M17x R2 7970m CrossfireX Ultimate Installation and Tweaking Guide

Yeah, I feel you man... got me a bit worried about my cards now Just hope they arrive safe and sound.

 

Hehe, I doubt you have anything to worry about. I guess you'll have to keep this thread alive with usage results until I somehow get a replacement card I'm in a tight spot financially and I'll have to wait to resolve this with Riri-Fifi somehow, else I'd have just instantly bought a new card

 

Yeah one things for certain, these aren't cheap cards. My friends who all have desktops think I'm nuts spending this much on laptop GPU's... I could have bought a Titan considering the total cost involved

I'll try my best to provide results and hopefully a working solution but I might only receive them at the end of the month.

 

So do my friends, but ironically I'm the one with the better cards than they have. Sour grapes I say. Besides, a 7870 desktop card is more expensive than a 7970m where i live.
Anyway, this bench is ran with the GPU downvolted to 0.95: Seems stable in 3dmark and Unigine Valley. Will be gaming a bit tonight to see if she stays stable at these clocks at that voltage. Maybe I'll try some overclock or even tuning down the core even more.

The CPU has been clocked at 3.5GHz across all cores, 3,76GHz single core. The card now stands at 70C under full load, but only because the fans don't turn on until 70 The CPU maxed out 95C at that speed under 3dmark11 load. All in all, I think I just had a bad paste job. After I've repasted using simple pressure, it seems the cores are much more even and run colder now.
I wish the second 7970m worked.... I'll see about getting a kill-a-watt and measuring how much I'm pulling right now.

Chek'em: http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6734944

 

Every time I read posts like yours I love this machine even more

70c GPU temp under full load is awesome! What's your TDP set at in ThrottleStop? I think there may be throttling a bit but then again you cant increase it as your temps are already a bit high.

Can you test if we can underclock the vRAM?

 

Hehe.

TDP is set to 90W. I'd like to know your score at a similar frequency, I've always wondered how my XM's compared to others. Atm I'm having some trouble with any clock-altering utility. Still have some more stuff to install.

As soon as I have some time (and sobriety) I'll start tweaking undervolt/underclock settings.

 

Here's my best 3Dmark11 run with the 5870M's. TDP/TDC was set to 90/75 at the time. Multi @ 24x across all cores and 5% BIOS oc. No other driver optimisations or tesselation disabling. Stock driver settings.

 

Haha, well yea I don't do any %OC in bios, so my bclk is at 133. 0.95*7211=6850. Mine was 6805 The difference is about 0,1%. Still, nice cpu you have there How are the temps and do you have any cooling enhancements? I'm already using a Notepal U3 underneath. And those 5870's are damn fine, but notice the difference in combined score. You'll be able to feel the hell out of even a single 7970m, not to mention crossfired.

EDIT: Ok, i just read the part where you said 24x multi. Yea, I must be throttling a tiny bit.

 

I try to keep temps under 90c, normally that means I'm running about 24x multi across all cores. For video encodes I have to drop down to about 18x multi across all cores to keep temps in check though

I use the TS Bench built in benchmark to quickly check if the CPU is throttling at whatever setting I'm testing. No cooling enhancements apart from propping the back of the laptop up with a rectangular black box that came with a wine stopper... come to think of it.. I think the wine stopper is still in the box lol

When I'm pasting I use a slightly different method though, see my post here, there's a link with the method in that post also.

Yeah I cant wait to run the 7970M, the smoothness of your benchmarks must be epic!

 

I have 5100 with my 5870s in crossfire but they run 800 core 1200 mem

 

I will tell you what my 920xm will do at similar multies like your 940 so we will compare CPUs.

Also about the speed difference you mention between the 5870s cf and the single 7970!! Tell me more! I can't wait o receive mine!

 

Yeah I saw your other post Those are some awesome cards, much better than mine. I had to overvolt 0.05 if I remember correctly to get those clocks(850/1150) game stable. Did you manage to check if yours are running stock voltage?

I was running the cards at those clocks/voltage for over a year and out of the blue I started getting black screens in games. So now I'm running them stock and they are perfectly stable. I don't think the clocks affected the stability, it was the voltage. These are my first MXM cards and I didn't realise these cards can't be treated the same as desktop cards. So increased voltage for everyday use is a no no. Its okay for benchmark runs though. The power circuitry doesn't have the tolerance that desktop cards have.

 

0.95V proved unstable in League of Legends. Will be trying out 0.975V next.

 

There is a new open beta in steam of the game company of heroes 2.
It's a great game from relic and the beta let's you play multi for. Free.
It's very demanding graphically and it has an intergrated video benchmark utility.
Could you download it and run the benchmark in ultra or high? Currently with my 2x5870 I can only run it at medium to low. It's very demanding

 

These undervolts are at stock clocks? ie 850/1200

Another interesting experiment would to measure framerates with your XM at stock clocks and overclocked if you have time. Its just to find out how much our CPU's are holding the card back in games, if at all.

You may not be familiar with RadeonPro as you are coming from nVIDIA cards. Its a very nice tool for AMD cards that let you change key driver settings on the fly, in game. It also has a good fps counter overlay simular to fraps for gauging performance and you are able to set driver profiles for each game with much more configurability than AMD's stock control panel can.

 

@AlienHack: Sure thing, give me a minute.

I'm familiar with RadeonPro but I must be kinda slow on the uptake because I can't make heads or tails of that program. I can do some Metro: Last Light benches if you want.

And yes, stock clocks.

 

Yeah it is a bit complex with the ridiculous amount of options
Took me a while to figure it out too but generally I just create a new profile with the game exe. And then highlight the newly created profile, go to the OSD tab and tick the OSD checkbox to get on screen fps display. F12 in game toggles the FPS display position.

Any game will do but Metro sounds like a pretty awesome test

 

Metro has its own benchmark too

 

0.41 Minimum (stuttering at start - I'm downloading at 5MB/s in the background and installing stuff at the same time )
28.21 fps max
13.77 fps average

Settings are all maximum, vsync off, 1920x1200.

 

i told you its very demanding in ultra , all at maximun , even my desktop i5 with 680gtx gives a 34 fps average

anyway, i bet when you go crossfire the frames will double, but again they wont be over 30 , so i am not hoping to play that game all full. On the other hand , this game has the same problem like all other latest games, although when you go from high settings to highest or ultra you see a dramatic hit on frames, i personaly cant see the difference in graphic quality.
and i see many more people in forums that state that crysis 3 for example either on high or ultra looks great . and me too, personally cant quite spot the graphic differences.
the same goes for company of heroes 2


Also sangemaru one last favor!!
you know anything about bitmining?
if you could go to https://bitminter.com and download their java app and run it so we can see with what hash rate this puppy (7970m) mines it would be great! my 5870 each one mines at 160 so a total of 320 is not bad for mobile cards. not that i use them to mine as i have 2 dedicated machines but its nice to know

 

The Metro: Last Light Benchmark results are in. Everything is maxed out except nVidia PhysX (that I left turned off).

Stock CPU speeds:

Average Framerate: 17.00
Max. Framerate: 47.06
Min. Framerate: 5.38

CPU Overclocked to 27/26/25/24:

Average Framerate: 17.00
Max. Framerate: 45.57
Min. Framerate: 5.82

You would not be able to feel the difference.

I'll see about this program and get back to you. Back on my MSI 7970m machine I used to get around 280MHashes.

 

im a bit confused. is that with a single 7970 or crossfire?

 

Single I'm running these tests for the benefit of the guys here who are waiting on their own 7970m's. I would have done a crossfire test but my second card is defective, have to return it for refund this week.

 

Thanks for the test man! Brilliant example of how potent these XM chips are. I realise its just one game but effectively there's no bottleneck at all for us to be worried about

 

Yep yep I personally think Metro is an excellent example of things to come and of great optimization.

 

EXACTLY what i said (and hoped for) on a previous post of mine!!!!
i tested 3-4 games with my 920xm in 3 throttlestop options-profiles, one was full oced with 24x multi on all cores
the other was normal vanyla 920xm and the other was with turbo boost off all cores at 15x

the results were the same like sangemaru 's . te 920xm wasnt bottlenecking the 5870s cf

i hoped it was the same with the single 7970m and sangemaru confired it

Although i have my doubts on the 7970 crossfire, maybe there because the cards are very fast the cpu will stay behind.
IF NOT then that means that we can keep using our m17x for several more years and just changing gpus when new models are available.

maybe the 9990m will be the first to overpass the 920xm but by then we will be playing totally virtual games with the rift

 

just think that metro was suposed to be a very cpu demanding game. lets hope that even with the 7970 cf (when you get your second card ) it wont need more cpu power...

PS. do you guys know any program to monitor in what speed (multi) is each cpu running?

 

Hwinfo64 can do that.

 

You can use ThrottleStop with the log file option ticked if you want to review how your chip is behaving. Alternatively you can view the first column in the default screen called "FID", that's the multi for each core.

 

Sangermaru , where will we find 2 7970m? One for u one for me. The place I was going to get mine may not be able to send me one ... :-(

Also, I don't remember if you mentioned which bios your card has, is it a Clevo or a dell one? Does hdmi work? Are the fans on auto?

 

I have to admit I've just found one from a friend in my home country. I'll have to see how I do about getting money for it, since I haven't been able to send the seller the defective card back yet and get refunded.
Regarding a card for you, I'll keep an eye out and if I find any let you know.

 

Where are you located? If you're in the US it'll be much easier to pick one up from a reputable seller on the NBR marketplace, even if you're not, a lot of sellers ship internationally. Both sangemaru and I purchased from these type of sellers. Downside of this is unless they are proper resellers of new hardware and not members selling their used cards, warranty and/or support is dependent on the sellers goodwill.

Regarding the cards, sangemaru has Dell's I believe. I bought the Clevo version's from .Cameron.

When you decide on the card it comes down to HDMi vs working fans. Dell's have working HDMi and no auto fans. Clevo's have no HDMi and auto fans. Although there are exceptions to the rule as some Clevo cards have working HDMi with certain vBIOS's. I think it may be down to slight changes in the hardware design but no ones been able to prove anything definitely.

Another thing to consider is that quite a few Dell card owners have reported shutdowns when their GPU temps hit 80c-85c. So if you're in a colder climate this shouldn't bother you. I think this may be related to the no auto fans but its just a theory.

That's good news man Hopefully Riri-Fifi comes through and the return of the card goes smoothly. He seems like reputable active member and he sells a lot of stuff here so I doubt he would want to tarnish his name.

 

That's my hope as well

Regarding the cards, I'm using a dell card flashed with modified dell vbios, and I have auto fan control I'll have to check if the HDMI works or not, but hehe, who knows? Regarding temps, the one card overvolted to 1.05 (vs 1.025 stock) and overclocked to 950/1400 would reach a maximum 83C during testing, so I have no idea if auto-shutdown is a problem or not ) Undervolted to 0.975 it's running under 75C.

 

That's some impressive feedback man

Are you sure you have Dell cards? I don't think anybody else has auto fans on Dell cards on our machines. Did you take a pic of the card before installation? If it is that's awesome news!

 

Yea, they're dells :thumbsup: Blue PCB's, when trying to flash Clevo vBios i got SSID mismatch, not to mention that Riri-Fifi listed them as Dells, and I'm pretty sure he knew what he was saying.

I'll try to double-check, I could be talking bull, but I can't imagine the fan not working with the card staying at 70-75C stock and max 82C overclocked and overvolted under load.

 

Clevo's are also blue/green pcb, they aren't normal green pcb like out motherboards. Easy way to tell is check the screw holes on the card, Clevo's are brown and Dell's are white.

The SSID mismatch is normal when flashing between different brands of vBIOS. You need to force the flash for it to take. I'm not sure if there are any issues with flashing a Dell card with a Clevo vBIOS. I know Clevo cards work with Dell vBIOS's though.

Yeah those are some really good temps if the fan is stuck at low rpm. You haven't played with the fan control in HWinfo at all?

 

Playing around with HWinfo fan control seems like a hell of a headache, since forcing fan speed on anything will force the same across all fans. I've had no trouble flashing the card between Clevo/Dell and RJTech vbios.
Yea, that temp is pretty cool.

I'll check the screw holes, but they seemed pretty white to me. Even better, I'll check the fan and HDMI

 

the hdmi is very important for me because my rift will arrive soon and it needs hdmi to work

 

Rift? It's up for retail? I need one too.

 

the dev kit

 

oic Do get a nice review going when you have it, will you?

 

of course. i was supposed to get it last week but oculus has some issues with customs and they are delaying once again. I hope till the end of the month


PS. Find us a card!!!

 

Well, depends how big your budget is You can get one from china off ebay for around ~450$ now. By the way, I noticed you left lots of post on the sales thread in the For Sale area. I recommend PM'ing those sellers directly, since they may not check the threads very often but they'll receive email notification for the PM.

 

Well I had made a deal with one of them since last week but he vanished over the weekend . So I don't know whether to wait for his card or find another one.

I already pmed them.

My budget would like to stay on the 300 euros (400$) limit. Those eBay sellers are a bit over it and also I would have to wait for 30 days to receive something from china. I would prefer a seller in these forums as they are usually cheaper and many of them post from Europe. (I live in Europe)

 

Also I have a an m17x r2 and currently no graphic card in it i sold them over the wekend) so I would prefer to get a card from someone with an 17r2 as that would mean that the card was already flashed To the correct vbios and will plug and play.

 

Guys I am ready to order from eBay. The seller sent me this:

Hi, dear buyer: this card is dell card. Please make sure you are looking for Dell P/N # 747M2. I can only tell this is exactly Dell P/N # 747M2. You will need to confirmed is this what you need. Thank you.

I know that's the correct dell card for my r2 . But what I don't know is if it will work directly or will need a vbios flash

 

Well, Dell card workes stock vbios in my r2. Now, ask that chinaman what vbios the card uses. If it's the newest .021/.022 vbioses that work only on UEFI, don't buy it. If it ends in 17, it's perfect.

 

Can't the uefi card be flashed with the 17 bios?

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that NO, it can't, otherwise I don't think pau1ow would have been trying to sell them to UEFI machine owners only. You should pm him and ask about that.

 

@sangemaru did you manage to check out the fans and hdmi?