970m s from a M18x.

any update on this from OP:

"• The card Dell uses in the M18x R1/VBIOS from M18x R1: Fixes the fan issue, but does not allow the system to shut down, sleep, hibernate, or remain unplugged without crashing. However, it does support audio over HDMI and DisplayPort."

Flashing any vbios won't change a thing?

 

Sure is.... Spoke to paul (PM) and all the issues listed in the OP are ok, fans run ok, 1920 x 1200 res.

So I'm going for it, will be ordering today hopefully, just gotta buy the wife some flowers & tell her how wonderfull she is yada yada...... oh by the way "if you notice £570 gone out of our bank account" lol

 

lol...Awesome! Congrats, look forward to your results.

 

I'm using One Dell M18x 6970 and One Eurocom 6970. I am using the latest Clevo X7200 vbios on both of them. With that vbios I don't have any problems except for fans at 100% although the can be adjusted with hwinfo.

Any other vbios (I've tried about 4) results in the fan problem plus the shutting down, sleep, hibernate, unplugged problem as well as CFX issues and OS instability.

 

Hey TomX,

How much and where are you getting the pair of DELL 6970Ms?
If you can't stand the fans being maxed out always at 100% give us a buzz I might buy them off you next time.

Cheers.

 

Paul, was there any issue with the length of the cable?

 

No, you'd think it was custom made. Perfect length

P.

 

crysis 2 has the same probs with my system too if you under-clock the cpu to 15x multiplier or lower (disable turbo) and reduce the tdp to 40-45w its not to bad, still get the weird fps fluctuation though

 

I had the same experience with the Clevo CF cable. Fit perfectly.

Should get my replacement 6970 today as well. So I'll let you guys know how it goes.

 

Last I knew, the Clevo XF Cable was way two short, it was like 3-4 inches in length on the one I recieved.

 

yes same with me. is there longer clevo CF cable??

 

The one I got from Mythlogic was about 6 inches or longer. It is about the same length as the R2 cable. I ordered another one just in case I needed it, as it is unwrapped and looks flimsy. It was $20.

 

Awesome! Good to know.

 

Yup, the one I have is signficantly shorter. Maybe the crossfire cables being sent from the other vendors are not the clevo x7200 ones? The one I received isn't anywhere close to fitting.