M17x R3 6970M Overclock

How do you overclock a 6970M on the M17x R3 while on battery?

I have been trying various software and methods I can find, but nothing is working.

Main reason, it down clocks from 680MHz when plugged in way down to 400MHz on battery.

Would be nice to get a little extra from the memory as well.

 

Doesn't CCC have a built-in overclock function called Overdrive or something? Or did they remove that function?

I used a desktop HD4870 before, and the overclocking was pretty simple.

 

Use trixx. That's what works from what I've seen. I track the benchmark score in the m17x benchmark thread. Also if you change you power setting to high performance on battery it shouldn't downclock.

 

The Overdrive option in CCC doesn't work on this card, as DR650 said use Saphire Trixx it for some reason is about the only one able to overclock it. Here's a link to it:

Sapphire Technology - TriXX Tweak Utility

Download the most recent version which is V 4.0

 

Overclock that card? Its already FAST!

 

Yeah overclocking is really only good for Crysis or Metro 2033 on max or for benchmarking with this card unless you want ridiculously high frame rates.

 

Guys I will kneel before someone if they post a quick how to, on getting the most out of the performance of the 6970 on the m17xr3 (and everything else for that matter) like a safe stable oveclock for crysis and metro, and full and best settings in bios. Basically a "for dummies' thread. this would build so much traffic for these boards it not even funny.

 

Another thing you can do is flash your bios to higher clocks that way you don't have to run the oc program everytime you restart your lappy.750/1000 is a good and stable clock to start with.

There is really nothing you can do about the performance on battery.

Here is a link for 6970 oc guide
http://www.techinferno.com/miscellaneous-tutorials/#how-to-overclock-amd-6970m-graphics-card

 

Will overclocking void the warranty? If I overclock can I easily switch back undetected to normal values to avoid warranty problems?

 

software over clocks will not void the warranty. it will go back to normal clocks once you reset it or restart your computer.

 

Well, arguably, but using TriXX, the card will be reset to stock settings in the event of a crash, shutdown or reboot, so there is no way to determine whether it was o/c'ed at the time any difficulties might arise.

 

*sigh* some people will never understand the need to push your hardware as far as possible.

 

Thanks! I might try OCing when I get my R3.

 

OC'ing the card can technically void the warranty, as you are pushing the card beyond factory standards. But honestly, I don't think they will be able to prove your overclocked the card. And if they actually wanted to find out, it would be too much of a hassle IMO.

 

I don't want to settle for any less. This thing does not move past 400MHz on battery

And if I was able to clock it to 680MHz, this would not be an overclock, 680MHz is just stock core clock GPU speeds.

Dell has killed the 6970M performance on battery by a good 41%

960 Streams @ 400MHz = 480 Streams @ 800MHz

32 ROPS @ 400MHz = 16 ROPS @ 800MHz

If you put it this way (using the mid range 6600M/6700M series), a 6770M if slightly overclocked from stock 725MHz to 800MHz will = 6970M @ 400 MHz as far as the GPU core is concerned.

The only BIG difference is the 6970M memory bus is twice that of the 6770M, so yeah big difference here and not really a fair comparision taking this part into account.

My point is I want the full stock GPU core speed of the card @ 680MHz when on battery for the $$$$ paid. I don't care if the battery goes flat by another 5 or 10 mintues faster. When at 400MHz you are running at ~59% of the stock speed of 680MHz.

The 6970M is not that fast on battery, the minimum frames drop in areas making playing some games painful. Even with good old UT3 on max detail have troubles in some areas. Crysis 2 slows down badly everywhere, any boost here will help.

I tried Trixx but gave up. Only due to it needing a bunch of software hacks, that is required of the drivers, followed by a uninstall and then a reinstall of the tweaked drivers, and a regedit adjustments for it to even work.

It appears the 6970M is locked down way to hard, which is sad in such a expensive and beefy laptop. I only could hope there was a simple way to clock it to stock on battery with just a plain an simple software tool (without hacks), as I mainly use this laptop in the living room at night for an hour a day and game (I might move around while on battery, change seats, grab a drink, move to the dinning room), and not so much desktop replacement.

 

I believe this issue was already discussed. the ATI HD6970 draws too much power for the battery to supply and therefore it HAS to downclock on battery to avoid a meltdown.

 

Can you please provide the link to the discussion.

If that is the case, then how do the other machines with dual cards in crossfire get on with their battery without a melt down? I am sure that the current draw would be much higher?

In any case, it would great to aleast be able to overclock the video cards memory while on battery. The memory will draw very little current when overclocked. Is there any way this can be done?

Not being able to overclock on battery sucks big time. If the current draw is to much on battery is to much for GPU, then the least I wish I could do, is take the memory from 900MHz to 1200MHz.


This how it benched with Unigine when plugged in, with an overclock of 850MHz GPU and 1200MHz Memory:

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[h1]Powered by [URL=http://unigine.com/products/unigine/]Unigine Engine[/URL][/h1]
[h2]Heaven Benchmark v2.5 Basic[/h2]
[TABLE=class='result']
[TR][TD=class='right']FPS:[/TD][TD][div=class='orange'][B]32.1[/B][/div][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD=class='right']Scores:[/TD][TD][div=class='orange'][B]809[/B][/div][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD=class='right']Min FPS:[/TD][TD][div=class='orange'][B]7.7[/B][/div][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD=class='right']Max FPS:[/TD][TD][div=class='orange'][B]69.6[/B][/div][/TD][/TR]
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[h2]Hardware[/h2]
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[TR][TD=class='right']Binary:[/TD][TD][div=class='red']Windows 32bit Visual C++ 1600 Release Mar  1 2011[/div][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD=class='right']Operating system:[/TD][TD][div=class='red']Windows 7 (build 7601, Service Pack 1) 64bit[/div][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD=class='right']CPU model:[/TD][TD][div=class='red']Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2820QM CPU @ 2.30GHz[/div][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD=class='right']CPU flags:[/TD][TD][div=class='red']2302MHz MMX SSE SSE2 SSE3 SSSE3 SSE41 SSE42 HTT[/div][/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD=class='right']GPU model:[/TD][TD][div=class='red']AMD Radeon HD 6970M    8.800.6.0 2048Mb[/div][/TD][/TR]
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Umm, I am pretty sure it only downclocks when not in a game or on battery. I don't have it yet, but I think it switches to IGP on battery and maybe downclocks when not under heavy load. My 4870 on my desktop does the same thing. It downclocks from 780mhz to 500 when it is not under load, usually when it isnt in a game.

 

From my understanding put to me by someone else, this machine should never be run on the battery!

The R3 with this card draw some much current (even with the lower than plugged in video clock speeds) that the battery gets extreme hot, therefore will kill the battery in no time.

I have never in my life, seen a laptop battery get so damm hot!

With saying the above, people are still going to game on battery. There should be no reason why the video card memory could not be overclocked, as the current draw from video memory very small even if overclocked. The only reason we can't overclock the 6970M is that Dell has locked us out at the vBIOS level.

 

This thread is useful, cuz when I'm working offsite, during downtime I like to play Dolphin while on battery. Games don't run as well when on battery, so I'm wondering if OCing (aka putting it back to 680/900 versus 400/900) will help? Not related, but has it been confirmed that the CPU downclocks/downvolts/throttles while we're on battery?

 

The build in overdrive function from CCC work really well. I use that to overclocked my card to 750/950 and it running great. Once you set your clock just exit the program and that it. The program will remember your overclocked setting even if you restart. You don't have to go in and set it every time.

 

Whoa you got overdrive in CCC to work for you? Hmmmmm interesting.

I'm currently using Trixx to handle things but I don't dig the interface at all.

 

How do you do that in CCC, I can't find any overdrive function.

 

I tried overclocking to 850/1200 while playing bad company 2, it crashed after like 10mins. Should I not OC that much anymore? What are the highest clocks I should be able to achieve?

 

ddtran has a non dell card, prolly that card has over drive enabled in the vbios.

 

Oh well that makes sense. thanks

 

Yeah just noticed its an m15x in yellow with a 6970m. Very unique and cool machine.

 

So we can only overclock your processor in the bios right? does it work for all the processors?

did u try changing the gpu performance in the CCC on powerplay, you think that has something to do with underclocking your gpu?

 

I couldn't get stability past 825. I've been using the computer for about a month at 800/1000. Temps are pretty safe all 3 sensors registering no more than 80C.

 

Nope. Still have to switch it manually.

 

Thanks, I guess I'll try those clocks and see how it goes.

 

I've been running witcher 2 overclocked at 825/1000. Not sure if that's a bad idea to keep it at. Any advice?

 

Your core clock is being pushed pretty hard for a 24/7 type-deal but if your temps are fine and everything looks normal then cool beans. 1000 for memory clock is well in the "stable-range".

 

Well I don't keep it that high all the time. Only while playing Witcher 2. I reset it to stock playing everything else.
If I lower the clock speed to say 800 and raise memory clock to 1150, will that balance out? Im guessing the core clock gets you the most gains, not sure though.

 

Yeah from what I've seen so far, the core clock is what is most noticeable but then again every card is different and behaves differently under certain circumstances. 800/1150 might be a little easier on your card. But like I say, if the temps are not sky-rocketing and you don't notice any strange dots or flashes then it's not going to harm anything. I am not really a GPU expert or anything but I've done some pretty intense benchmarking for a couple weeks now and my understanding of OCing the 6970 and 2820(what little can be done) has grown quite a lot. So far my highest clocks with stock cooling, AC and drivers (minus m18x 6970m driver) is 890/1240 while running 3DMarkVantage successfully. Which I've been told is pretty impressive by much more "tech-educated" people like inap and scook etc.

If I was going to play certain games with my GPU OCed, I'd probably start with 750/1000 - 800/1150 and see how that worked.

 

800/1050 should be good balance. i have mine flashed at 750/1000 for months now and have been great for temps/performance.

 

Yea my temps have been anywhere from 60C-80C so not bad. I've only overclocked with Witcher 2 because that game is extremely demanding. Game is awesone though.

 

There's a patch out for it that really helps the performance of the game. Seems like the devs saw many places where they could really tighten things up.

 

Ok, so today I downloaded trixx and fraps for the first time and I've been kind of messing around with overclocking. So far, I've seen no increase in framerate while playing crysis overclocking to 770/1000 or 800/1000. Fraps indicates a steady 20 fps most of the time. Am I doing something wrong? I have an alienware m17x r3 with 2820 and 6970...

 

There should be a marked increase. Use GPU-Z to make a log of your clock speeds and temperatures while you go through a short playtest; you want to know if your card is throttling back because of heat.

 

Ok, thanks for the reply. I have a cooling pad and GPU-Z gave me good readings right after playing, but I haven't done a log yet. Let me see if I can figure that out. What else could be causing this?

 

And I'll remind you that I may be doing something really stupid. I've never done anything this techy before haha

 

Rob, what are your settings for Crysis?

I run Crysis at 1080p on High settings, AA on 2x and vsync on and get 25-40FPS. Average 30FPS+. No over clocking!

 

Yeah, I thought 20 fps seemed a little low. I just finished up playing through the whole game again on the machine not too long ago playing almost the entire way through on "very high" setting with AA off and v sync on at native res. Really the only time it got borderline unplayable was at the very end on the aircraft carrier. Is 20 fps a playable frame rate? I'll check it out on High and see what kind of fps I get. I was just surprised that I saw no increase when I overclocked it.

 

No 20 FPS is not a good framerate. You want to be atleast 30FPS and sometimes that isnt good enough because of the refresh rate. Games vary on the matter of refreshrate. Crysis you can play at 20FPS and not notice much differenence but try to keep it above 30 FPS atleast. Thats what most Xbox360 and PS3 games run at. Ideal Framerate is 60FPS. Like I said before though, it depends on the game you play. You can tell when the framerate is too low when it stutters or seems unsmooth. FRAPS will help you out with FPS.

If you have questions about what gaems to play what settings, you can ask me. I've been playing ALOT of games so I have alot setup and try to get atleast 30FPS but closer to 60 FPS.

With computers and games you have to sometimes sacrifice graphics for gameplay. Sometiems 1080p is to high of resolution so you have to go to 900p or 720p. Its all up to how you like to play.

 

I've got it maxed everything except that I turned AA off. Seems to run fine in singleplayer mode. Very enjoyable still.

 

Cool man, thanks for your input. Ok, Update. I tried it again not long ago on very high settings and got 30-35 fps overclocking to 800/1000. I know this has been asked before, but what risk am I running doing this? Should I just sacrifice graphics or resolution like you said to get good fps.

 

800/1000 should be just fine. Monitor your temps and just make sure they stay in a healthy range. Any higher than 85+ you might want to consider re-pasting/lowering the core clock just a bit.

 

Yea just watch your temps like Basilownzyou said. I only overclock with Witcher 2 at 825/1115 and temps are 65-75. havent repasted the GPU yet. Only the processor.

Dookie, you run FRAPS with your settings to see what you get?

Crysis is one of those games that you can have low FPS and not really notice if you arent use to it. Once you play at 35-45+fps you will see a difference in gameplay.

Rob, if I were you I would go back to stock clocking and run the settings I was telling you. Honestly you wont see a big difference in graphics. Its only when you change the res or big settings like AA, vsync, AF, that you see a difference. AA cuts FPS down a good amount but I find it to look so much better. I cant stand the jagged textures. AA gets rid of it.

Well thats my input. I'm learning mroe every week myself on all this.

BTW...if anyone plays Witcher 2, that game is HARD on easy setting haha. I just got my butt handed to me for the last 20 mins.

 

Alright, It just went back down to 20 fps the last time I tried it...same overclocked settings as before. Weird. It went up to 30-35 for one test run, that's it. I used the GPU-Z log and it looks like my temps were good and it was running at 800/1000...but only 20 fps this time around. Witcher 2 looks awesome. Probably going to grab a copy as soon as I finish my classes this quarter.