7970M P150HM upgrade in UK by PC Specialist : Review

I have not so far contributed much to the community but hopefully , this post will help some others in a similar position to mine.

After months of reading (like nbr forums etc) and waiting for it to become available, i got and installed the 7970m card for my P150 HM today.

It has taken pc specialist a little longer than many other EU Clevo sellers to get the cards sold seperatly, but i can safely say it has well been worth the wait.

It cost £312 for the card (No heat sink etc) , including flashed Vbios, and next day delivery - infact they give you a time to the nearest hour, it will be delivered for UK residents.

2 minute Job and it was installed and booted up wonderfully the first time ; windows searched for the drivers , and within 2 minutes and one restart - the card was working flawlessly.

Idle temps 32 c , which is much lower than i was getting on my 6990m, but even more impressive was how quiet the idle fans were- sooo much quieter on my system than with the 7970m.

The performance was apparent right away; even though i only hit 5650 3dmark11 on stock, a small over clock pushed that to 6100 marks, without breaking a sweat.

More than enough performance for now for most games. As most will know, the hm do not suffer the Enduro issues and so all games tested so far today have ran without error or glitch : BF3 ,Sleeping Dogs, GW 2 and more.

Full load the temperature never seemed to go above 72 (Only 24 hours in ) but again that was much lower than the 6990m, which could easily hit 90.

My praise for the pc specialist upgrade is very high ; any one in the UK that wants a quick , cheap and efficient upgrade , should go ahead without a moment of hesitation:

1) Much Quieter fan
2) Nearly twice as much FPS than the 6990m in some cases
3) 5 minute install job
4) Only £312 to fit yourself , including the Vbios (thats around 390 euros)
5) Effectively make you feel like you have a new laptop, as you will play games on settings you never thought possible.

Really hope the EM lot have their issue fixed soon, as it seems somewhat ironic and unfair that the older generation Clevo users are the only ones that can use the card to its full.

Hope this review helps some one make up their mind, any questions , please ask

Pj

 

Glad to finally hear someone with a working 7970M!

 

<<< Slowly turns green.

 

A 7970M in a P150 HM is without the faulty Enduro, thus no problems. Several members have done this

Congratulations pijeon! have fun

 

Cheers - i really hope they soon sort it out for Em users.

Any Hm users in Uk , should get it in a heart beat though

 

I know. Muxless design and all.

 

Welcome to our family...:thumbsup:

 

This is what I have been waiting to hear as I am considering pulling the trigger myself on mine. Amazing that it is such a simple job I assumed that the heatsink would need to be different? Did you have to relay out the thermal pads or do they match the 6990M? +1

My only grumble is that we do not have a displayport on the HM and the DVI only runs at single DVI out so you cannot get 120hz which is what I want... I was thinking of staying put with the 6990M and selling up next year. Ahhhhh decisions.

 

Nope, they just send you the card= the thermal pads etc are still attached to the cooling plate from the old card, and it just fits exactly in place , over the top of the 7970m - could be a 6990m, its that similar.


I am sure there is a thread on here , about a fix around to getting HDMI working with 7970m - something to do with the actual laptop bios and not the card Vbios.

No doubt someone will point you in the right direction.

If you want nearly twice as much power, and are prepared to spend 312 quid, then its a no brainer :thumbsup:

 

Hi. I got the 7970m from pc specialist. What drivers did you install for the card?

 

Hey.

Good stuff - got 12.8 beta installed ATM - works fine, and havent tested any others.


U?

Paul

 

Could you send me the drivers that pcs sent with card please? Mine are corrupt

 

Whats happening ? are they not working? the ones i am using are here :

AMD Catalyst 12.x (8.982.7.0 August 8) Unofficial - Guru3D.com Forums

 

I am wanting to test the drivers pcs sent but when I extract the files it asks for a password.

 

Cheers for link, installed and working

Only negative issue about this card is the hdmi issue, hope it gets resolved

 

So the HDMI does not work with the 7970M in a HM? :/ oof that is a no go for me then.

 

What you oc ur card to paul?

 

Just playing around at the moment Ellis, but have just found my voltage on GPU is only 0.975. so that will probably prevent me from getting a high overclock.

Waiting to hear back on other users Hm voltage, then will see what it can do - without pushing it too much obviously.

pj

 

You can get a modded bios off of SVl7 on techinferno (on here too, but more likely to get him on there) if you want to properly test it.

 

Here is the link from svl7 for the clevo HM vbios 1.075V and 1.1V:
AMD 7970m - modified VBIOS - Page 14

You should also be able to use the vbios pack he provides in the first post of that thread, apparently the dell vbios works with the HM notebooks as well.

 

Thanks for the link moral hazard - problem is, i do not have an account - so can not download it.

I have joined the forum, but need a certain number of posts firsts.

Is there any way you could email it to me / upload it somewhere etc?

Cheers PJ

 

I would happily do that for you, except for this instance, since I didn't mod it myself I don't feel comfortable re-uploading svl7s work. I have a feeling that svl7 likes techinferno and wants more people to post there.

 

Ok fair enough

Fair point .

I will keep posting - until i can download.

Just dont want to be seen to be posting for the sake of it - mostly alienware posts there it seems ?

Is he on here ? Will PM him just to say hi

Pj

 

Yep, he is here as well (same user name).

 

If I buy a 7970m and put in place of the 6990M in my p170hm, the 7970m does not work?
What's going on?
I have to update the bios Clevo? or the bios vga?

 

ummmm....have u actually bought the card yet and installed in ur p170hm? or is that a theoretical question?
in any case, the 7970m needs to be equipped with a modded vbios (gpu bios, not system bios) in order to let it run properly on the hm series laptops.

cheers

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

This is a theoretical question because i will buy this vga in this week, it's hard to put this new vbios modded.
What happens if I do not put this vbios mod?

 

It won't work without the mod.
You could ask for it to be flashed with the modded vbios by the seller or blind flash it yourself.

 

^^^ what he said!

 

Thanks for the reply ...
very strange, the dealer Notebookbarebone.de Notebooks selber bauen! assured me work with my notebook, obviously they will mount a VBIOS different from the normal.
Let's hope so