I want to upgrade to 7970m's...

I was wondering what is the avg cost for this upgrade. I will be doing the installation myself. I have been looking through posts and could not find where people are purchasing these cards and I really didn't feel like scanning through 160 some pages of posts on the upgrade video thread to find them lol. Please excuse my laziness.

I have a M18x R1 I'm pretty sure the specs are in my sig. If you need further information just ask.


Thanks,
Wash

 

Depends on where you are as to how much they will cost....

 

Hi Washable,

Send us an e-mail to [email protected] with your service tag and your details (name, number, best time to reach you) mention my name in it and I'll help you out with that.

Thank you.

 

Hi Natalia, Welcome to NBR - great to have yet another company rep on board!!

Tell me, are you able to quote for upgrades for Non-US/Canada owners? - I'm in the UK but would be keen to know if this is at all possible.

 

If you talk or chat with a rep via phone/email be sure to be adamant about purchasing the 7970's. They will discourage you from doing so. I ended up with the 6990's because they wouldn't certify or warranty the 7970's in the m18xR1. Just a heads up. I wish I would of bought them anyway I feel like I got ripped off.

 

Hi Steviejones,

Thank you for the warm welcome, I'm very excited to be in NBR.

About your question, we can only quote for upgrades in the US/Canada. You can direct your question to our international support site or you can visit Dell's UK website.

Thank you.

 

Hi Natalia!

FYI - Your youtube link is dead.

 

There is a space in front of the link

http//www.youtube.com/user/Alienwareservices/featured

 

Woops :S

I think I fixed it, thanks for the heads up lqm.

 

Yes jlyons264, it was an extra quote mark in the html code.

+1 Rep

 

Natalia - welcome to NBR. So glad you're here with us. +1 Rep.

Is there any word on when we will be seeing a decent driver for 7970M CrossFire? There really is no driver that works properly. I have been in contact with AMD and they can offer no ETA on when a driver that properly supports 7970M CrossFire will be available. According to AMD, the 7970M GPU chipset has some differences from the older GPUs and they acknowledge that none of the current driver offerings offer proper support for their 7970M flagship product. (I would post the email I received from AMD, but it is against forum rules to do so.)

Did you notice this thread? http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...our-official-amd-7970m-crossfire-drivers.html

As it stands currently, the only driver with partial functionality is 12.5 beta. All other drivers I had tried to use either have to be modded or they are already modded, and they cause black screens, system freezes and BSOD. This detracts from the user experience, even though the 7970M GPUs are very powerful.

The AMD 7970M driver posted by Dell ( Gfx_AMD_A00_8.934.2.1_JH9P7_setup_ZPE) will not install in the M18x R1 equipped with 7970M CrossFire because the hardware device ID is different than when the same GPU is installed in the M18x R2. When the INF file is modded (device ID information is added) to allow installation, the end result is the system is not stable. The same driver does not offer proper functionality on the M18x R2 and the 12.5 beta works better than the Dell recommended driver in the case of the M18x R2 as well.

 

Hi Mr. Fox,

Thank you. I'm very excited to be here, I'm having a lot of fun and also learning a lot...I love NBR

We are working on that driver, L_Porras is taking care of this, he will PM you shortly with an update.

 

Hi All,

For all the people interested in upgrading to the Nvidia 680m, we still don't have the part for upgrades available nor an ETA. Right now their only available with new systems. Feel free to PM me and I'll put you on a list, and as soon as we have it available I'll PM you with the update as well as post here.

 

Natalia,

Can you tell us if these (680m's) will also be available as an upgrade path for the M18x R1?

 

We are not sure about that yet. We'll post as soon as we get that information.

 

I saw the news said the 680m is out now. Do you have any upgrade info for 18xR1 ?

 

I think Natalia just answered that one....

 

The 7970M is an extremely powerful but incomplete product. I'd recommend that you hang on to your money and wait to see if AMD ever decides to release a good driver. The 7970M is an unstable product right now. That might easily change with proper driver support, but buying it before we know for sure that AMD will actually get its act together is a pretty big risk to take.

 

I had some figures from my rep to perform a DIY upgrade to 7970m on my m18x r1. Altogether, with x2 gpu's, left/right heatsinks and Crossfire cable , it rolled in at a bit over £900gbp. IIRC, Brother Matrix' 6990m Crossfire upgrade was something like $1200.

The option to go 680m will probably not be available for some time to come as the priority for these cards will be for new systems only, I imagine. When they eventually do roll out for upgrade (assuming Dell permit us to retro-fit them to an R1) I reckon the cost will be considerbaly more than the AMD 7970m option.....maybe closer to $2000.

 

Thanks for the advise. I think that I will just hang on to my 6970s. 1200 is way too much to blow on a 30fps upgrade considering I could get about a 50+ fps upgrade if I just updated my desktop with the 1200 lol.

 

AMD released the 12.7 Beta driver for Desktops yesterday for the 7970 and users have been testing it with the M18X R1 and R2 and it seems to be working fine , specially with crossfire configurations.

Here's the link:

AMD Catalystâ„¢ Display Driver for Windows Vista/Windows 7 64-bit

You need download the AMD CAP 12.7 as well.

Thank you.