M17x R2 7970m CrossfireX Ultimate Installation and Tweaking Guide

Ok i am officially Jelly.

I will buy them again and see.

Thing to mention that i was testing my Liquid metal Pads in MSI GX 740, where heatsink is no way comparable to R2 one. MSI GX 740 heatsink was barely holding up NON overclocked 920XM...

 

To be fair, I was using 140bclk, +75mV and 27/26/25/24 multi, with 110W TDP / 100A TDC.
I do get around 8000 physics score, so it sounds about right. I would have the same temps with those multis and settings you mentioned.

Try touching a 60C car left out in the sun

Dunno, we're still missing 2 people for the count of 10, and nobody extra volunteered. And the metalpads were so cheap. Still, I'd join in on the heatspring purchase wagon if only to have them for use when I need them. 37W/mk on metalpad is good but 87W/mk on HS is better

I mean, MetalPad's saved my laptop nothing else could keep it cooled down.

To be fair, I was using 140bclk, +75mV and 27/26/25/24 multi, with 110W TDP / 100A TDC.
I do get around 8000 physics score, so it sounds about right. I would have the same temps with those multis and settings you mentioned.

Try touching a 60C car left out in the sun

Dunno, we're still missing 2 people for the count of 10, and nobody extra volunteered. And the metalpads were so cheap. Still, I'd join in on the heatspring purchase wagon if only to have them for use when I need them. 37W/mk on metalpad is good but 87W/mk on HS is better

I mean, MetalPad's saved my laptop nothing else could keep it cooled down.
yea, it should perform much better now. Consider the difference between MetalPad and my previous best paste, the PK-1. That one could handle 25/25/25/25 @ 100W TDP at stock voltage and bclk. Simply raise the voltage and temps would skyrocket to 90+.
What I'm running now is... obscene

If I could disable hyperthreading on this machine, I would just to see the extra headroom.

 

EDIT: Whoopsie double-post.

 

Please tell me how much I would have to pay in total If i would volunteer. So total o 3 lots for me.

Who is getting main delivery, could it be me or who ?

Let's push it I'm done waiting...

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Well, with the pads at 50 1-inch pieces @ ~300$, 3 lots = 15 pieces at ~90$. You yourself wouldn't care about shipping if you handled pickup, cutting and re-sending.

6$/piece of extremely high quality tim is a premium i consider quite nice. Thing is, I'd really prefer it if we could handle the purchase after december. Tight funds, people on vacations, etc. (a.k.a. broke ).

 

And I'm on the other hand bored, and I have the money atm, I would like to go ahead ASAP

 

I'll see what I can do and get back to you. Fund-wise, the 20th is when I'll be getting the salary.

 

I can easily take two items if needed to get going flingin.

 

I'm done waiting,

I just called Indium In UK and asked about price. They will call me back soon, also they can do it VAT free for me

And i also asked for smaller quantity of 20PCS if possible. If not i will have to agree for a smallest quantity possible.

I'll keep you updated !

 

I'm curious what they'll respond. If they can offer you something other than the test kits posted on solder.com, that would be interesting, but for me they did so at really outrageous prices.
Let us know bro

 

Sorry guys, but I'm going to back out of the heat spring purchase. My cpu just died and I currently don't have enough money to replace it. I am really impressed with the temps that you guys are getting. Anyone tried running all 4 cores on 4ghz yet?

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+150mV is not enough for me to stably run even single-core 4GHz. Like I said, 3.94GHz is max But it's not enough for more than one core, bluescreens if I try two cores (I need 3.75-3.8GHz for 2 cores). Makes sense though, 1.15V isn't exactly a lot of voltage for nehalem at these clocks, you know.

 

On my 940 XM ive done 4 gigs on all cores, but never for an entire 3DMark bench. only the 32 M TS bench in T-stop. Done in 11.8 sec.
Its also very close between good and bluescreen, and it really needs 150mV in BIOS like for Sangemaru.

If pads are very good, I miiiight be able to but not sure i will push my backup CPU harder. (But knowing myself i know i might do it still)

During one of the tests, showing 30X all cores 4050mHz.



After test:


The fastest my CPU has run during entire 3DMark is the one giving me the firestrike score in my signature for the 940XM.
All cores apx 3930.

 

That's a truly beautiful chip you got there. I'm not sure if pads like this will show any kind of improvement for anyone else. Keep in mind Trome, you're still running much cooler temps then I am. It's just that my CPU is truly usable now as opposed to using paste, which was just a disaster all-around for me.

 

Remember, the 940 XM is the one great on firestorm and TS testing, crappy on 3DMark11.

It also has the memory "issues" not showing the second memory bank in BIOS or control panel.

My 920 works overal better.

Trying to do this high speed in 3DMark hits the temp limits like a rocket and it shuts down my computer in the end.
Its way more than 12 sec of full speed as the TS test does. Pads could perhaps help that.

My 920XM is perhaps as fast on theese two tests, (see physics score in firestorm) but dont want to test it as hard as i did the other, and temps go higher faster.

I now have a system that will get to about 90 during game for less than1 hour if increasing power to apx 100W. This is a good reason for trying the heatspring

 

update on Heatsprings.

$295 for 50x 1x1 inch Heatsprings + $49.95 for delivery - ?

So almost $350 in total

Converting to punds, 212GBP, so 4.24GBP per 1 Heatspring OR $7

...MEH..$50 for delivery.....

OK, let's pull the trigger, Throme can get 2 lots, so i will get 2 as well, and this should fill 2 empty spaces.

I need $35 from everyone and $70 from Throme, i will pay $70 for 2 lots for myself.

Unles somebody have something against, i will place the order after recieving The funds.

I think i should create a separate thread, Heatspring subject here is far away from Topic....

 

Don't forget about me I want me some Heatspring too

Incidently I repasted my XM yesterday with the little bit of Shin Etsu X23D I had left. Now my XM is is running constantly at 90/82 TDP/TDC Max temps recorded when playing Farcry3/TR and running Firestrike/3Dmark11 is 82C with 24X across all cores. I'm really happy with the result. I also cleaned the fans and pretty much everything in there. Also did Ashtefere's ducting mod on the GPU's which was a biatch... I couldn't install the cards with the fan attached so I had to stick the tape to the fan then wiggle it between the card and the heatsink while lowering the card into the slot. Max recorded temps for GPU's are 70C now.

I don't know if you guys are aware of this but our machines come with two different brands of fans, Delta and AVC. You could have any of them but.... the Delta's push out slightly higher CFM than the AVC's. Every bit helps

CPU
Delta 13.003 CFM
AVC 11.2 CFM

GPU's
Delta 10.053 CFM
AVC 8.418 CFM

The part numbers from Dell are exactly the same so you have to make sure that the fans are the correct brand.

 

Good to know about the fans, will have a look when i open again.
I did something simular to my GPU's and CPU's for a while.
It was in when i got problem with my GPU's and had quite a PITA swapping over and over again. So not sure its there still actually.
CPU is easy to do after mounting.

I need to check how my CPU runs at 24. Have done 25 running normally for a while now.


@flingin
Make a new thread Flingin and we hope we fill it up quickly.
We also need to make sure you dont get stuck with expences shipping it out again to us.

 

An easy way to tell the difference is that the AVC fans have maroon/white stickers with a blue AVC logo and the Delta's have white stickers with black text.

Delta CPU fan
AVC CPU fan

 

And put the thread in your signature. And a product reference page in the thread if possible.

Go flingin!

 

PM me if you want to Sign UP if you are not on the list !

Link in My Sig !

 

Great flingin.

Nospheratu?

You did bench with your system at 1000 / 1400 and 90TDP and measured 347 W at the wall?

Anyone seen more?

Need to get a meter and check mine to.

 

hey guys so i got my replacement card from eurocom in today. Tried plugging it in and now i get a BSOD with a atikmdag.sys error after the windows load screen in cf. switched it over to the master slot and same error. tried the newest catalyst drivers beta and normal. thought it might be a power issue so flashed with a 0.95v put no luck. Any ideas?

 

Yeah that's the max draw I've seen. But I never run my cards at those clocks daily as I'm not happy with the temps.

What vBIOS are you running on the new card?

Boot into safe mode and remove all AMD drivers. Use ATIman if you have to. Try the 13.10 Cats to see if that stops the BSOD.

I dont think its power related though. Also very important, don't screw the heatsink down fully before running any 3D application. Just screw until the metal arms bow slightly downward. That's more than enough pressure and you will still get great temps.

 

Hey Nospheratu, Im using your vbios pack. I cant seem to find a download for the 13.10 cats. just 13.0 and the 13.11 beta. any ideas where to look

 

Damn... how could they have disappeared from the interwebz

Safest version I could find was LeeKM's enduro fix version. It shouldn't affect you as I'm assuming the Enduro fix would be applied to the Enduro portion of the driver which you don't use.

Did you check what hardware revision of card you have on the sticker on the back? After the ATIman uninstall did you try the latest driver? It's weird that you're experiencing this issue with CLEVO cards. Other users that experienced it were running Dells.

Also flash back to the stock vBIOS, most cards can't run 0.950V at stock clocks in 3D.

edit: Found a proper link to the drivers from techpowerup.

 

Which numbers are the hardware numbers?

 

It should say something like "AMD Wimbledon v1.2 2G" See the image below

 

mine says amd wimbledon v1.1 2g

 

nitsun69, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but that is one of the very early revisions of the CLEVO 7970M and is known to have issues on our R2's. It cannot be used with the vBIOS revision my mod is based on and that is most likely the reason you're experiencing the BSOD's. I surprised they still had stock of that card, I honestly was expecting a newer revision.

The good news is it should work perfectly well with a Dell vBIOS as your secondary card. Your primary card (v1.2 2G) should be used with my vBIOS as that will ensure your screen does not get damaged.

If you want to have OverDrive enabled on the Dell vBIOS as well, see sangemaru's first post of this thread as he has a link to the Dell vBIOS with OverDrive enabled.

If you find all these workarounds to be unacceptable you can always go back to Eurocom and tell them you want a v1.2 2G card as the revision you received is incompatible.

 

Wow, now i need to check the revision version on my card. Great info!

 

tron2^ has more info on the v1.1 card as he has one of them. Hopefully he stops by and gives us an update.

 

Figured something like that must be going on. Tired bother the OD vbois without luck. Ill try a bit more this weekend then I think ill be giving eurocom a call. Just to confirm you can run clevo cards with dell vbios?

 

Yeah you can run them with Dell vBIOS's but keep that card in the secondary slot so it doesn't affect your RGB screen.

Try one of the vBIOS's from svl7's Dell mod pack or better yet, PM tron2^ and ask for help with the v1.1 2G card. Here's his post mentioning his v1.1 2G card.

 

Hello people!
There are any thoughts how to get rid of stutter in Crysis 3? On the maximum settings and on high also stutter, without smoothing only FXAA. I was already tortured to look for the reason.
If flash vbios clevo then not stutters, but productivity becomes worse also than temps 3-4 degrees higher.
To any dell vbios there are stutters, 017,021,022.
There is one more problem. If I change permission in game or I need to quit on a desktop (Alt +Enter or Ctrl+Alt+Del) or to add-remove smoothing, I very often receive the blue screen. I remember at some users it too occurred how to solve it?
I thank for the help.

 

This is same ive seen and using Clevo as a reason for it.

Go clevo and reduce clocks if its a problem for you with temps. Reduce voltage too.

No use having lower temps if it doesnt rock.

 

Yes Clevo solves a problem, but there is then a smoothness worse in games (temps not a problem), and it at all isn't pleasant to me.
Far Cry 3 and Crysis 3 with clevo plays worse, these games work with dell vbios more smoothly.
There can be a problem in the crossfire cable?

 

Have not seen any smoothness issues on my Clevo Cards.
BF 4 Was stuttering a bit on the beginning but after i installed DX libraries from the game Dir everything is smooth like butter.

Also temps are low, unless i overclock the hell out of it, for example there is no way my cards would exceed 75'C even overclocked to 900/1300, only overclocking them to 1000+/1400+ and overvolting resulted in temps reaching....83'C

This did not stopped me to do some heat sink Modding, which i completed for the Primary card !
Now i just have to get some free time to test it !

YOLOLOLO

 

Gonna be nice to read about the results of your mod

 

Trome71
You see a difference in games between vbios clevo and dell?

 

Not really sure. Only been gaming BF4 and must say, i dont get 60 FPS on extreeme settings all the time, getting reduced speed to the 30's at time.
Could also be CPU reducing the speed at times since BF4 is also quite CPU heavy and i dont OC my CPU.
During benching all the dells gave me lots of stuttering and reduced result speed.

 

Never used dell vbios. Never !

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OC your CPU Come one mate, we're running crazy clocks here.

 

I am among the ones currently able to push my CPU(s) the furthest atm but taking it easy due to heat when gaming for hours. Not many can do above 4 kHz on all clocks for TS bench. You can also just check my bench results in my signature. My physics scores pretty much rock

But heat is also an issue over time (on CPU and perhaps also on my PSU and not on my GPU's btw), and I am waiting now on the heatspring to see if it betters for the CPU. I have other plans for the PSU. We'll see how my plans work out. Ill tell you what if it works, need to do some testing.

And the drops are quickly over and most of the time i run game right around the 60, avg apx 59, so i really dont need it.

 

Yup not many ....

i think it may bottlenecy cf 7970m..... a bit....

 

truedat, my above 4k cant be used for much more than just checking if its possible CPU wise And my point was, its not that i havent OC'ed my CPU's

But our CPU is still the weakest link in BF4 i guess. Seeing that peeps with WAY lower GPU power than us able to run with even less drops. (i think, but remains to see if they are really really honest )

And i also think that im quite close to my PSU limits too, but working on it.

 

i was refreing to

 

LOL.
Im tired.

Think my GPU's cave quite a tad before. (i cant even run 1 like you can )
It was ment to be cores

Charging to bed

 

Can someone who has Far Cry 3 test the below for me please?

According to GPU-Z my GPU load average is +- 28% on each card in CrossFire... which is absolutely pathetic. I'm able to maintain my 50FPS cap with RadeonPro most of the time with drops to 30FPS in certain areas. This is with graphics detail set to the maximum except for PostFX which I dropped to Low and Shadows dropped to High.

Disabling CrossFire with the same settings nets me +-64% GPU load on the one card and the FPS is the same ie. mostly at 50FPS but FPS drops are less to around +-40FPS. Basically it seems to be negative CrossFire scaling. I've tested both scenario's by driving from one point in the map to another. Driving causes causes the worst FPS drops for me.

From what I've found on the web most reviewers/users say that CrossFire scaling is good with this game but I'm just not seeing it. It's not that it's unplayable, far from it. I'm just concerned that something is not quite right and my gaming experience could be better with far less drops. The CPU is running at 24x across all cores with 90TDP for both scenario's.

 

Nospheratu,
Far Cry 3 plays for me 58%-64% of crossfirex each card GPU-Z, fps min. 43 average 55. In total max. except water (highly), without smoothing, HBAO on, the buffer of a frame 2.
Cards not overclocking, cpu 920 24x all cores, 3% of blk, 90 TDP 90TDC.
It seems earlier I saw to 74% GPUs loading in Far Cry 3!