HD6970's in M17x R2?

Could I crossfire 2 HD6970's in my R2? Is this system properly configured for it? Would I run into massive problems? Or would I just get a huge performance increase?

Edit: Can a mod change the title of the post to 6970 instead of 6870? Thanks in advance.

 

The 6870M is a slightly underclocked 5870, so there'd be no point either way. Did you mean to say 6970M?

 

Yea, I mean the 6970, sorry. The ones that are in the new M17x R3's.

 

Anyone have any insight?

 

Look under the 6970 vBios thread. 1x 6970m is working with a few issues but we are waiting on Thewiz to add support into sys bios.

 

I think 2 of them would be way too much of a power draw. maybe if you underclocked them enough? I think just one of them draws 100 watts by itself.

 

Power supply would be the issue. R3 already comes with a 240 watt, so add another 100 watts, and we are looking at 340 watt power supply for an r2 with 6970CF.

 

i dont think 6970 draws 100watt its around 70=75=80=85 thats it

so i think mod bios by theWiz will figure away to CF 6970

 

Notebookcheck has them at 75-100. The 5870 is only 50. They might be ok at stock clock speeds, without any CPU overclock, but it seems like having one that you can overclock, along with a CPU overclock might be a better route to take.

 

I would agree. I would imagine cf 6970 would be possible.

I dont think the draw is 100w.I agree around 70-85watt draw .Im sure there would be a table in bios to regulate voltage to each gpu onboard.
It was said about the 5870 when they came on to the scene that psu would be an issue for crossfire.

We will just have to wait for Thewiz to added support in the next bios mod.

 

my 285m SLI draws 150w standard and i can GPU o/c & CPU o/c @5% plus throttlestop. I think they will be fine

 

Had a crazy idea pop into my head what if we put two power supplies together and use a specially made y-adapter to plug them into m17x. would that actually allow for double the power to the m17x?

 

...and then we get a thermonuclear explosion....

 

I just tried installing throttlestop two days ago but it made my system run crappy. FPS which used to be 50-60 in BFBC2 went to 35.... I couldnt figure it out so I removed the program. Any ideas what I did wrong?

 

you really need a 920xm or 940xm CPU as your cpu is locked

 

The 6970 mobilities draw ~85 watts. A heavily OC'ed 5870 will draw the same, if not more. Power supply will not be an issue.

Currently the cards will boot into windows, but are buggy. A custom vbios/bios is in the works for this.

 

AS I Mentioned just a few of theWiz secret and magical touches we can get CF6970 and thanks goodstone for responding i wish you could ask Thewiz his next mod could be R2 users for CF 6970 or SLI GTX470

 

I have 5% oc with modded bios & 920 is in the mail

 

As said in the previos post someone is experimenting with the 69 cards in there r2. I have pm'd TheWiz on an update to the next mod and the possibility of 69 cards working properly.

I think just 1 card would suit my rig. I rarely have xfire working anyway.

 

I'd go x-fire, simply for the benchmarking

 

So ill be glade to wait for thewiz

 

Seems like a lot of people asking this question....

 

What would be more powerful? One 6970 or my 2 5870 CF?

 

5870 CF would be stronger, however the argument has been made that single card setups are better then dual, and this is really all based on the applications you run

 

yup 5870 CF would be better than single 6970 but wont be better than CF 6970 hehe cant wait Cf 6970 RGB awesome combination

 

guyz ive found a person made sli gtx 470 in his M17xr2 i told him to make mine and he asked for 700dollars + cards :S he his also bios Mod + fan dunno what to call him but i think he is greedy :S

 

Could you provide more information like a link or let us read the actual email? If this was possible, I'm quite sure it would have spread through the R2 community like wild fire. I personally want 6970s, so I wouldn't bother with it, but I'm still interested.

 

personal i would rather have 485s. well kinda anyway if not that then 6970s

 

I think the 485s are too power hungry for the R2. There's more and more proof surfacing that 6970 CrossFire is feasible. I could be wrong about the 485s though.

 

I think the problem with 485's is that memory is on both sides of the card, making cooling an issue.

 

how much surface area would be needed to cool the bottom ram on 485s?

 

ok fair enough to ask for a few $ for making the bios but $700 is to much, ask him for some benchmarks or something

I have heard that they use nothing but thermal pads to cool the ram chips on the back of the nvidia cards not sure how true that is

 

If I got a very thin double sited sticky thermal pad I could put a thin long copper plate on it for heat dissipation. assumming there is any room on the underside. Can somebody possibly measure the amount space where the backside of the memory chip would reside.

 

baack sorry guys for keeping u wait...well i went to this guy as i mentioned back bios mod or whatever i told him me and my friends r2 users will accept your price but prove to us in the forums with some benchmark test of ur gtx 470 guess what? he said its ok.. i gave him the note book review site he will start sending some benchmark and photos about his progress after that we will decide ..also i asked him about 6970 he said i can but havent got the cards so anyways lets stick and see the sli 470 first ....... the worst thing he is from my country kuwait .. middle east ..thats all for tonight

 

think thats a scam... guy wants to make some $ off ya. but lets see

 

i believe it is also a scam.

 

:S maybe,,, and maybe not we will see

 

if that guy can make an exploit of bios, why would he ever make it for NBR forums users? since he's pretty aware that you find us credible enough at this and well if hes not a fool he'd guess that there are ppl here who can actually find out how he did it n share info for free... anyways, thats just my guess.
but then again, you shoulda asked him when is he gonna do all this. maybe next year or so

 

A single 485M is most likely possible barring any BIOS issues, but an SLI system is out of the question. If you look at the Clevo/Sager machines that offer the SLI pairing of the 485M they come armed with a 300W power supply with an option to purchase a tandem power supply. I don't see any way to squeeze the necessary juice out of the stock 240w.

Just my 2 cents.

 

A single GTX 485m might work in the R2 electrically, but 2 won't. Each card draws 100 watts. Not happening. They draw so much power, even the X7200 is having trouble powering them. Clevo's worked out a system where you actually plug in TWO 300watt power bricks into the computer. Apparently, one 300 watt PSU isn't enough. Not to mention the MXM slots in the M17x is rated at 75watts. Channeling 100 watts through it for extended periods of time could do a lot of damage. The first version of the X7200 had the same problem. The revision uses custom MXM slots capable of the extra draw.

 

If Dell makes a compatible 330w PSU for the M18x that can fit in the R2, then it's possible. The next step would be BIOS compatibility.

 

I have about 1500 burning a hole in pocket waiting for confirmation that this is working.

 

Just announced - Alienware M18X (Updated) - Dell News and more

Update 2: It seems Dell has added a (more sane) 240W AC Adapter to the M18X, which is the same one used with the M17X R3.

from the link above but i can't confirm if its true.

 

not liking the direction their taking on the screen. don't like 16:9 ratio on small screens. maybe it won't be so bad with it being 18.4 in but would need rgb screen. I've become addicted to it in my m17x. For now I'll probably just stick with what i have and upgrade it. though if i just put one 485m in it wouldn't that be a step back or too similar performance to what I have now?

 

It will probably be about the same or you could just buy a second 240w psu and hook em up together and hope you motherboard stays good

 

just checked that link out. The m18x has an uprated psu 330w for sli/xfire. I wonder if its still 19.5volts. A little TheWiz adjustments could make it work on m17. I dont know if the power systems will take it though.

 

i really hope the 330w adapter is compatible with the m17x r2.

 

Ditto....

That would solve some problems for those of us with 940xm and dual 5870's

 

what problems?

 

+1, what problems?