Upgrading from 6990M CF to 8970M CF on M18x R1

So I am thinking about doing this and Mr. Fox said it should be possible. I have dual 6990M in there now on my M18x R1. Could I use the current heat pipes, etc. and just replace the paste? Or will I need to order a kit. I am finding the only place to buy the 8970M GPUs is Ebay. Is there a better place to get these? Last question is could there be any compatibility issues with the M18x R1 mobo? Thanks for any help.

 

Nobody will know for sure until you try this, but there is no reason I can identify that it should not work. If my understanding is correct, 8970M is a rebranded 7970M just like 580M/675M. There should not be any compatibility problem since 7970M CF upgrades in the R1 worked exactly the same as 7970M CF in the R2. You will probably end up needing to mod the driver INF to get it installed, but that is not difficult to do.

Other than eBay, Eurocom (which is seller "upgradeyourlaptop" on eBay), JR Tech, MXM Upgrades are also vendors that sell them.

I am hoping that AMD did something to make the 8970M more reliable than 7970M CF. If you choose to go through with it in spite of all the problems we have seen with 7970M CF then you're a brave soul and we will be watching with enthusiasm to see how it turns out. I know I will be wishing you the best of success on this. If it holds up as long as your 6990M CF setup has, then I suspect you will be a happy camper.

 

As much as we would all like to watch other people sacrificing themselves as guinea pigs, I would remind the OP that there is absolutely no reason to choose 8970M CF over 680M SLi unless the former is much less expensive (which is not the case at the moment).

 

What about my current heat pipes. Good enough you think? I usually use Arctic Silver compound unless you have a better suggestion. Thanks. I will be watching your teardown video Mr. Fox as I upgrade I assure you.

 

Well it looks I may be out of luck. I am looking at this particular package and it states very clearly the 8970M does not support Crossfire on Dell/Alienware laptops (look at description of item that is in red). I have asked the seller as to why and what testing and am waiting back for a response.

Alienware M17x M18x VGA Upgrade Kit AMD HD8970M 4GB DDR5 MXM 3 0B | eBay

 

This is the response I got from the seller.

Mr. Fox could you chime in with your thoughts?

 

Maybe someone with a Latitude E6450 or something that has the 8970M..? Not sure it's a popular model though, high-end business machine with gaming card..

 

My thoughts are it would be best to take their advice since it appears they have tried and it failed. Since Alienware does not offer this GPU there is no vBIOS that I am aware of that is available. I am glad you found that information and asked about it. It potentially saved you a lot of aggravation. I really thought this would have worked fine, but there has to be a good reason they provided that warning to buyers. Apparently it does with just one GPU, but there is not much point in settling for just one 8970M GPU when you have a system design for a dual-GPU configuration.

Maybe it would be best to take Brother sponge_gto's advice and go with GTX 680M SLI since that is already a proven success.

I removed the quote of the response you received from the seller since posting that is against forum rules. Please feel free to edit and summarize the response in your own words.

There is still no guarantee it would work in CrossFire. Unless they can test it and provide sample results first, and offer a refund if it doesn't work properly, it's probably not worth the risk.

 

Thanks guys. Does this seem a bit steep for the 680M kit? We're talking almost 1500 bucks for two. Ouch!

Alienware M17x M18x VGA Upgrade Kit NVIDIA GTX 680M 4GB DDR5 MXM 3 0B | eBay

 

Yeh for that kinda price range you should be looking at the 780Ms instead :thumbsup:

Cheers.

 

The 780Ms will work in a R1 in SLI? If so, any thermal concerns? Standard pipes that are already there on my 6990Ms? Thanks.

 

Yup the 780Ms will run fine in SLi in the R1. I am currently running them now in my R1 :thumbsup: I used to run 6990Ms in my R1 and then upgraded to dual 7970Ms and now the 780Ms. You will need the Nvidia GPU heatsinks and backplates as you can't and it is not recommended to use the AMD GPU heatsinks on Nvidia GPUs. Also no thermal concerns. Everything is running well. You will have to mod the INF file to install the latest GPU drivers though, however many peeps on this forum can help with that.

Cheers.

 

Mind me asking where you bought the heat pipes? I am going to see if Dell will sell me the parts on Monday. Thanks for the advice.

 

I bought mine off of Joker a forum member here in the NBR market place quite some time ago. I hadn't used the Nvidia GPU heatsinks for like close to 2 years lol. However I knew one day I would be testing some Nvidia GPUs so I bought them just in case haha :thumbsup:
Yeh Dell should be able to hook you up.

Cheers.

 

I have two and the fan, just send me a private message.

 

Question: Dell is asking if I want the 580M heatsink part or the 680M heatsink part. I don't think the 780M heatsink will work since that is for the new M18 Gen 3 chassis. Which did you uise?

 

WOW!!! Dell parts just quoted me $1300 per 780M GPU. Absolutely insane! That's double what I am finding elsewhere.

 

Wont allow me to send you a private message. Says something about you not accepting private messages.

 

Wont allow me to private msg you. Says something about you not accepting private messages.

 

Maybe Bumbo has his inbox full, some time ago I couldn't reply to his PM either.

 

The 680M heatsink part is the one you want. :thumbsup:

Cheers.

 

Thanks for all your help. Mr. Fox also got me straightened out. Without this forum I would not have even known the 780Ms worked in the R1. Thanks guys!

 

I reflash my 7970m at 8970m and all work great, but i think 8970m have compability qustion with m18x R2 laptop i guess, because if you use one reflash it 8970m it will work fine but in crossfire you will find problem with not working fan controll and card overheating, also cross fire botton in drivers not available ((((( So i return all back to 7970m, i not so sure about mauby its reflash it 7970m at 8970m cause such issues or any even original 8970m make that problem in m18x R2.

 

Hey guys, not to highjack here or necro an old thread. But I am just trying to get a system that I can game on with something other than the intel 3000 lol.

7970s are going decently cheap on ebay ... I was even just going to buy 1. I have the 6990 heat sinks and stuff already which I think are transferable and stuff ... Any reason I shouldn't do this ?

Thanks all ...

Hopefully next summer I can buy a whole new rig, but in the mean time I need to get something limping along, its been WAY too long since I have played real games.

 

I currently own the m18x r1 A05 Unlocked BIOS running 8970m and works just fine!

 

Do not upgrade to AMD cards. Never if you don't 100% know what are you doing.

Nearly all of us bought Nvidia cards after initially AMD ones. Please refer to this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-m18xr1-last-upgrade.787618/#post-10194836

 

GodLikeRU is correct you need to be 100% SURE and know what you're doing. I bought an AMD 8970m, yes I installed and clocked it from 900MHz to 1100 with my stock 240w power brick and I bought an Alienware's R2 Primary heatsink and IC diamond thermal paste and new Thermal pads. Installed it and didn't touch my Modified BIOS and Im Currently Running Win10 with the NEW Crimson Driver and I have to say I get A lot of Performance! I'll post my full Specs later. overclocked can be achieved in the Crimson Overdrive Centre from AMD. I used HWinfo64 to configure my fans. I'll explain in details how to achieve this. But for now I have to get back to work folks! I don't know how to make videos so I'll post screenshots instead.

 

I'd be interested in seeing your results. The highest 3DMark 11 scores from 8970M CrossFire scores are almost 5,000 3DMark point lower than my best 780M SLI scores. 8970M CF is in the 12K range versus 17K for 780M SLI.

 

I expect it to be slightly better than my 7970M, which I got about 13600 before I sold them, overclocked of course

 

Hey guys! Sorry I've been working overtime and covering my coworkers shifts. I'll postpone the benchmarks. I'm holding off until my new thermal pads arrive so I can apply to my graphics card so performance can be as accurate as possible. I'm also waiting on my WD BLUE WD10J31X-00U3VT0 1 TB 2.5 Internal Hybrid Hard Drive - 8 GB SSD Cache C.
I'll also post images where to apply thermal pads to the Graphics card. Thermal IS very important with the 8970m! For now I'll post these Images of the m18x r1 with the 8970m. I know this won't satisfied your hunger ladies and gentlemen.(Had to create a photobucket account)

 

Let me know what I missed out! I know I know I know you guys are desperate to see the benchmarks but I like I said I'm waiting on thermal pads and Hybrid Hard Drive. I am using Hyper X ram 8gb PnP. Its a clean install I'll post the HWinfo64.

 

Last image are my own personal settings!

 

I would really appreciate pointers how I should configure thee HWinfo64! I may have it all wrong (Possibly! LOL) Its a clean install! I backed up my data,music, etc. in an external so I'm good! Hope this helped! 8970m is working on the m18x R1 with A05 unlocked BIOS. I have the Unlocked BIOS for the m18x r1 which svl7 deserves the credit for unlocking the BIOS. Thermal is okay. ONLY issue I have is thermal. Thermal pads aren't making contact with the heatsink. I know for a fact its the ATI 100w heatsink so it should work on the 8970m unconditionally! I took the thermal pads out from a NVIDIA GTX460m I had initially installed and has been creating freezing issues. I know because I've installed old catalyst drivers and its the same issue. I have to crank up the fans at 6000rpms and it stops the hang when exiting a game or doing simple tasks like browsing the web. Its very noisy at 6000rpms. my PERSONAL settings should quiet the system while performing! NOT for everyone to try! So I'M NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGES TO YOUR SYSTEM! Hope this provided info about the 8970m working in the m18x r1 BUT THERMAL PADS (NEW are required) I'll take any advice how I should configure this 8970m! I'll be saving up for another 8970m so I can CROSSFIRE!

 

Hybrid drives are overpriced and mainly useless. Better buy HDD and SSD. Much better results.

 

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/10944912



I ran the free version. Sorry guys I don't have the pro version! I'm so lame I KNOW! Sorry If I disappointed you guys!

 

I know anyone could have gotten these scores or even better! I'm such a loser. Perhaps I'm using the 240w power supply and I haven't configured the BIOS properly. I'm such a NooB BooB!

12:52 am 2/17/2016 I been tinkering and figuring out why my score was low. My BIOS had set 44w for CPU and I changed it to 45w. Performance increased and score is now 3616

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/10945715

If anything I do need 330w supply and 3 pipe heatsink for CPU.

 

3616? It's very low score...

880M SLI scores near to 16000 on stock speeds...

 

I'm not running Crossfire. I wish I did I'm running a single 8970m. Tax money should cover me for a secondary 8970m.

 

Ya I got one for ya when you're ready

 

You're not a loser. Don't say that. Nobody is born with all knowledge and skill. It has to be acquired. We all start off as noobs. I bet there is something you are really good at that the rest of us know little or nothing about. The nice thing about ignorance is that it is easily corrected by learning. Stupid is incurable. You're definitely not stupid since you are able to work on your computer, replace GPUs, etc.

 

Yeah @Mr. Fox is right but you now see how AMD is weak compared to Nv counterparts. I bought 880M New SLI for about 600$ but that was one-time deal as no-one wanted to buy these cards in Poland (No Alienwares, poor country) and seller had to lower the price. How much you paid for 8970M?

 

So true Mr Fox.. It is something you learn with experience...

OP, the problem is with your driver... It's either throttling your card or the bench is running on the Intel GPU... make sure your in dedicated only before running bench and use HWinfo64 to monitor GPU Speed and temps in bench and let us know the max/min temps..

 

Mr.Fox I thank you bring out the best in me and correcting me. I watch others and read forums on how to do things. If anything I should be thanking everyone who made it possible for me to be able to absorb their fruitful knowledge. Thank you Mr.Fox!

GodlikeRU I paid $200 for my 8970m on ebay with free shipping! Not sure if it was cheap. I don't know much about graphic cards in pricing.

Raidriar! Thank you! I'll let you know when I'm ready! Should be soon I HOPE!

 

Not a bad deal for that price. Failure rate of 8970M is pretty low so you can use it for a long time (not as my 6990M and this 7970M ****)

 

Hello Everyone! Okay I've stumbled upon multiple hangs in windows 10. Must be the Crimson Driver or Crimson Center. I reverted back to Catalyst and I still get the issue. I'm reverting back to win7.

^^^ Right when I was backing up my stuff AGAIN I realized something. My fans were too quiet and I checked and EC Support was ON. So I disabled it and guess was. Windows 10 hangs are gone. Only one issue though. HWinfo64 with EC Support OFF means my fans are kicking at 3800 on heavy load (LEAF BLOWER) so I was searching online how to change the 3 default values: 0,2000, and 3800 nothing came up. I will do some extended research on how to ADD or EDIT these fan speeds. I've also search on youtube but everyone's EC support is on so viewing those vids are pointless for this project.

I need help safely overclocking the i7 that I have. I will post my BIOS settings and info about my i7. I noticed that my processor gets along very well with my 8970m. If overclocking the processor maybe I can hit higher frame rates and better 3Dmark!

PS. This is the ATI AMD 8970m Card I've purchase http://i1108.photobucket.com/albums/h413/angelguzman92/ATI/s-l1600_zpsw3d76aj4.jpg?t=1459286507 I've seen 8970m with no crossfire capable but I'm wondering what exactly 8970m I have.

 

Sorry for the delay folks!!! My co workers have been calling it "SICK" and "Vacation" so this is one of these days that I can get things done! I'll be posting my BIOS settings so you guy can help how to tune my i7 properly!

I won't be posting the Picture like I use to before because it will spam lol. So to minimize this I will share my pictures with you guys in Photobucket! http://s1108.photobucket.com/user/a...S/Main Tab 2_zpsnobgywmw.jpg.html?sort=3&o=26 Help how to configure my BIOS please! Thank You all!

 

HEY EVERYONE! I think my GPU is a m290x. BIOS Part number is BR44966.006 and so this means I'm running a m290x a rebrand of 8970m? or Did I install the wrong drivers? I bought the secondary card exact card to be precise. I'm going to be running m290x crossfire soon. I'm in a panic here.

 

But Radeon M290X is a 8970M rebrand and 8970M is 7970M rebrand with more memory. It's known practice to change GPU name and sell it as new while it's very old and less powerful than NV (and they renamed their GPUs too)

If you install old drivers then they will show that you have 8970M and that will be correct.

 

The new R9-m290x from dell has a new crossfire connector on the pcb , Thats how you tell it apart from other vendors r9-m290x, which uses old crossfire connector. So basically , if you have a dell r9-m290x card , you will have a hard time finding the crossfire cable, cause it's exclusive to dell only.

 

Yeah good luck finding that cable....terribly difficult time and i didn't like trying to fab up my own cable.