Best overclocking tool for mobility 5870s in CF?

Hey, I want to Overclock my ATI mobility 5870's for my m17x and wondering what the best OC tool to use is for a windows 7, 64-bit machine would be?

What is MSI afterburner like?

 

You need to flash the vbios to get a stable over clock.There is guide on this site some where for the 4870 that should work on your 5870.This is not my guide.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/466403-m17x-r2-overclocking-ati-4870s.html

 

I have had success using, rivatuner, msi afterburner and amd gpu tool.

I'm sure flashing them would result in more stable overclocks but to test the water you'll wanna use software before you flash them too high and have to do a blind flash to rescue them.

Rivatuner is probably the best option software wise.

Heres a link to a video showing you how: YouTube - How to overclock M17x-R2 5870 Crossfire Cards

 

I also use rivatuner, Bios flashing is a more permanent solution and probably the better one however.

 

I am using AMG GUP Tool. Why is Rivatuner better? I have not use Rivatuner for long time.....

 

Some people can not use AMGPU Tool. The system will freeze when trying to overclock both cards simultaneously. Also, It's a program that can be used to prevent throttling when 10.6 drivers are used.

 

Thanks for the info. That is what happen to my M17x

BTW, any link on how to use Rivatuner. I remeber reading from some where it need additional steps.

 

Hey guys, just wanted to ask if anyone else has experienced similar performance issues to the ones I have. I picked up an M17X R2, 820QM i7, 6Gb RAM and 5870s in CF. I tried running a few games like Portal, WoW and Left 4 Dead, and long story short, performance was poop. 3DMark06 revealed a score of just over 15000, and after being told by Dell tech support that I should be seeing closer to 18000 I figured there must be a physical issue with one of the GFX cards.

After weeks of complaints they finally agreed to replace it, and that replacement is what I'm currently using. Trouble is, when I run 3DMark06 again, I'm still getting 15k scores. I even tried using FurMark and AMD GPU Clock Tool to crank things up a bit. Despite pushing the GPU clock to 830Mhz, RAM to 1100Mhz and upping the voltage, the best 3DMark score I have is 15923.

Am I missing something really obvious, or is it possible that I've been sent 2 M17X R2s with faulty graphics cards? I understand that Mobility 5870s are notoriously difficult to overclock, but I've just seen too many forum posts of people with similar setups getting much higher scores with no fuss involved. Keep in mind that the only thing I've done to the second M17X was install 3DMark06, FurMark, AMD GPU Clock Tool and GPU-Z, everything else is from factory. Many thanks in advance

 

no actualy you just need to keep a copie of your stock vbios on the usb key you use as unless you flash them really to high like 2x clock the first problem you will encounter will be that window won't load

and not every software overclock will be stable when flashed in software i can push my 4850 to the clock of the 5870 while in flashin i can push them to 600 core maximum befor they refuse to load window or simply crash on use i could probably overcome the issue by adding more voltage but seeing my themps in the high 90 tell me it would not be wise

 

I flash my vbios all the time. I've gone overboard on my clocks before and never had to do a blind flash. The dell/ati drives are not functional at that point. I always have various bios on the USB drive to flash to lower clocks rather then starting up and editing a new vbios. Flashing the vbios is how I obtained the scores in my sig

 

I will say that I had mine flashed to 775/1050 when my computer totally failed a week ago, and I was having problems flashing them right before that, I think I had to use Furmark to get the second card to analyze so I could flash it, and then at that point I was having problems getting it to flash sucessfully. Can't say if the flashing did it and I rather doubt it after a new mainboard, LCD, and 2 new refurb cards, but I *did* have them flashed when the computer failed.

 

Hmm, thats odd. Wonder what went on there. I've never had an issue flashing. Was the flashing the reason you had to get all that replaced?

 

DR650SE, does vbios flash overclocking work or just overvolting?

I thought joker said you couldnt overclock the HD5870m via vbios flash?

Also, do you use winflash or just usb boot flash?

Thanks

-Ash

 

unless your cards where faulty when you recieved them the overclock is unlikely to be the cause and even if the flashiong caused the card to die because they where faulty then they would have failed down the line anyway


note it's very stongly sugested that youb keep a stock bios so that you can flash it back if anything goes wrong (1 master 1 slave for CFX setup)

 

Yea, it definately works. I normally don't do software overclocking if I can help it. When editing the vbios you can also increase the cards voltage for more stability, allowing you to over clock further. On my 19K Vantage run I had the clocks at 935 core / 1270 memory.

 

You keep getting 15K because 15K is what the stock M17x is capable of. I have the 720qm with x2 5870's and I get 13k. People who get higher are overclockers who spend lots of time chasing numbers.

 

This is a picture of 3dmark06 with dells 10.1/2 drivers... The result aint that high and it might be the processor and so on but some people in here get alot higher. And for some reason my OS in 06 sayes its XP and not windows 7 Havnt noticed this before. Its an old program so it might say that.. But the vantage score is about 12300(gpu) and that is good, so its just interesting. Ive tried oc tools like amd gpu clock tool, rivatuner but the system hangs over 730/1050.. And i see no performance increase. Any suggestions

 

I'm thinking what happened was, one or both of my GPU's acutally did fail(thinking it was the master, since the refurbs worked in the same mainboard), and the refurbs I got are the A00 revision cards which were both flashed with the master card BIOS, which is why we went through all those items trying to fix a problem that was not fixable lol. erawneilla said he's trying to get a fix asap, but I've already got a depo repair order box comming today or tomorrow for me. Not sure if I should just wait or send it off and cross my fingers for a 820 or 920 if they don't get the memo that it's just the secondary card that won't let me post in CF <_<;

are you testing your overclocks via software before flashing them or are you just going up in very small incriments and furmarking those before proceeding?

 

When did I say that?

 

I don't remember either. Maybe he's thinking about flashing the slave if the flash failed and you would have to blind flash the cards?

 

For people getting low benchmark scores(below 15k), grab this utility and make sure stealth mode is off.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/463382-stealth-mode-indicator.html

 

I pretty much just make up a set of vbios flashes and test that out. Time consuming, but much more stable. If one crashes, I'll relash to a lower clocked vbios. I son't test for stability though furmark either. I just test the vbios by benching in it Vantage. Differant programs will treat the same clocks differantly. Some will crash while other programs will complete successfully. I only need it stable enough to complete a benchmarking run. If I'm not benchmarking, I keep everything at stock clocks.

 

gotcha, if I were just benchmarking I would probally do the same.