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    The 7970m and the Intel Core i7 920XM and Questions

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by gracemillian, Jan 22, 2013.

  1. gracemillian

    gracemillian Notebook Guru

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    Hi folks!

    I currently have an i7 920xm and a 5850m. I'm looking to upgrade to the 7970m and have lurked in these forums for a while, done my research and all, and now I'd like to ask some final questions:

    1. Can I achieve 60 fps @ 1080p in Crysis 2 (Very High, not Extreme graphics settings) with stock clocks of my CPU and GPU (without undervolting and all)?
    2. Can I buy my card directly from Dell? I am not a fan of ebay...
    3. Since we have to manage the fan control manually using Hwinfo, does the card have heating issues? Will it affect its long term performance? Will the card die in a couple of years because it runs slightly warmer?
    4. Will any of the Alienware M15x component hold back or throttle the 7970m (like the HDD not being SSD or the CPU not being powerful enough)?
    5. Are there ANY other disadvantages of getting this card in the Alienware M15x as it is not officially supported?

    Thank you for reading this, getting the 7970m will be a very big deal for me so I would really appreciate if you take the time and help me make this decision :D
     
  2. Hobgoblinpie

    Hobgoblinpie Notebook Evangelist

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    1. Notebookcheck claims 54-55 fps (albeit with newer processors - however the processor will have little effect unless it's a bad one - even the i7 720qm would be fine) at extreme settings in 1080p. So 60 fps sounds reasonable.

    2. I believe that you can buy directly from Dell. However, they will advise you that the 7970M is not directly supported by them in the M15x.

    3. As far as I've seen, there are no heat problems - as long as you do regular cleaning (which should be done anyway, no matter the GPU). It may run hotter than the 5850M, for example, but it is a much more powerful card, so that is to be expected.

    4. It depends how you define 'throttled' - Having an HDD is not 'throttling' your performance, just not as fast as an SSD. The high powered CPUs (920xm, 940xm) do apparently have throttling issues, due to both requiring a high power draw. I believe that some users have been using the M17x power supply, as it can provide more power, and others use the 'throttlestop' program.
     
  3. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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    Above is not true: the CPU doesn't get throttled. The GPU does. If you indeed do run crysis 2 at stock clocks with no undervolt you might have throttling issues.
     
  4. gracemillian

    gracemillian Notebook Guru

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    Thanks for the quick reply folks!

    So after reading your comments, it's becoming apparent to me that besides getting the 7970m, I'll have to invest in the 240W adapter or undervolt the 7970m. Is this about right? Does undervolting coz a performance loss? Because it would be rather sad to have such a nice card and not be able to run it at its max potential :(
     
  5. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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    The original brick is sufficient but will get hot with 920xm and 7970M installed. The 240W gives no benefits in terms of additional power (M15x hard bios limited to 180W) but it will mean the new brick runs much cooler.

    You cannot run the 7970M at its max potential or even stock performance without throttling issues in the M15x. With undervolt at 0925V one can still run the card at somewhere between 775-800mhz and memory as high as you like without throttling issues. Stock is 850mhz so a small performance drop. However even at this speed it is stll much faster than any other card bar the 680M and stock clocked 7970M.

    It is a machine that is over 3 years old now so getting this kind of performance is impressive already!

    The next gen due out in a few months is expected to be quite a bit more efficient in the form of the 8970M. While the new card will also be 20-30% faster. I expect this card to be runable at at least stock clocks using an undervolt and perhaps even a small overclock also in conjuntion with a small undervolt to help keep power consumption down. This without throttling due to better energy efficiency, If you are worried you should wait.

    I am considering upgrading to it for this reason.
     
  6. Hobgoblinpie

    Hobgoblinpie Notebook Evangelist

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    Thanks for correcting me, King. Wasn't sure about the throttling. Repped.
     
  7. gracemillian

    gracemillian Notebook Guru

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    That's it, I'm saving up for 8970m. Till then I hope I can play the new Tomb Raider on my current card :D (5850m)
     
  8. ssj92

    ssj92 Neutron Star

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    The 150w will be extremely hot if you're running a game like BF3. My old 150w brick was so hot, touching it would burn you. I highly doubt they were supposed to get as hot as mine did, so I run a 240w adapter. That is at stock clocks on a 920xm and 7970. For Crysis 2, you shouldn't experience any throttling. It's fairly a GPU intensive game and doesn't use too much CPU. However, a game like FC3 or BF3 might throttle. My laptop seems bipolar on throttling. One day it will run BF3 fine without any throttling while another day it will throttle every few seconds. Really weird and hoping next gen cards will be better with this.

    Also getting a dell card will give you native fan control.
     
  9. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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    Try forcing fans to max ssj92 both of them! This seems to iron out my throttling problems. Do this before you game.
     
  10. ssj92

    ssj92 Neutron Star

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    I actually have a fan profile that runs them at 7000rpm(full speed) at 60C.
     
  11. gracemillian

    gracemillian Notebook Guru

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    Omydais, the fan can go upto 7000 rpm???
     
  12. Daverish

    Daverish Notebook Consultant

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    7k? I top mine out at 5k and they're good. Now I kinda want to see a chart of m15x fan speeds :)
     
  13. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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    The sliders to go 7000 but indeed 5000rpm is the max speed.
     
  14. gracemillian

    gracemillian Notebook Guru

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    Haha, yes, I thought there might be a catch. Thanks a lot for the info guys :)
     
  15. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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    You should have seen my old laptop: 4x 11,000 rpm fans :) man it screamed
     
  16. gracemillian

    gracemillian Notebook Guru

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    I'm curious, can I see a pic?
     
  17. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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  18. gracemillian

    gracemillian Notebook Guru

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    Very impressive!
     
  19. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    Only 3.5ghz? My old acer could do 3.06ghz with a Q9200 ES and 6770M on a single fan ^-^
     
  20. King of Interns

    King of Interns Simply a laptop enthusiast

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    Yeah I could only change fsb and the P35 derived chipset in the C90P was rubbish. If I had no limits then 4ghz would have easily achievable with the cooling I had as well as a severe hardvolt mod on the 4670M. Instead I got a 4850M to run but broke it lol.
     
  21. Meaker@Sager

    Meaker@Sager Company Representative

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    I wish some of the really nice MXM-A cards were available back then, the M4000 (7770M based) with a 1GB GDDR5 and K2000M look like really nice cards for those sorts of systems.