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

To elaborate slightly, Intel stock multipliers for the 940xm are 25-24-18-18 at 62W TDP. Use T-Stop to reset to those levels instead of disabling Turboboost, which gives up too much for too little gain and defeats the design theory of the Core i7 CPU's.

 

I've currently got my CPU overclocked to the standard 5% in the bios, and have undervolted my cards to .96 (using RBE I lowered all the ones above .96 to .96 and left the ones below to what their stock settings are)

So far I haven't had any BSODs, however I've only played a bit off Crysis 2, Witcher 2, and a few other games. So I haven't been running enough to give a good estimate, just been my experience so far.

Hope you can get it all sorted out.

 

For those that have overclocked their 6xxx cards, do you experience the extended monitor flickering?

Has anyone successfully fixed this for the 5870's? My cards become unstable if I set all the memory clock profiles to 3D settings.

 

Congratulations Greywolf! It has been a long time coming.

On another note, I just got a 5870M in the mail that doesn't work. Should be getting my RMA from Eurocom soon though.

 

Thanks Turbo, it's definitely a relief to see it finally working.

I hope you can get your card situation sorted out, I can't believe all the trouble you've been having with the 5870's you've been getting.

 

Sheesh...you're telling me. The 5870 was just to 'tide' me over until my 6990 comes from Eurocom, so I'll live.

Are all of you guys having to undervolt just to play video games, or are we talking about hard-core benchmarking? Is it just the 6990CF, or 6970CF too?

 

I simply undervolted to see what sort of difference it would make in gaming and temps. Interestingly, when playing Crysis my kilowatt meter would record 245-250 watts max prior to under-volting, and then after under-volting I never got above 230 watts. So seems to keep thing below the rated power supply setting. Also my temps seemed to drop a few degrees, although for some reason my temps have been really really good even prior to under-volting.

I'll admit it wasn't the most scientific test however and to be honest it is really more of an experiment for me then anything.

I can't say that I noticed a difference as far as gaming is concerned at stock clocks.

 

Yea, shouldn't see a performance difference at stock clocks since the.clocks are the same. What it does help is reduced heat and helps to prevent the system from power throttling in some games.

 

As long as they're stable at lower voltage values,there won't be any performance loss only lower power consumption

 

Well, I found out something very interesting today. I just received my secondary card back from Clevo RMA (the one that they stated had no communication problems). Interesting thing is, the card they returned is NOT my card. I could immediately tell because the crossfire port on the card I sent in had some bent pins and a chunk taken out of the top (hence the reason I suspected that the port on the card was the problem). The crossfire port on this card is in perfect condition. Since I found that odd, I checked the serial number on the card, and sure enough, it isn't the card I sent in.

Now the question is, did they end up replacing my card anyway (even though they told me they weren't going to do so since the crossfire port tested out correctly), or did they end up sending me another card by accident.

Either way, this adds a new wrinkle into the mix, did they really test my old card? or did they accidently test this card verify that it was working and then return it to me?

Or did they end up replacing it, and just wanted me to pay return shipping (which was going to come out to about 120-150USD)? Luckily I had a friend in Germany except shipment and then ship it to me.

So that leads me to wonder if now crossfire will magically work with these cards? I still don't want to open up my system and test it (just because it's finally working), but at least the card they sent me has no damage on it, apparent or otherwise.

 

Very strange Greywolf! It does make you wonder if they even tested the same card.....

Either way it is a win, as you now have a card without a damaged crossfire port!

Congratulations on finally getting it all working, and also having it running so cool!

Interesting results regarding your power draw...I overclocked my 5870's to run at 875/1175 and with the CPU at 23x BF3 pulls around 270watts. Funny thing is, there is no throttling and it sustains that amount of current draw.

If you are not cracking 230, you may even have head room for some CPU overclocking

 

Either ways i hope for you that this time you will have your system up and running with crossfire! just about time!

 

0.96v seems to low for my cards, going to try 0.98v later

 

Hey greywolf, fantastic news on your success!!
If you remember i suffered the same problems as you. I got 2 cards rma'd but i still had the same problem, i'd almost given up. I still think one of the cards is bad so i've got my hands on another one, should be at home next week, i'd like to grab a new crossfire cable as well, does anyone know were i can buy one and ship it to the uk?

Congrats again on your success G, i'll let you know how i get on myself when i get back in to the uk again in a couple of weeks.

 

Hi Clarky!

Thanks so much. I wish you luck with your new card as well.

I know a few folks have been purchasing them from mythlogic

MYTHLOGIC :: Computers | Service | Support

for about $20USD (I believe they'll ship anywhere though)

My cable came from Eurocom and it's the perfect size for my m17x (although I did have to bend the cable a bit which made me a little nervous).

It's for the Eurocom Panther 2.0, but works perfectly.

Let me know your results, I'd definitely recommend ordering the cable though, since I suspect that still might be the issue.

 

Hi guys,

New to the forum but have been following this thread for a while now. I personally have an M17x R2 and was thinking of upgrading to either a singular 6970 and 6990. I noticed a few people having a bit of an issue with the 6990 and wanted to know if there is anything I should know or any pointers other than following the OP info.

Thanks guys, most appreciated.

 

If you're going to go with a single card, get a 6990, no doubt. The only thing that you want to watch out for are the Dell cards. Functionally, they are perfect. However, you'll have to use HWInfo for manual fan control, and there are problems with properly shutting down, sleeping, or hibernating. I'd suggest going with the eBay seller 'Upgradeyourlaptop'. The cards they sell work fine in the R2. The 6970 performs slightly worse than the 6990, and is a good bit cheaper too. I am RMAing a card through them now. It just up and died one day. I don't have a new card in hand yet, but they have been really good about it, no questions asked.

 

Thanks for that man, thats not too big of a deal, I use hwinfo anyway. Currently running dual 4870's but BF3 just kills them so time to upgrade.

Yeah I was planning to use Upgradeyourlaptop, just wondering how fast shipping to aus is. Thanks for all your help.

 

so there are no clevo cards any more? why going for Dell cards when Clevo cards work properly?

 

No, that's not what I said. Upgradeyourlaptop sells Clevo cards. Dell cards in an R2 work for gaming, but have zero other functionality.

@Ragnarok71:

It took a week and a half to get the card to the northern US. I am just on the other side of the CAN/US border. Shipping to you may take a considerable amount of time. They charge $40 for shipping, but I'm not sure where that actually goes. It sure as heck isn't to actual shipping.

 

I got mine from them in 5 days...although I agree for $40 dollars you'd think it would have been a lot faster (I actually paid $55 since I ordered 2 cards)

 

Yes, you could get overnight shipping with insurance on both cards for $55. The high shipping is probably to offset the fact that their cards are cheaper than most other suppliers.

 

Agreed, I didn't mind paying the high shipping because I knew I was getting a pretty good deal on the cards. Plus they were really good about answering my questions, so overall I'd recommend them.

 

$55 is nothing compared to the price at Eurocom.com.....they wanted something like $150....

Granted it is 3 day delivery, but what if I am happy to wait for a few weeks to save $100....

BTW, they never bothered to get back to me regarding my questions about the warranty on the 6990's. Makes you wonder how they have any business at all.

 

On my 6970's it states that there is a 3 month warranty. I'd imagine it's the same on the 6990's, but I'm surprised they never got back to you on that.

 

Yeah never emailed me back.

TBH they are quite expensive, especially with the shipping.

Going to leave the graphic cards for the time being as 5870's seem to be handling BF3 adequately...albeit massively overclocked

Also, money issue isn’t resolved. LOL by the time I get it maybe 7xxx will be out

 

I have just noticed that upgradeyourlaptop now have 6990's as well as 6970's on eBay.

Did anyone find out if they still cover DoA's even though they dont have a warranty?

 

Hey Douse,

Haven't had to deal with a DOA from them, but the paperwork they included with my videocards show a 3 month warranty on the cards. I know Turbo has an RMA replacement on the way do to a RMA also. But can't confirm what they would do if the cards arrived DOA.

 

Hrmm interesting...seems to be the left hand not know what the right hand is doing!

Performance wise, I cant seem to find a clear answer as to whether dual 5870's are better then a single 6990.

Can anyone shed any light on this from actual experience? Also, how fair the 6990's overclocking wise, as a fair comparison would be with an overclocked 6990.

 

I have had both 5870CF and a single 6990M. The 6990 with 800/1000 clocks scores about 15K GPU, and 5870CF at stock clocks score about 15K GPU.

In 3DMark '11, the difference is a bit more apparent in favor of the 5870s.

The 6990 is a single card, so no CF hassles. It is a 2GB card, newer architecture, more shaders, and much better at handling tessellation. That is why I am going with a single 6990. If it can't handle Skyrim at ~high settings, then I'll look into getting another 6990 to run CrossFire.

Vantage 5870CF No OC

Vantage 6990 800/1000

3DMark '11 5870CF No OC

3DMark '11 6990 800/1000

As for Eurocom, their communication is certainly not top notch. I will vouch for that. However, they do offer DOA and warranty services if there is a failure that the user did NOT cause. Just to clear that up.

I sent my fried 6970 in to them, and now I have a 6990 on the way back. I paid $95 for the upgrade from 6970 to 6990, and no additional shipping.

 

So you're basically saying that a single 6990 is ALOT better then a crossfire 5870 setup

 

No, because you can overclock the 5870s to beat a single 6990 pretty easily. For some reason when you quoted my post, it makes both links go to the 6990 pic.

I personally prefer a slightly weaker single card over CF. My opinion though.

 

i mite be getting an m17r2 soon with 5870 in xfire, im looking to upgrade but im conserned about the psu and if will handle the 6990's. has anyone that has done this upgade experienced any problems with it?

 

I did, what cpu do u have?

Turbo, what driver r u using for the 5870 xf setup, your score is 1K too low:

This is my stock run with 5870XF:


Another run at stock for these cards at stock by stamatx:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/511/fstamstck.png/

now more for them at 850/1100:
http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/6572/8501100.png

of course they can't be compared to my new 6990s @ 830/1130:
http://img542.imageshack.us/img542/3036/2ndocrun.png

 

It's already been done, people in thie forum already have it, it's about a $900 upgrade if not a little more ask DR650SE.

 

That 5870CF run was ages ago, and my CPU wasn't OC'd either. Both of those runs you showed have the CPU OC'd all to hell. Don't know what else it could be, really. My 5870s weren't weak I don't believe.

 

Ordered my 6990m today, will probs go cf at some point but will run with one for now. Can't wait to install and test.

 

yes its about $900 + postage and handling
undervolt your 6990s and limit or don't overclock your cpu and you shouldn't have to many issues

Turbos scores are fine, I got very similar scores with no cpu or gpu overclock with my 5870s

 

Thanks for the info Turbod. +1!

So basically isn't to much gain besides not having to deal with the endless crossfire BS...

Which is a gain, but not worth the outlay at the moment I think.

 

Yeah man, you're welcome. I think I had a bad CF cable on my 5870s. I would get some really horrible screen roll, and then have to go in and move the connector on the CF cable just a bit to get it to go away.

That is the only reason I went into the 6xxx world, I was just sick of dealing with CF.

It is a shame that the Dell cards have all those problems. Table21 has 6970s on sale for $250 a piece, which is an insane deal.

 

Damn that is a good price....almost worth putting up with the Dell issues.

Well, my money has finally been recovered (YAY ) but now have to decide if I want to go for 6970's as 6990's are far to expensive....

 

Douse, congrats on getting the money back! What the heck happend with it? I know it was lost, but how did they screw it up that bad?

 

No one is taking responsibility at this point. Because it involves 3 banks, they all blame each other but they all still took a cut out of the amount for 'investigation costs'...

Also, by recovered, I mean Pkhetan has finally received it. So now i have to figure out what I am going to do and if that means transferring it back I will be taking another loss with fee's etc.

But hey, better than it not being recovered at all!

 

Ouch, yea sounds harsh. Especially now the Phektan can't get the cards. Dang man thats rough.

 

Hey Douse,

Glad you got your money back. I'm considering selling my Clevo cards for a pretty descent price, but since I can't verify whether or not they'll talk in crossfire, I don't know that you'll want to experiment with them. Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Otherwise I know that Eurocom cards along with the crossfire cable seem to work well, but they are a bit pricey.

Good luck on your search!

 

Yeah DR650, didn't turn out too well. But that's life

Cheers Greywolf, I will consider it.

 

Well I couldn't resist.

Just in the process of ordering a pair of 6990's ES from Table21...

For the price I can deal with fan control via HWINFO32. I also barely shutdown\restart my machine.

Much excitement!

 

ahah gratz on the purchase Douse

 

Thanks! Here's hoping I don't run in to any more dramas!

Touch wood!

 

Hi all! Need help, want to replace the hd 5870m CrossfireX hd 6990m CrossfireX in my m17xr2!
Suitable if the video card on this sitehttp://rjtech.com/shop/index.php?dispatch=wishlist.view
Enough CPU i7 840?
Thanks!
Sorry for the last post!