M17x R2 7970m CrossfireX Ultimate Installation and Tweaking Guide

Niether was mine. The 240W got pretty hot playing Crysis 3 for a couple of hours. To be honest the actual power draw isn't important, its just a rough gauge. All that really matters is that the PSU doesn't trip. It's a means to an end to sustain our greedy overclocks and lust for pretty graphics

GHZ run as requested Same settings as before except GPU's are running 1025V and the XM is clocked to 25x across all cores.

 

That's a pretty solid 16% increase.

 

thats just niiice^^
So he oc his 7970 card to 1175/1600 and got around 68fps avarage in tombraider bench
settings "highest".
But highest doesnt mean that everything is maxxed,shadow is not maxxed and we could test in 4ssaa.

how about 1920*1080 settings "highest" with shadow maxxed and 4*ssaa?
He´s desperately fighting against a laptop haha
he should know m17 r2 is not a"normal" laptop its a alienware

 

R2 is like a Baby for us, you must understand
It is not like ''you will put it and it will work Plug&Play''

I am sure, that if i would count all the money alone, that i spent on upgrades for my R2, thermal pads/paste, tools, more tools, heatsinks, fans,..did i include more tools and thermal pads/paste? -> i would get Maxed Out 18 easy, and i am not including time spent, which is like i said '' like taking care of a little baby - HUGE''

Troubleshooting can be really painfull, and flustrating.

Trying to keep up with other laptops and keeep RGB screen is very expansive, but i treet it more like a hobby now, so i don't care about money invested in it, but i sure try to keep them within reasonable borders

As a last man resort i could also do the mod for you, i live in Jersey UK, so just next to Germany, but only if the Pioneers themselves (Nospheratu and Sangemaru) will not have time or other obstacles will not allow them to do it.

I have not done the mod my self yet, but i have done my homework, and i am ready to go when final parts arrive ( R2 Jack )

Also, i doubt any Hardware Workshop will do the mod for you and ask $5 for it, this is easly 2+ hours of work, Year 2013, economy Crysis 3, and when a workshop charges Euro60/Hour then the bill can be huge.

Search for nearby family/friends who have basic knowledge about electronics/soldering, they may aid you in the mod as well


Peace !

 

Thx man really.
I know that there`s much work behind the mod´s and i love my baby so thats why i MUST give some love back for the work. I can´t just profit without donating i would feel bad.
You guys spend so much for this stuff so we should help you guys a little.
So if Someone does the mod for me not as a buyer but as a bro he should accept some donation...peace

btw you have a fiio e7 why that model?
i use a x-fi hd as the external soundcard

 

I bought FiiO E7 2 years ago, FiiO E7 is a gread sound card/DAC for music.

It does not have any special effects in games, no EAX, no surround, but i do not really use it.

What i uuse my R2 for is istening to the music, and this is where FiiO kills any X-Fi card in quality, KILLS

I had X-Fi external HD and i had to return it, because when i compared it to FiiO i just could not believe it.

I was thinking about NuForce Icon HDP and Arcam Rdac as well, but i cannot decice myself :/

 

Totally this. Selling the machine as is would probably pay for a i7 haswell equipped clevo with 2x 8970m.
That doesn't necessarily mean I'd do it any time soon. It's my baby. I want it up and running fully and destroying newer laptops and desktops alike.

Do try and make a few calls to electronic service shops and see if any of them will put out. You can tell them you need a chip desoldered from one board and resoldered on another, with a couple of extra steps in between. If you can't find any, then we'll see if I or flingin can get it done. My main worry is that shipping services to and from Romania sometimes have issues, and that you might have to wait on me for a while if I try and take care of it, because I'd be having my buddy do it but we don't exactly meet very often. That and when it comes to him, I always pay him for his services.

 

is that with tressfx enabled? my single 7970m can handle the game on highest settings without tressfx. with it, it drops to 30 fps easily.

 

Ok ill check. If i dont find someone the i just buy a second 240watt and wait thats no problem^^

@flingin
You made me want to buy a fiio dac now
the problem is i game on the machine and look movies so i benefit from the eax and other effects.
For example i can raise the loudness of the voices in movies...
i use a ultrassone pro 900 as on-ear and shure k205 as in-ear
sorry for off-topic

 

Ultimate Settings = TressFX on I used to play with tressFX enabled at second-highest settings on only one card. Crossfire does micracles for performance though

 

I googled the minimum FPS bug and it turns out I wasn't on the latest patch. So I've patched the game to get rid of bugs... and I'm getting flicker around Lara's hair now Performance is better though.

Ultimate settings. 7970M's @ 1000/1400, 1.025V. XM @ 25x.


Ultimate settings + 4xSSAA + Ultra Shadows with same clocks as above. Average FPS got chopped in half!!!

 

84FPS average That destroys the desktop 7970.

4xSSAA makes sense. You're basically quadrupling the resolution.

 

holy $hit 84 fps!! hahaha
did you played the game with the 4*ssaa settings?
are these the ultimate clocks you can go, the limit?

he got 69,5 fps on ultimate without ssaa and shadows.
Ill inform you when he does the run with ultimate settings with 4*ssaa and ultra shadows.
i must ask him if he has the new patch like you have for a good comparison.

about the flicker hmm
How about you try to lower the mem clock?

 

No, I haven't tested the limit yet. Technically my cards are undervolted at 1000mhz core. Stock voltage is 1050V.

I thought it might be the overclock but it happens at stock GPU settings too so it has to be the patch that caused it. It only happens when the Lara is close. And I'm running the same clocks as before.

 

TressFX hair flicker and blurriness with Crossfire/SLI enabled is a known issue since the latest patch.

 

arent you curious to find out the limit?^^
can you overvolt now that you have 330watt psu?

 

He could. I'm dying to see +75mV 140blk 26/26/26/26 @ 130W/100A TRL settings.

 

I dont think Tomb Raider have cpu limit but still^^
Im starving to see clocks above 1000Mhz:thumbsup:

 

Lol

Yes I could, but I'm going to have to respectfully decline those requests. I don't want to risk killing any component by stressing it unnecessarily when my current performance is sufficient for now. I'll take the risk when I need more performance down the line... or maybe when I'm bored

sangemaru knows I'm a bit conservative with my components, he's the dare devil around these parts

 

i understand. but somebody has to try it so everybody knows^^
Later i will definetly try the limits

did you played tombraider with 4*ssaa?
did you see some microstutter?

 

Holy crap, 84 fps on ultimate settings on the new Tomb Raider, that is INSANE for a laptop of this age! This is really making me lean towards just selling my R1 and getting my hands on the beastly R2. I love my R1, but sadly it has it's limits, but the R2 just takes the amazing look and build quality of the R1 and just unleashes the beast within!

On a side note, does anyone know if the R2 is capable of running 8970's in single or even crossfire?

 

as far i know 7970m and 8970m are completely the same chip with different names.
Ill prefer 7970m because its tested and working.
Many people have 7970m cards (single and crossfire) in their r2 systems.

 

Ok news my bro tested tomb-bench on ultimate settings with ultra shadows and 4*ssaa
tadaa 39,5 fps on average on max stable clock of 1186mhz^^

I checked the scores of other cards too and maan in many cases 7970m x-fire even beats a "titan" or a "GTX 780"
man who needs a desktop
Im so happy man.haha
When i have the cards ill take my r2 to toilet and beat his(7970 desktop) records from their laughing at him then walk around in the house with a faster sytem in my hand looking at him where he sits just for fun hahah

 

Ahh ok I never knew that, thanks for clarifying =). I think I might just replace both my m17x r1 and my desktop with a r2, that fps was better than my desktop lol

 

here the only difference is that 8970m has 50mhz higher turbo clock
AMD Radeon HD 8970M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

 

There are peeps that has tried the 8970M cards.
The Dell ones can not do crossfire.

Not sure how he is doing with the Xfire still, he got clevo's.
Think i remember one card died? Perhaps im wrong.

The 8970 does also have double the VRAM.

 

There's a guy that has 8970m running. Aaristotle something. I think he had crossfire.

 

Yeah Aristotelhs2060, one card died but he is having it replaced. Hopefully it goes well for him second time around.

 

And you have 20KG battery pack on your back right ?

 

Be nice, the 330W is only like 1.8kg

 

Mhm and about 3 minutes of smiling before new recharge

But of course he can bring a cord

 

Be nice. I get a solid 1 hour battery life )

 

I guess not while outperforming other desktops?

Isnt our battery about 90W?
Have you tried benchin on battery btw?

I think im gonna try it afterwords

 

That's... a pretty useless thing do be doing with this machine, lol. TBH, I haven't tried, nor do i plan to kill the battery like that, heh.

 

hehe but i can plug it in his room chillin on a chair and laugh quietly behind him^^

I think we must wait for 20nm chips to se more Performance and thats .ucking to long to wait......

Just grab 2 7970m´s and have fun even one card is more than enough for gaming.
780m is too expensive and no one could do 780m in a r2 right?

 

Well, seeing as how 780m is double the price and 10% extra performance on average, and the fact that apparently it only works on external display... yea, pretty much.

 

Please do not remind me...

 

small beta driver update.

all i can find was the link for the downloader. hopefully someone else can find the download link for the actual driver.

http://www2.ati.com/drivers/beta/mobility-utility/catalyst_mobility_beta_64-bit_util.exe

 

I'm curious how the 7970m stacks against the 780m now in most games.

 

2 weeks passed and i do not see power jacks that i ordered from china.
NEW DELL ALLIENWARE M17X R1 R2 DC JACK POWER PLUG IN PORT CONNECTOR SOCKET | eBay


This is very nuusual i as paid a little bit more for the delivery but i did not chosed expedited delivery because it is too expensive.

anyways is says 14-30 days -LOL

Watching, the thread, waiting for bloody power jacks to complete the MOD, but i can't.....sadface for me.

 

Sooon, my card is in Norway now so upgrade AGAIN is close.

 

I also paid a little more for a tracking number but I found that the package was sent to Singapore first. It departed from Singapore to the delivery address. It also took a few days to reach Singapore and then quite a few days more to leave.

Hang in there, I'm almost done with the guide now. Hopefully the stars will line up and your power jack will arrive and my guide will go up at the same time

 

Now I think ill be able to mount it tomorrow.
BTW ive found that i have issues with the CPU.
My old 720 finds all my ram. The 940XM does not.
CPU could be reasons for the slightly slower 3dmark tests to.
I do however find 8 gig if i use one 8 gig stick (not in BIOS since it doesnt support 8 gig sticks originally)
I might just continue using my 940 with the 8 and 4 gig RAM in it, and just see what happens in time.
If i buy another it will not be a 940. They are WAY to expensive and from what i see, all guys with the highest CPU scores in here have a 920.

 

Bro. I had some problem with my previous 920xm. Xm CPUs are fragile for damage during overclocking. Memory controller located in the CPU gets fried and because of this it sees only 1 channel. Bios will see the memory. But not the CPU in windows. Long story short your CPU memory controller is damaged.....sad face

 

Aye, that sounds painful. Still, 840QM with bclk OC and increased TRL/TDP (if you can, i'm not sure) is still plenty fast.
Sorry about that CPU.

 

Funny is that CPUinfo shows dual channel and 8 gigs.
BIOS only shows 4.
Windows task manager show 4.

But its pretty sure its the memory controller.Its kind of usable though since If i use the one 8 gig stick, only BIOS complains saying there is no memory. But all other runs perfect.
Might go for a new 920. We'll see what i do. If it had been the main-board, I would have considered not using dual GPU to avoid risk of crap board ruining another GPU. I'm not that concerned about CPU as long as i can make it run on one stick with 8 gigs.

 

Behavior when using 8GB sticks is normal, the bios can only detect up to 4GB sticks, but they work perfectly fine in windows.
To be honest, I'm angling around the probability that it's the kind of issue that you shouldn't concern yourself with much. It could be one of your 4GB sticks have a slight issue? Or some slight incompatibility between mobo bios and the ram sticks... who knows.
I'm of the opinion that CPUInfo or CPU-z (or SiSoft Sandra) are much better reports than windows task manager.
Are you running the A10 modded bios? If not, you should.

Please try and run 2 sticks sisoftsandra memory benchmarks and save them, and then run 1stick and compare. 2 sticks should be significantly faster, and should tell you whether you have working dual-channel memory in windows, regardless of what bios says.

Also, 3dmark11 score is somewhat sensitive to ram, but if you run 25/25/25/25 @ 100W TDP and let's say another 100A TDC, you should get around 6800-7000 physics score. If you get lower than that (say 6400-6500) you may have memory issues.

 

That is 100% CPU Memory controller failure. Sadface

 

Hi guys,
Just a quick question.
How do you handle the fan noise of not one gpu but two?
My fan noise on high with 7970m is loud. How do you guys tolerate the two when playing 3d games?
Curious

 

I doubt it is much noisier as both gpus are operating at mid 70'c. So the whole system is quite quiet bro

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