AMD Radeon 6970M - ETA from Resellers?

It might be just a BIOS glitch...

 

This would be why AMD doesn't want the sale of Engineering Samples.....maybe you got the HD6990M BIOS.


Very possible that the extra Barts XT cores aren't physically disabled and can be unlocked in a similar fashion to the desktop HD6950.

 

Then we need to have a backup for this BIOS.

 

AMD said my mail and pictures of the card and the X7200 went through a lot of departments and that it "looks like Eurocom would have had these as demo units…"

Still waiting for a new X7200, nothing new since Hawkforce said they would send me a new laptop. I guess it will be till end of month when the cards are officially available...

 

Wow dude... Backup that BIOS and upload for the community! We would be greatly thankful

 

Still figuring out if it happened when I flashed from the original VBIOS to the Dell VBIOS via winflash/RBE.

 

and what is is the possibility of AMD building one core with less shaders for Dell ?
ichime send me he's bios from the ES 6970 and i just try to figure if i should flash it to see if that unlock the card but he did it backwards flashing the ES card with Dell bios so i don't know what is going on

 

6990M was my first thought, as well. I swear, you and I operate on the same technological wavelength. The question is, will the OEM 6970M be the same?

Wow, if the ES are truly unlockable, that awesome.

Makes me want to buy one, early.

 

Need to get the Dell BIOS directly from Dell and flash it to an ES card with a stock BIOS....then if that unlocks the 1120 cores we need someone to test the Dell BIOS on a retail Sager/Clevo HD6970M.

If the BIOS from Dell doesn't unlock the cards then test ichime's on an ES and retail Sager/Clevo card and see if that unlocks the cores.

Lastly, if none of that works offer ichime lots of $$$ for his HD6970M +.

Probably because we both spend too much time on NBR.

It's kind of like how if women spend too much time together their cycles will start to line up.

 

This is some good news. Some tests should be done with the different vbios though, tests with the cores locked and unlocked to see if those extra cores are really having a performance impact or not. Might just be GPU-Z reading a vbios derived from what will be used for the 6990 and it's showing the cores but they may not actually be functional.

 

it didn't work i flash ichime bios to my card and boot on windows it shows 960 shaders then i flash back to dell still the same i guess he got a 6990 or something different

 

6980 Maybe? HWInfo still reports this card as a 6970M, probably due to the Dell VBIOS.

I guess I'll have to wait for the 6990Ms then unless I decide to sell this card. But from the looks of it, this is a pretty fast card. I originally thought it was the 11.4 drivers when I was getting like 20% performance improvements over what the reviews got for the 6970Ms (i.e tomshardware notebookcheck.net, etc).

Also, the temperatures are pretty good for what it is too. When I did that Vantage run, I actually forgot to remove the plastic from the thermal pads. Not sure if that was the reason why it abruptly shut down when I tried 850/1150 though I think that's mostly due to maxxing out the TDP in the primary MXM slot.

 

you are lucky why you don't get the second card and run crossfire that will be insane!

 

as hd6870 is cheap now (200USD)
buy a hd6870 and solder its core out
rework it to the hd6970m then you get the full one haha..........

 

I wonder how much do these 2 words cost AMD

 

what system have you got? cpu?
20% that's definitely the extra shaders

 

do you get to keep the first one?

 

Just as long as I´ll get the new one; Hawkforce said as soon as the new cards are available I´ll get a new one and have to send back the "old" one.

 

well in taiwan 新竹(where tsmc make nv,amd gpu core)
some factory getting unpaid leave instead of layoff, they then make use of their maching........rework like this is about $40usd(solder $10 reball $7 resolder $10), but if they do this type bga first time have $15usd extra charge

 

PM sent

 

Looking forward to buying another card for Crossfire if what you're thinking is what I think you're thinking

 

I'll let you know when we get the cards. BTW, can you provide the link to your 6970M benches?

 

They're in the M17x benchmark thread. Only posted Vantage runs so far, but I also tested some games using FRAPS and documented the experience there.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...alienware-m17x-benchmark-thread-part-4-a.html

 

....if you could inform me when you can do upgrades to the 6970m on, maybe, a NP8170...that would be sweet

 

Wow! The card is a monster. Looks like you got a rare sample, those scores are insane, more than a stock 5870 CF. Amazing!

Sure. PM me your email so I can add you to the notify list.

Thanks

 

I need a new laptop so bad. My Whitebook is about to blow up and the 3870's xfire just cant keep up anymore. I want x7200 with 6970's and i7 2600k. Not sure I can wait more longer. I thought about the AW M17X but I want 3 HHD ... Anyone know what the chassis of the X7200 is made of? I just wish I could take the keyboard off the AW and put it on the x7200

 

Palmrest and lid are of brushed aluminum, the rest is high quality plastic.
M17X KB won't fit the x7200.

 

Alright, I sent you a PM! I'm very excited about this upgrade...from a mere 470M

 

As of today we have the 6970M available for ordering (US$520+shipping) while supplies last. PM/Email for details.

 

Just to compare, what is the going rate for a standalone 460m?

 

I've been told $400 for the 460m and 600-750 for the 485m

 

Jeez, then why are we expected to pay +490 for the 485m. Glad I decided to wait. That's some serious early-adopter abuse.

 

Standalone GTX 460M is $350 USD.

 

I'm not sure I follow. that $520 for the 6970m is standalone. The standalone 486m at $700 is quite a bit more. You save money paying $490 for it. AKA, it's super expensive to get it separately, but less then the $520 you need to upgrade the model you've got to the 6970m (unless you're going to sell the 460m or whatever you got originally to make up the difference). No idea how much the 6970m is as an upgrade though, not standalone.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

Nah, you're right. Anyone who bought a machine with 460M, planning to upgrade with the 6970M later, should've just spent $495 for the GTX 485M.

 

I just ordered a AMD Radeon HD 6970m from Multicom, a Clevo reseller in Norway.
I have to shell out around 569 USD for it since we have insane VAT of 25%. D:
(I know there are worse places btw.)

Cant wait for it to arrive.
Maybe i can play Minecraft without lag? :3

 

When you pay 490 for the upgrade that essentially means you are paying $840 for the card, assuming the default 460m is $350.

 

If you have a contact info of the person/company selling the 485M for 600$, please let us know. That is way cheaper than what we have to pay our suppliers for these cards.

 

Ah, I see what you meant. But it's not really a fair comparison between the two. And I'm sure resellers probably pay closer to that amount (as Aikimox seems to suggest). And if they sold the 460m for say, $350, they may only pay $200 or $250 to get it. You have to remember there's markup on the 460m sold on its own as well. $250 (OEM, not sold to the public) for the 460m + $495 upgrade = ~$750 aftermarket for the 485m. Seems about right to me.

I'm pretty happy with mine, and I'm glad I didn't go the 460m + buy the 6970m for upgrade later, since it's not much of a savings compared to what everyone speculated it would be.

 

Yeah, I was never considering getting one and upgrading later - seems risky and I would think it would be difficult to sell off a 460m.

I DO wonder though, if the 485m will show its worth against the 6970m at some point to justify its much higher price. Drivers couldn't make that insane of a difference, could they?

 

I want to know this as well.. Guess time will tell

 

Waiting on the 6970M here... 460M is nice but it won't last as long at 1920x1080 as a 6970M or GTX 485M and I have a much harder time justifying the 485M's price tag for minimal differences.

 

its all about the wait time.. some of us can't/ dont want to wait. that's how the price is justified to some

 

Clevo updated the P150HM/P170HM manual and included 6970m

 

Yes, the official support is coming it seems, it's only a matter of time now.

 

From the Anandtech review, the 6970 is pretty much neck and neck with the 485 so unless you can get it built in (which is not yet), I agree with Kevin_Jack2.0 that you're better upgrading initially to the 485 rather than buy the 6970 separately...

Probably in a month or 2, the 6970 will be available...

This seems true for the 6970 as well on other platforms.

 

I think the 460m would be difficult to sell for quite a while. I can't think of any machine that could "upgrade" to the 460m, and most will be under warranty until the end of this year if someone had one that failed. On the other hand if you buy a machine with GTX 485m or 6970m you should easily be able to sell it used in a year or so and retain decently high value.

On the other hand if the 460m was good enough for you for the next year or so, then you can get a next gen GPU and by that time there will probably be a decent market for 460m's to replace faulty ones out of warranty. Although you'll still be paying the "end item" price penalty for buying a new GPU independently, so not sure if you'd end up better off anyhow.

I know the 485m has shown to overclock decently, haven't pushed it myself because no need to yet, but curious if pushed how well the 6970m fares in that respect. I was thinking the 6970m would only be a $200 upcharge over the 460m and would have felt a little silly with my 485m. But was hoping it was going to be cheaper for everyone else's sake.

 

I agree that the 460M would be harder to sell... all the notebooks out there that have a more serious GPU have a 460M already so the market is smaller than a 6970M or 485M which can be sold down the line to someone looking for a boost

 

Yeah, it sounds like the price difference between the 6970/485m might not be as much as we'd been speculating. It's hard to say, but if it's only $150 or so different then I'm glad I went with the 485m to get it sooner and with (admittedly minimal) extra performance (oh, and 3d Vision support).

I'm tempted to try overclocking mine just to see how much/how far it can go. My desktop Nvidia cards have always bumped up pretty significantly over stock, though they're a different beast altogether.

 

sager/clevo resellers list 6970m as a $245 upgrade from 460m. while alienware lists it as a $175 upgrade. call me crazy but I thought it would be the other way around.