M17x Crossfire in 7

just saying, using the standard windows vga driver, I have always had acurately reported memory type and size if nothing else

 

ati and gpuz does NOT usually report mem always as being correct. the engineer at dell i talked with has once again SWORN these are gddr5. i can only go on his word for that. i have personally had many desktop cards not read right by gpuz also.

can you dump the bios off one of the cards so we can have a look-see??

unless anyone is willing to open it and give me digits off the ic's. i was about to order this week also but i know i will wait to be 100% sure which way i go.

 

all we need is a simple picture lol

 

Just got this reply back from my sales rep :

" At 01:56 PM 10/21/2009, you wrote:
Its DDR5 and it looks like there was a slight delay in the hi-res screen… should be IP by this afternoon.
"

 

Has Striker gotten his? He would get to the bottom of this!

 

Off Topic: I wonder if the WUXGA is the reason for all the shipping delays...

 

it was when the M17x first was released, could be again with the surge of orders for the CF option (although I doubt they are stupid to make the same mistake twice, was most likely a shortage of the cards)

 

It seems that even Dell's own ppl don't know what the heck was/is going on

 

Yeah, no kidding. Nobody knows, they just regurgitate the same info over and over with no real answer or solution.

 

I spoke to a supervisor who gave me a line of _rap also....He claimed my new m17x with ati cards would be in my home in 2-3 days from yesterday...As of today it is still in the build stage! Hasn't even boxed yet? I am betting it is going to be close to November before I see it!

 

He canceled his order.

 

Mandrake, have they called you yet?

 

Nope. I have the contact info at work and I'm at home today so I can't even call them if I wanted to.

 

This is ridiculous, basically as of right now the GTX280M stay the winner. If the prelim test of the 4870 is confirmed by other owners than it will be a horrible deal to pay $100 box more than the SLI 280M.

 

Thats considering that the its DDR3 and not DDR5 though... they still haven't been tested with the proper drivers, making any current results inacurate...

 

I am going out on a limb here, but I think in the final analysis, we will find these new 4870 cards to be GDDR5.

(GEEZzzzz, this thread is becoming eerily reminiscent of the Asus W90 days, LOL! )

Glad I cancelled my order (Once Bitten, Twice Shy)...... least this time, till all the dust settles.

Best Wishes to All & HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

 

Hmmm, well Im praying for GDDR5, but guys, I really gotta say Im not sure if they are.
My [email protected] in a M17, hit 10.6K GPU score vantage with the clocks at ...560/841 or something like that? Yes, the OP has a weaker CPU (As I remember going from a P8400 to the [email protected] boosted my score by about 800points, due to better grunt behind crossfire) BUT hes got a decent CPU that's a lot better than my P8400, and these 4870s are meant to be clocked in the 550-575/888 region no?

If my scores are the same/roughly, I have to say I think they might be GDDR3, the GDDR5 cards should have pulled further forward...

(Just to prove am not pulling your legs, this was before UK AW screwed me over with the M17 and I left them)



I mean it MIGHT be down to drivers...but I think something fishy is up

I really REALLY feel for you if this is true, as I almost ended up having one of these.

 

I wouldn't pay much attention to the benchmarks posted with the wrong driver.

 

No true, the driver may be misusing the card, but that said when I've botched drivers in the past, they've either worked or not, and GDDR5 should be a hardware/BIOS thing, Im not sure whether the drivers would just lower the performance, you'd expect to see some sort of native performance increase not attributed to driver, as the driver is mostly to do with translating and optimising the GPU, more so than the memory.

You're right though, we do need to wait for drivers , and Im praying (well actually I'm not, I'm not a religious person)...but Im not optimistic.

 

Oh btw, seeing as W7 is out today/tomorrow, its pretty poor the Dell guy wouldnt even try and get the beta drivers for the OP.

 

Another thing to look out for: make sure power management setting is set to High Performance mode.

And I really don't think drivers would be the issue. If the drivers caused the memory modules to think it was GDDR3, then the vantage results should be LOWER than that of an actual 4870 card with GDDR3. This is because GDDR5 latency is higher than GDDR3's latency. This means that if GDDR5 were to operate at GDDR3 speeds (effective memory clock is 2x rather than 4x), it would process all that bandwidth slower than a GDDR3 system.

Also, if the OP can, run Vantage in single card mode. Another issue could be how well an nVidia chipset scales crossfire.

 

Aye, it's all a little worrying. Not sure what the overclocking headroom could be, and where drivers will place it, but something doesnt add up correctly here, and I have a feeling that stink is coming from under the rug somewhere by Dell.

 

I guess I won't get my unit till 7 P.M. , The FED-EX came earlier than expected and I was not home. Bummer.....

 

Says the Clevo owner..lol. Just kidding. We need to just wait is all.

 

Well this is fun watching this all play out. It definately reminds me of the whole Asus W90 fiasco. Good ridance W90 (still on ebay if anyone wants it)

Every time I try to switch to ATI from Nvidia.. it's just ugly for me.

"ATI.. The Way it's Meant To Be Played!"

wut?

 

You can blame the W90 for everyone having thoughts that it isn't GDDR5.

 

Haha mate, you know I've only ordered a Clevo cause Dell/AW Europe screwed me around so badly (that and Kobalt did me a deal I couldn't refuse, my new machine only cost £60/$100 more than my M17, for a machine on par with the M17x easily)!!



And yeah, as I say I am hoping, Im just...well not optimistic given my experience.
That said even if they're overclocked 4850s they're still nippy cards!

 

Agreed!

We simply do not have enough data presently. All speculation and hunches aside, I think it way too early here, to have 'feelings' of a 'stink' by Dell.

I am sure reports will soon resolve this mystery..... patience folks!

(I cringe! I was sooooo damaged by the Asus W90!)

LOL!

 

^ I guess I missed the whole "W90" thing.... was it really that bad ?!

 

Wow.

I leave for a week or two and this place has gone crazy

This is quite disappointing thus far, but until I see the chips on the card I am reserving judgement.

IMO the 10.3k Vantage run seems to be GDDR3.

 

It was 10.6K with 4850 drivers. I've seen the Vanatge score fluctuate by 1K based on the driver used...and welcome back I was just thinking that I haven't seen you around much since you sold your 280M.

 

SINCE YOU ASK..........

LOL! It's still really that bad!

Asus delivered that platform with WAY outdated ATI drivers..... that could not be updated..... the 4870 cards were not up to the design reference spec..... the x38 chipset was problematic, at best..... bios was locked, had to use SetFSB..... the 4870 cards had bad PCB's and had to be reproduced..... a vast majority of these machines were RMA'ed, REPEATEDLY..... to finally update the ATI drivers to 9.4, it took a lot of work by some great folks here, namely, e-wrecked, quadzilla, and viciousUSMC...... and to eventually update the 4870 cards, their bios had to be reflashed.

On & on I could go here....... but this sickens me (did I say how damaged I was by this experience?). Anyone care to add more? Did I miss anything?

Anyhow, I was such an 'early adopter' monkey, I refused to acknowledge a real problem, in the hope & faith that Asus would make it right. Didn't happen...... the W90 is now EOL (prematurely)..... and I think to date, Asus has never released current ATI drivers..... you must mod them yourself.

After 3 RMA's, I consider myself lucky to have sold my last W90. I was sooooo frustrated, I deleted over 1,800 of my post (yes, 1,800, and some still remain) in the W90 Owner's thread, LOL!

 

and now everyone is jumpy about the M17x and the 4870s

 

Well, i'm attempting disassembly right now at work, since it turns out I have to work late. Are there any decent teardown guides available?

 

Yeah, the MOO man put out a good guide..... someone have a link?

MOOooooooooo !!! Where are you?

 

TheMoo posted a video guide earlier plus there is this...
http://www.notebookforums.com/thread230093.html

 

Agreed!

Honestly though, I think the eventual findings will be GDDR5.

I'll be optimistic! (and this got me in trouble before, LOL!)

 

yea i fixed it

Also the scaleing on a nvidia chipset would be worse. So for it to be equal to a ddr3 variant it must be ddr5

 

HALARIOUS!

I see your edits there, MOO-MAN!

4850 cards, LOL!

 

Ok, got one of the cards out, what do you guys need pictures of. Heatsink is still attached.

 

Take some clear hi-res shots of the mem chips, and the whole card, front & back..... remove the heatsink. Is it Samsung or Qimonda mem?

 

if you don't have a camera, just report what it says on the memory chips (the numbers, name, etc) and we can cross-reference it.

example:

 

Good call, ichime..... I am just hoping he has a camera..... I want to see the beast!

 

ok, it's hard to read, but memory chips read(i think):
SAMSUNG 919
K4J1032-HJIA

 

If they are red then Dell is really in love with ati and they are garunteed to be ddr5

the memory is under the heatsink

 

I'll try and get better pictures. Lighting in here sucks and all I have is a point-n-shoot

 

Well, according to this: http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/products/dram/downloads/Graphics_code.pdf

GDDR3

 

epic fail.

 

It is most definately a J

 

Exact words I had in my mind....I think we wouldn't have been even putting so much hope into them being DDR5's had it not been for Striker's order sheet and Zfactors "reliable" engineer who said he was looking at DDR5 right in front of him. Bet Striker and Mandrake are sitting happy now