M17x R2 7970m CrossfireX Ultimate Installation and Tweaking Guide

Ah, you optimist, you. Being an Engineering Sample card, you can't be recognized as the owner of the card officially, and have about as much of a chance of convincing one of the AMD/dell/clevo engineers to edit your vBios as a a newborn gone on vacation in Abaddon has of coming back alive.

But there's no shortage of miracles in the world, so who knows. I'd hope for svl7's success to be honest. Not to mention that that vBios seems incredibly useful.

 

i know some of u guys has seen the 330w mod by imsolidstate at techinferno, but has anyone tried it yet?

in his post( 330W power supply for M17x update » imsolidstate) he got around 440w. which makes me think maybe we can pull a 4 ghz oc on 920xm whilst running 2 7970m on stock.

and since no one has gotten a 780m to work on a r2, ill probably just go with a 2 7970m.

 

Well, that's what we were discussing today :thumbsup: Once my second card and salary comes in, i'll put the order for one and do the mod.

 

4Ghz just isn't sustainable with our current cooling, it might be possible with an overvolt and running dice for just benches but not everyday use.

I received the Kill-a-watt clone today and ran some benches with CPU at 24/24/24/24 with 85 TDP and stock GPU clocks. Below are the max power draw on each test.

3Dmark11: 241W
Bioshock Infinite benchmark: 261W
Crysis 3: 274W

Then I got a little bit excited over imsolidstates fix and ran 3Dmark11 with 25/25/25/25 with 90TDP and both cards at 950/1400. Power draw was 270W max on the first test. It seems the first test draws the most power, combined test draws around 245W. I'm running the 13.6 Beta2's. This 240W is pretty impressive.

 

whoa.... can the 240w power brick deliver so much more?? 274W??? we really dont need the 330W mod then, its needed only if someone wants to extreme oc to bench

 

Yeah it really is a good power supply but we're running it at its limit when delivering that amount of power. In Crysis 3 when I ran the test the GPU throttled which dropped power draw to around 220W before climbing up again. So its not a viable option unless we underclock the GPU's a bit. Even then we would be sitting around the 240W mark which cant be good for the PSU in the long term.

 

Of course mate Or do you think my PSU rated at 150W delivering 240W was that special? The 330W one delivering 440W is pretty good, but still within expectations. It's actually not delivering that much, you should know (at least yours). 270W is what it's pulling from the wall. It's pretty much straight at 240W after account for inefficiency.

330W, here we come I'm planning 1V/950/1400 for both cards, with 29/27/26/25 running at 140bclk, +150mv overvolt with some really well modded cooling.

 

just wondering, how well does 2 7970m on xfire do in assassin's creed 3 and far cry 3? ive been looking online and the ones that ive found was less than desirable.

anyways any of u guys got the psu mod to work yet?

 

I don't have Assassins Creed 3 but I have done some testing on FC3 and your research is accurate. It's a poorly optimised game and runs worse than Crysis 3 on High at native res.

Micro stutter is terrible and affects the experience. This can be resolved somewhat by disabling vsync in game and using the FPS limiter in RadeonPro.

I'll try and do more testing now for FC3 since I've just completed Crysis 3 on High with Very High textures and no AA at Native res with the GPU's at 800/1200 and the XM at default Dell spec. From the "Only Human" mission onwards I was averaging around 60FPS. Smooth as butter I think the later stages are easier on the GPU but it still looks incredible.

Just played FC3 and its horrible. On ultra settings I'm getting anywhere from 30FPS to 60FPS. On foot I'm averaging about 45-60FPS. Driving fast in any vehicle the FPS drops to 30FPS at some points. This would be really good if it wasn't for the stutter. Its not only micro stutter that makes it feel as if its really 15FPS theres a few major stutters now and again and it doesn't help if I drop the settings to low the stutters are still there. Power draw is around +-230W so the 240W PSU seems to be sufficient for this game.

The 920XM could possibly help raise the minimum FPS once clocked higher but I'll have to test once I get the 330W.

Hopefully we get the beta or WHQL prototype driver from AMD soon with further optimisations for FC3. Until then I'll leave this game aside.

I've also managed to pick up a 330W from Amazon for $60 including shipping to S,A which I thought was a really good deal. I wasn't quite ready to purchase it but it was the last one and the next best option was working out to $90 including shipping so I pulled the trigger. There still are a few selling for around $30 excluding shipping which is much cheaper than anywhere I've seen including ebay.

I also ordered one of these just so I can run the ID chip mod externally with the 330W to make sure it works before modding it into the chassis. I'm dreading cracking open the 240W though.

 

Hmm, I do not think you can reach 29 FID..i would be jelly...so much

when i put 27, and put load on it, i will have BSOD in no time, is it normal ?

I did not experiment with +75/150mV jut yet....do i have to bump it ?

 

I can reach 29 FID with the voltage raised, but not with bclk overclock. I don't know how stable it is since it's basically untestable until i fix my cooling.

27 bsod is normal without overvolt, don't worry about it.

So my new 7970m card arrived. Brand new, sealed
But I don't have the x-bracket for it... any ideas?

 

Maybe ask the guy you bought it from for one?
Also, you can get some here:
GPU Spreader X Bracket W Screws FOR MXM 3 0B AMD HD69X0M 79XXM 89XXM VGA Modules | eBay

 

Oh god that's so expensive, I hope I can find something cheaper... more than 40$ for a piece of aluminum, Jesus..

 

Congrats sangemaru! :thumbsup: I know you've been waiting for this for quite a while

Yeah I think the sellers realise you can't use the card without one of these so they mark it up with ridiculous prices. The 330W PSU is $30 on Amazon so this price is crazy.

Try to put a wanted advert on NBR for 6970M / 6990M / 7970M x-bracket. I'm sure someone has one they are not using. You need the matching screws as well if its a Clevo x-bracket.

 

Actually brother UltraGSM just gave me the most excellent bit of advice ever: Dell Alienware M18x R2 Cooling Heatsink DP/N: 8J8TM, 08J8TM, AT0MI0040C0
Apparently these include the bracket. Look at the price

Although it might take a few more days (or weeks) until i'm finally ready to use it.
Also, because the card is sealed, we have no idea what vBios it uses. I hope it's not the UEFI vBios (i can get it replaced if it is, just extra time wasted..)

 

That site is awesome. Thanks for the link Prices are great for parts and most have free air shipping. Try to confirm about the x-bracket before ordering though.

 

Thats the reason I didnt buy two brackets for my 7970m s .. I would have to pay 80 euros for them.
So I cut the brackets I had from the 5870s and used them instead without a prob

Ps. Sangermaru congrats on your second card!

 

@AlienHack: Thank you, thank you. Alas, the drama may not yet be over, since the card is a 015.022 vBios card, and may not work and will have to be replaced and oh my pockets.

What do you mean you cut the brackets from the 5870's? The screw-in portions?

@Alienhack: Check this out Wicked Paradise, adult title, Oculus Rift | Complex

 

ive been looking around the interwebz. just wondering, where do u guys get a 7970m?

 

Well, there's a ton of possibilities:

You can buy it second-hand on forums or ebay / you can contact some of the companies like Eurocom / RjTech to buy them / you can contact Dell and order them as service parts / you can write a letter to Santa

I prefer the second-hand variant myself since the newer cards tend to ship with 022 vbios and that simply DOES NOT WORK for this machine. SH allows you to choose

So I got a VR devkit and my laptop under my desk, and the second card is on its way here.
I think I might actually finish Half-Life 2 this time

 

Sacrilege! Shame on you sangemaru!

 

How's that PSU you ordered mate? Keep us up to date

 

Still have a bit of a wait unfortunately Tracking isn't really updating and seller says delivery should be between Jul 30, 2013 to Aug 14, 2013.

I've had another idea though instead of cracking open the 330W or modding the chip onto our motherboards we can create an "adapter" of sorts.

The R2 is only interested in reading the ID chip and the 330W only needs its ID chip line grounded... so we can have an "adapter" acting as the middle man between the R2 and the 330W. It will ground the ID line coming from the PSU on one side and link the 240W ID chip to the ID line going to the R2 on the other. The 240W ID chip is passively powered with 3 connections, one for the ID line and 2 that need to be grounded.

It's a clean solution with no modifications done to either the 330W or the mobo... I will have to mutilate the 240W for the ID chip and the connector tip though.

 

That's not a bad idea, and I can also do some experiments with it once I get my hands on a cheap 330W PSU, since I also have a redundant 240W PSU lying around. We'll see. I do have some doubts, though, since i'm imagining imsolidstate would have tried something so obvious.
The problem was something about the signal trace line running high-voltage and needing to be grounded, right?

On a completely unrelated note, my second card (5th card i get my hands on so far) just arrived on my desk Myx was kind enough to locate and provide a brand-new x-bracket, too.

 

Yeah by default the ID line is run on at higher voltage which only allows the 330W to deliver 240W. When an M18x is connected it pulls the line low and the PSU is then able to deliver the full power. Same thing can be achieved by doing as you mentioned, grounding the line.

5th card!! Haha that's crazy man but congrats! :thumbsup: Now get down to business and give us some results!

 

Hey this is very interesting. Us M15x owners are starting to wonder if grounding the trace from 1-wire ID chip of 240W psu (with 150W ID chip) would allow M15x to draw more than 200W from the PSU and remove the throttling problems.
If any of you successfully do the mod that imsolidstate did (way way over my head in technical terms) or the adapter idea I know a few M15x owners that would love to try it. Please keep us updated

 

Unfortunately I don't see that working. If I remember correctly the M15x is hardcoded in the BIOS to draw a maximum of 180W so any hardware mods with the PSU is not going to gain you any more power.

Besides the 330W and the 240W are completely different in the way they operate. The 240W ID chip does not impose a restriction on the amount of power the PSU can supply and it is passively powered by the laptop. On the 330W the ID chip signal is actively powered and the ID line dictates whether the 330W will provide a max of 240W or... UNLIMITED POWAH .... depending on the voltage of the line.

 

If i remember correctly, the m15x throttling is a motherboard limitation I know for sure the delta 150W can carry overclocked 920xm/7970m no problem (because i used to on a different machine), although I'm speaking about a machine that did not use ID chip.

Either Nospheratu or I will provide reports, although most likely nospheratu will be the first (since I'm low on $$$).

We'll see

In an unrelated topic, second card arrived, was installed and booted no problem, CCC detected it and requested crossfire enable.
I'm about to run a bench Gonna keep my fingers crossed. Hope my PSU can take it.

EDIT: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6914281

Combined score is low because I run low TDP, i have have to replace CPU heatsink (struck 100C during the bench).
Officially beast machine

PSU barely got warm.

 

Awesome stuff sangemaru!!! I feel like I'm the one testing! Exciting times!!!

 

Yeh I've read multiple times that its the motherboard that is hardcoded to 180W but quite frankly I never saw any evidence for that. Obviously if you have then I will bow before your superior knowledge.
What I was referring to is the 330W adapter not drawing more than 245W on imsolidstate's tests due it not simply being the Id chip but something downstream from that. Could it be possible that a 240W PSU plugged into M15x can't draw more than 180W because of a similar situation? Obviously my knowledge in this whole PSU modding area is amazingly limited

I know that svl7 has a 330W PSU for his M15x and he doesn't experience throttling like the rest of us. I'm hugely suspicious. Glad to see you guys getting epic benchmark scores on 4-5 year old laptops
If anything it makes you realise actually how little computer technology has progressed. I can't believe Haswell offered barely no performance improvements over Ivybridge. How is that acceptable?

 

Wicked score there man Performance is more or less in line with stock XM clocks, even with low TDP

I haven't come across any hard evidence but like most things unsupported by the manufacturer its done through trial and error by enthusiasts. I remembered the 180W limit as I used to own a M15x. The 240W is proven to deliver more than its rated output even when used with Clevo's laptops who don't make use of the ID signal at all. So its simple logic really. Just a process of elimination which leaves the problem with the M15x and not the 240W. I know its a difficult pill to swallow especially considering the fact that the M15x is more compatible with unsupported cards than the M17x R2 is. I hope I'm wrong though and you do find a way to bypass the 180W limitation.

I doubt svl7 is keeping anything to himself. He's all for the community even though I'm sure he's being bugged everyday for vBIOS requests I wasn't aware that he was using a 330W atm though, last I read he had one on order. Bear in mind that 3Dmark11 isn't as power hungry as you might think. On my machine it draws a max of around 245W and that's with TWO 7970M's and a 920XM overclocked to 24/24/24/24 and 90TDP.

Another thing to consider is not everyone reports everything they go through to achieve a great 3Dmark score. Sometimes it takes multiple shutdowns and pushing the system to its edge to obtain the score but they don't mention that usually. Even driver settings are set to max performance which personally I don't believe in as it skews comparisons. Tesselation for example can be set on the lowest setting and it would still be a valid result in 3Dmark.

 

Ahh, wisdom.
The fact that people who achieve success oftentimes fail to report on that success is the reason I started this thread in the first place It just didn't make sense to me that it wouldn't be possible to run this crossfire And now we're three success stories

Can't wait to get my hands on the 330W PSU.

 

sangemaru, it's now my turn to tell you to update your sig

 

Dayum, I'd almost forgotten Thanks bro.

So: Got a shutdown 15 seconds into the Metro: LL benchmark, which i suspect is due to PSU overload, but not so much because my machine consumes a lot, but because I think the PSU is on its last legs. Remember I even got a PSU shutdown running only one card a while back. I'll need the mod soon, apparently.

 

That's the only game I wasn't able to test. I don't have it and I know StamatisX also got shutdowns running it on max settings. What about your spare 240W? Is it still good?

Just checked and the seller I bought my 330W has stock again. Lowest price at $28 (excluding shipping) on the web as far as I know and they ship internationally. See here.

What are your voltages on both cards?

 

Well, I can't manage to view the voltage sensor for the slave card no matter what I do, but theoretically they should both be running stock clocks at 0.975V.
Thanks for that link bro, jumping on it ASAP

Yes, I was indeed maxing out Metro. Framerates had increased from averages of 27-50fps to something along the lines of 35-70 fps.
I finally get what you guys mean by stuttering though

Meh, I suppose by the time I get the PSU to run these bad girls, the crossfire driver might be out as well.

The spare 240W will be used strictly for spare parts (and thus to extract the ID chip). It's already been butchered for another machine, some interventions in it, and it also can't deliver more than 220W (tested it). I'll use it to extract the ID chip and keep the current 240W as a usable spare.

Oh wow. I hate shipping costs 28$ for the PSU + another 35 shipping (and then that'll be probably another ~20$ customs). Damn.

 

So your cards are on low voltage as well... my one card (primary) that runs on 0.975v wont budge on voltage with any of the modded vBIOS's that I've flashed. With Afterburner and CCC I can increase it but only for the primary card. I think once we get the 330W we'll be wanting at least the official stock voltages.

Yeah the release date is supposedly next week for the driver. I hope its good and fixes issues with FC3 as well.

Damn your customs tax is hectic! Mines works out to $4 so its not that bad.

 

Actually my cards are low voltage because I want them to be so I want a powerhouse that stays cool and doesn't make much noise, and I want to keep them alive as much as possible. If I want to increase the voltage I can do it easily through flashing higher-voltage vbios or editing the CCC profiles

 

Ah that's good news then At least you have the option... lucky bugger So you're running the mod pack undervolted vBIOS from svl7's modpack on both cards?

My temps are 65-67C on load at the moment but I have to wait till around December to see what temps I get in the peak of summer to make final adjustments. I'll be comfortable with 1.00v on each card as its still below the official voltages. I'm hoping to stay around 75C on load but I have a feeling I'm going to hit low to mid 80C in summer.

 

After a 3dmark11 run the max temp recorded on the cards was 65, so pretty much similar
My current slave card apparently arrived with 0.975V as stock voltage from what myx tells me. I don't think there's an "official" voltage. I think each card is probably cherry-picked and set to run at the most stable voltages at those clocks.

So i'm only running undervolted vbios on the first card (which was 1.025V stock).

 

Very similar setup to mine then. Although my 1.00v card is in the secondary slot and the 0.975v is in the primary.

I considered the lowest stable voltage possible as well... until I realised the vBIOS I had on the card is set for 1.050v 3D voltage. Its actually the same vBIOS on both cards yet the primary runs at 0.975v and secondary at 1.00v. The second card's voltage changes correctly if I flash a modded vBIOS but my first card is a problem.

I think there's something else going on with these unusual voltages and its on both Dell and Clevo cards. The official voltages I am aware of is 1.050v for early revisions and then 1.025v for later revisions. At least that's whats in the stock vBIOS's. These cards seem to be ignoring that and doing their own thing. There's a thread on T|I that discussed this I'll try to find the link.

Can you check if your CCC profile creates a clock/voltage entry for your second card as well? I only have the first cards settings listed in the XML.

edit: Read from here. Theres quite a mix of different topics being discussed but there's some good info there.

 

Ok, so new stuff:

I have no troubles with the voltages being read and set correctly when flashing vBios, thank god. I restored the thermal sensors by temporarily disabling CrossFire and then re-enabling it.
While crossfire is off I can also view card stats / volts etc.

CCC doesn't seem to create a second clock / voltage entry, though I'll be trying to tweak things there and will report here. I have the second card listed in the XML, but not under the overdrive tab. However you can set what clocks you want, for any app you want, for either card, by setting from within radeonPro

Now, here's a Metro: Last Light bench: 0.975, stock clocks. This time it didn't shut down. The bench looked pretty smooth with Triplebuffering disabled and Dynamic vsync set to 30fps.

 

GUYs i am back!!!

i was full with work so i didnt even have the time or mood to post...


Anyways, MY RIFT is on its way!! i will receive it probably monday-tuesday!! YEAH! it was about time!!


Back on my alienware, things are supersmooth!!! BUT i stlill havent managed to drop my voltages. They dont cause any trouble in gaming BUT the card temps are raising at 85-87C max and i dont like that. I even had a thermal shutdown on a hot day (my ambient temp is 30-35C )

:-( i cant seem to find a way to lower the card volts and temps... anyone has any other idea? o offered payment to slv7 if he manages to solve my problem but.. :-(


sangemaru , whith what bios did your card arrive?


I am lucky that my psu can keep up with these cards at 1.1V and the 920xm Oced BUT it just doesnt feel right to work them with so high voltage with no reason... :-( What can i do? find a programmer and pay him to edit the bios file? I am willing to pay 40-50 euros for that. It shouldnt be SO hard to edit a bios file!!

 

Give this ROM a try. It's a dell 0.975V one. Checksum is 5000.

Also, you're gonna LOVE the oculus. Rollercoaster demo with high resolution, antialias and anisotropic is awesome.

 

sangermaru, is this rom the one from SLV7s rom pack? cause i tried all of them and none worked...

anyone knows a programmer that could possibly get paid to edit a rom file?

 

Glad to have you back AlienHack

Maybe create a thread on Bios Mods -The Best BIOS Update and Modification Source

That's where all the heavy weights hang out. I'm sure svl7 is on there too. Maybe your thread will remind him you need help.

edit: I tried disabling ULPS and then enable Overdrive but the XML still only shows the single primary card device ID. I'm thinking of copying and pasting the primary cards tags and editing it to reflect the secondary cards device ID but there's a lot of tags and I don't think most of them are relevant for the second card

 

This is, allegedly, a Dell stock 0.975V rom. The card can undervolt even to 0.950 stably.

So I had the alt-tab issues Nospheratu used to report and I also reverted to 13.1 and it fixed all my troubles. Max framerate in Metro increased from 60 to 80 but the average stayed the same - i'm heavily cpu bottlenecked due to heat at the moment. I'm barely touching 2.6Ghz and the CPU gets to 94C. Can't wait for the salary to replace this heatsink. The cards are smooth butter to me. Max temp 75.

But CPU troubles aside, I would class myself as the third person in recent memory to have obtained a RESOUNDING SUCCESS using 7970m crossfire in the m17x R2 More people should join the bandwagon

 

Look at the irony , sangemaru i have no prob with my cpu, running stably at 25x multi all 4 cores and temps 87-94 max BUT i have heat problems with the cards! nevertheless our systems are beasts !!!

 

They definitely are. Have you tried that vBios I linked?

 

sangemaru, since you have the 13.1's installed already. Install only the driver from the 13.4 suite and then only the driver from the 13.6 suite. I have noticed improvement in some games with the newer drivers. The BSODs are almost non existant with this combo.

There's also a newer beta out which I haven't tried as yet. It's listed as an OpenGL driver but contains the full suite. It's here.