Clevo 7970m a year in Review......

Folks, as an early adopter of the P150EM with a 7970m. I feel at this point in the year it is appropriate to create a thread for everyone to provide their overall feedback for this card/setup. Who knows maybe someone from ATI is actually listening......


Let me start by saying, that I am absolutely your target customer base. I purchase a new high-end laptop approximately every 1.5 years, and in a lot of cases end up being an early adopter for technology. This year was no different with me pre-ordering a P150em with a 7970m.

Speaking for the P150EM itself, it really is a great machine. Has a few flaws "Stock WIFI, Keyboard", however no other laptop in my mind puts out the performance the P150EM while maintening the professional style & size of the laptop. Most people think it's a normal generic laptop until they see the power supply, and I absolutely love that!

The 7970m is a completely different matter. The biggest flaw of Computers vs Console gaming in general is the glitches & bugs which occur with games, due to the inconsistent amount of hardware configurations that will be used by customers to actually play the game.

ATI 7970m makes this flaw absolutely unbearable:

• Almost EVERY game I play has some issue with some-sort of work around required "Playing DX9 In Far Cry 3 to avoid lighting glitch"

• The performance of this card varies GREATLY from game to game.
• In some cases games are just outright unplayable.
• I have owned the card for EIGHT months and have yet to receive working RELIABLE drivers from either ATI or CLEVO.

To Conclude, at this point I think we can all agree there is no argument here. The extra cost of the NVIDIA cards "680m in this case" is absolutely worth the stability they provide. What is the point of having a graphics card that has great bang for buck performance on 4% of the games available.

 

Speak for yourself. I don't think the extra cost for Nvidia is worth it at all anymore. Right now I only have one game that I have issue with and that is Far Cry 3 which I totally expected. Ubisoft can go to hell.

And please where do you get this 4% of the games number?

Terrible post, terrible thread. I doubt you could substantiate your complaints on the current state of the 7970M even if you tried.

I've had working and reliable drivers for months now, actually at least 15 past drivers have been reliable and working. Oh and 8 months? Yeah AMD sure got their switchable graphics fixed faster than Nvidia could. Nvidia owners are still having issues with Optimus.

Biggest difference between console and PC is glitches and bugs? Did someone take a bat to your head recently? You complain about Far Cry 3? How about actually using googling before beginning your diatribe. Far Cry 3 is upscaled from 480p on console. And not only that, they still suffer stuttering and glitches.

I'm done, this thread is fail. If you don't like the state of the 7970M, then do something about it. Making a thread that with stupid crap like complaining about Far Cry 3 which is devleoped by a company that takes huge craps on PC gamers on a very consistent basis, actually it can be guaranteed at this point. And then 4%? Whatever dude. Go do something productive like getting yourself the 680M then.

 

well i think amd will fix it sooner or later for the 8000 series cards anyways if they want to move forward. i have been hoping to upgrade to the 7970m from 675m, but have been holding out because of the drivers

 

I have to say, I regret going for the 7970m.
I'm in the process of buying a 680m atm. Actually I just bought it. This is after my 7970 crapped out on me after 5 months. Without warning just died. Before that I had 7970m from Eurocom that was meant for a Clevo and that was a horrible experience. Sold that one on to fund the 7970 above.

Can't really complain about the performance, got nothing but good frame rates with some demanding titles.

Suppose I'm a bit gutted about spending around £1200 in GPU's in the last 6 months.

Lets hope the 680m provides a better experience.

 

Can't comment about crapping out on you, since no idea what you did to cause that. Or what happened. Could be anything, but doubt you would admit fault for it on these forums even if it was your fault. But at least you learned your lesson and next time get a GPU that is made to be used on a Dell instead of trusting Eurocom on Ebay.

 

hulawafu77, you need to settle down. Someone posted their experience and opinion, you can disagree but it is still his thread.

 

Haha really? AMD failed on the 6900M drivers, it failed on the 7900M drivers, so your best bet is to buy the new 8k series and -again- hope it will get better, even though AMD laid off a good chunk of its employees?

Don't be so naive guys. If anything, buy a desktop AMD gpu since it usually gets more attention from the driver developers.

 

i dont know about 6990m, since i came into the mobile GPU quite recently. hopefully they will fix it, as AMD GPU seems best value

 

I promise you I have nothing to hide.
I would openly admit error. In fact I would feel a little less p*ssed off if it was down to me.

Instead I've wasted £600 on a GPU that couldn't last 6 months.

But that just my story. Up until Sunday I was extremely pleased with the performance.

 

I can't believe you would even have the ballz to post in my thread. Folks, this is the same guy who was disputing my claims that there was an Enduro issue with the 7970m in the early days. Funny thing is the guy was denying it when he didn't even OWN a 7970m. Please leave my thread, if there was ever an AMD/ATI Fanboy you my friend are surely it.

 

I can only second this.
For some reason I feel provoked by the amount of bull...excrement he posts. Like denying AMD often has issues with newly released games. Or fails at sufficiently supporting its latest gen mobile hardware.

 

I actually have very little complaints about the 7970M. It works for all the games I play/have played (Skyrim/Dawnguard, SC2, LoL, Deus Ex; HR, ACIII), without many issues. Occasionally I receive a blue screen due to the drivers but it's not in the middle of anything so I didn't really mind it.

I've owned the 7970M for roughly 7 1/2 months and I am satisfied. I don't seem to be experiencing the mass issues everyone else is o_o

probably because i mostly play league xD

 

Whether the cost is worth it to someone is up to the person, what they can afford and how much they are willing to put up with. I made the switch several months ago because the performance in BF3 was just ridiculous. It is a night and day difference between the two gpus in BF3. Now that I'm on the 680m, having experienced both cards it was definitely worth it. Everything I play on it works great. I can play rather than run into issues and checking the forums, trying different drivers, waiting for better drivers...more waiting hoping AMD will make the card run as smoothly as my 680m.

My Steam library is huge, but currently finishing up Sleeping Dogs, Arkham City, Black Ops 2, and Dishonored. Even the pos MoH Warfighter ran just fine. I don't care how long nVidia took to fix optimus. We're talking about 2 mobile flagship gpu's of THIS YEAR. The year those of us bought 150em/170em's. Maybe you forgot about the massively huge sticky in this Sager/Clevo section regarding the 7970m or countless other threads regarding the 7970m and its drivers. Find anything remotely similar regarding the 680m. Not to say that the 680m isn't without issues. Subsequent beta driver releases for me have introduced choppiness with vsync off despite very high frame rates in BF3 and stuttering when vsync is on. I roll back to an earlier driver and I'm all set.

I remember reading a thread about Max Payne 3 performance and how you dished out all sorts of blame on the game developers. Well, I played that on my 7970m and utilization and the resulting frame rates simply sucked. Same game with my 680m, none of the mentioned issues. Same with Crysis 2. The 7970m really blew my experience with that game....on the 680m it plays much more smoothly.

This is coming from someone who has owned more AMD/ATI products than nVIDIA...and I've been pc gaming since the 90's. Heck, loved the 5870m in my G73.

I spent too much time dealing with 7970m's issues either on the forums or during gaming that the switch was worth it.

 

The 7970m used to have awful performance in certain games; everyone knows that. Since 12.11 however, any issues I used to have with underutilization are gone. I've got a large collection of games on my laptop, and the 7970m handles every single one with ease aside from the god-awful Ubi port AC3. There are widespread reports of underutilization in AC3 from both Nvidia and AMD users, so it's not an Enduro issue.

As for Far Cry 3, I've put over 50 hours in it and beaten it twice. It plays great. The only problem with it is an annoying shadow glitch that happens on Enduro laptops. Framerates are smooth and general performance is excellent. Most of the complaints I've heard about FC3 performance issues and framerate stuttering came from Nvidia owners.

I used to only buy Nvidia cards and had no interest in owning a 7970m, but I ended up getting it once I read the anandtech hotfix preview. I'm very happy I did. The drivers aren't perfect, but they're still in beta so it's understandable. AMD has made incredible gains in a very short period, I believe they'll get the remaining issues sorted out with the upcoming WHQL 12.11 or 12.12 (whichever name they decide to give it.)

As for value, please tell me what other similarly priced mobile gpu on the market can pull off 7800+ in 3DMark11 on stock voltage.

While I think hulawafu can come off as confrontational and pretty rude, I agree with him. The 7970m does everything a high-end gpu should do (for me at least) and it'll only continue to get better.

 

Well I got a new P15xEMx and after reading a lot of forums prior to the purchase I decided to do a "gamble" and pick 7970M. As this is my first ATI card in my computer owning history I was immediately disappointed with the drivers, underutilization, blue screens, black screens and what not for the first week after I've received it. In fact, I was so raging about it that I began spamming my provider to replace the card with 675MX ASAP (680M was a bit out of my pocket). But once I calmed down, did some more extensive reading, the next day 12.11 beta drivers came out, I made a clean install and I am now enjoying smooth high level performance on most of the games that I play. Now, I do not download every single high - end game that's out there just to look for flaws in my gpu, but whatever I try lately seem to work alright.

Furthermore, just like somebody has already mention, ATI guys are doing a great job with the driver improvements. New betas are coming out once every few weeks and they seem to get better and better. At this pace, I do hope and expect all of us 7970M owners to get 100% working drivers by the end of this year! Hell, it's almost Christmas - we are allowed to dream

 

Nice to hear you're doing great. You got your laptop fairly recently and lucky timing for you the .11 drivers were released. So you were spared many months of anguish that the OP, myself and many, many others experienced.

In fairness to the OP, he had his laptop for quite sometime and I can relate to what he had posted and he certainly has a right to express his opinions without being slammed.

Welcome to the forums!

 

Glad to hear AMD updating the drivers, I was so close to getting the 7970M in April, but decided to hold off, if have better drivers in 2 years time, I will definitely go AMD by then, as their hardware is so much cheaper for about the performance you receive. Once I heard BSOD, I was out, I tend to break my computers if I get any blue screens LOL.

 

The early 12.11 betas would sometimes cause BSODs on startup. It has become much rarer in the later betas, and you can prevent it from ever happening by booting up on battery power. I'm sure they'll be completely fixed once the WHQL is out

 

Thank you, although with all the respect, I hope I won't be needing to spend too much time here as it seems many find this forum when they look for solutions to their issues

Once and for all about the 7970M as it seems to be and endless discussion and I guess there will always be two sides here. I feel your pain and I am absolutely shocked how a huge number of people who bought the "flagship" of ATI earlier in Spring have been tormented for so long and still kind of are, I think that is some disrespect from ATI's camp towards their customers. Honestly, if I had to wait for those months to get the issue fixed/party fixed I would've gotten myself a different card sometime in summer for sure. Even this time, I was dreaming about 680M, but as an upgrade to it would have cost me extra 20-25% of the total price it was really out of my price range

 

I was having my own issues with the 7970m and was able to swap for a 680m. I haven't been disappointed with the 680m whatsoever.

 

Hey guys is this 7970m problems only on the 170em systems, where enduro is the culprit ?
Trying to see if 7970m on the 370em would be less trouble ?

thanks

 

There is no Enduro on the 370EM/NP9370, so there aren't any problems with it. Regardless, Enduro isn't as bad as a lot of people say.

 

The under utilization used to be a lot worse but the newer drivers have fixed alot of that.
As failwheeldrive mentioned the NP9370 doesnt have Enduro so you wont run into those issues anyway.

 

Say that again when new games are released. People reported that only current games are running much better, but when AC3 came out it was all bad again. So it seems AMD fixes it on a per game level, which indicates you will have to wait months for every new game to have it "fixed".

That's true. Yet you are going to have countless other visual glitches or flickering in 8/10 games upon release, can only hope for AMD to not let you wait forever to fix it. I can't comprehend why any reseller would still dare to suggest the 7970M to people, it's a real pain to have a powerful hardware but seeing it crippled by poor drivers.

Seriously if you were to spend 2k or 3k on a new notebook, you would not want to run into any troubles, you want things to run smoothly without the hassle of changing drivers every second day, just to get BSODs upon installation and during games.
And at the moment, only Nvidia provides that option:
680M: You install a new game, you play it, you enjoy it, end of the story.
7970M: You install a new game, you try to play it, discover it runs at 15FPS, utilization is 30%, you change drivers, discover your other favourite game is broken now, but your new game might still run unchanged, you don't enjoy it, wait for months until it really gets fixed, then you could enjoy it while you don't want to play it anymore.

 

I'm not on the green side or the red side, although after hearing about the Enduro issues up front, I was one of the first to jump on the 680m band wagon and glad I did. One thing I really hate doing any more is troubleshooting issues. I just don't have time for that, I want it to just work. I don't have any Optimus issues at all, except for one instance where it kept incorrectly detecting a program, but that was after I fussed with things probably more than I should have, but found I just had to rename the exe to something else and then set its performance profile accordingly.

In any case I do hope AMD fix all these issues because I would really hate for nVidia to be the only GPU maker in town.

 

I agree 100%. Some people don't have the time or desire to scour the internet for solutions to problems that shouldn't exist in the first place. In that regard, the 680m easily trumps the 7970m. To people with families, careers, or other time-eating aspects of life, finding time to actually sit down and game is enough of a problem, so it's extremely frustrating to have to spend some of that time rectifying problems.

I picked up my P150EM back in June with a 675m. My intent was to upgrade the GPU after a "winner" was established between the 7970m and the 680m. Although I really wanted to go with the 7970m, the 680m is, to me, the winner based on the above. I just want my PC to work when I actually have time to game, and thus I will be upgrading to a 680m after Christmas.

 

This is something I fear aswell, but I hope it is not the case. If the 8000m-series of cards do not use the same Enduro system, then we can stop hoping for a definitive fix. If every game needs to be fixed separately, and the 8000m-series comes with a new switchable solution (perhaps with some hw alterations), it is highly unlikely AMD would be willing to continue supporting the previous cards (especially seeing how long it took to fix the current games on Enduro systems).

 

I bought my laptop weeks before reading all these 7970M reports, so i was very worried about all this and started participating in these forums (something i actually THANK my 7970M for)

I agree i have had some issues with the new drivers (restart BSODs mostly, and corrupted installations, but i dont recall ever messing with drivers and NOT having any issues) , but i bought a card that delivered 5800 marks on 3dmark and is now delivering 6610 marks (all on stock clocks, OC it goes way over 7500). I bought it knowing it could show some issues in games, but so far havent detected any really annoying unexpected issue.
I play witcher 2, skyrim, borderlands 2, NFS, Diablo III and crysis 2, and have NO PROBLEMS at all with any of them, all maxed out.
I even had a friend home a couple of weeks ago who commented (played many games for about 4 hours in my laptop), that it ran smoother and looked nicer (in my 50 plasma TV) than his own PS3....

So to summarize my experience:
1) I am completely aware of my 7970M current power and future potential (wich makes me very happy).
2) I have learned and keep learning a lot of computers, video cards, processors and what not, thanks to these forum mostly.
3) I work and play with my laptop and feel happy i purchased it every day.
4) I am aware of some issues (mostly some multiplayer games and some new games) with games, but dont think thats at all odd, i have been around gaming world for over 30 years and games and drivers almost never work flawlessly from day one. I can even say that nowadays many game developers are cutting costs and avoiding piracy by releasing flawed and buggy games and then patching them periodically to improve them, using us gamers as paying beta testers, and leaving early pirates at a loss because they cant keep up with the updates.
5) Dont forget all BSOD drivers are beta drivers, and therefore you use them at your own risk, IMHO its exciting to mess around with betas, but thats just me.

So, we can all agree to disagree, but IMHO 7970M is one of the best cards i have ever experienced, and for its price its ridiculous.
Those of you that want 0 problems go ahead and pay a lot for the 680M and STILL get issues with some games... garanteed

all that said i WAS VERY happy with my card with 12.8 drivers, and are even happier with my card with 12.11 beta 11 (and the previous).

A card wich can only make you "happier" than before its a great card IMHO. Its really exciting to wait to see how much better it can get.

You go ahead and pay the BIG extra for the 680M, you will get what you want (a stable and "boring" card), and dont look back, its like you come back to post here just to justify yourselves.

NO PAIN, NO GAIN.

 

The 7970m was, and is, by no means a cheap card (especially if you are also familiar with desktop cards). While it was more than 200€ cheaper than the 680m, it was still around 500€ (a price for which I bought a 580 gtx almost 2 years ago).

 

Well then there is no disappointing you I guess. For most people that's a total deal breaker.

Anyway back to the OP's complaint, yep, I totally agree, the 7970M has been nothing but a PITA. and I'm one of the unfortunate ones as I only deal with a few 3D games/apps and all of them have no performance with Enduro.
Wish I had gotten a 670m or 675m originally, and now would upgrade to 680m. Would have saved $200+ and many hours of dealing with the AMD bullcrap.

 

No... Just no. The PS3 renders images of most games in 720p 30FPS, and you are glad your Notebook surpasses the IQ?
It damn better should, would be bloody sad if not.
The games you play are out for a good while. Just hope if you ever try to play a game at launch that it won't give you under utilization.
Also, Whql gave me numerous BSODs too, back when Bf3 came out & I had my 6970Ms.

 

Yep...

There will always be a potential for issues with PC gaming, it's the nature of the beast. However, the fact that we're still having these conversations regarding the 7970m and enduro many, many months after its release is very telling. The 680m hasn't had the same type or frequency of complaints.

Also, the 680m is, what, $250-$300 more than the 7970m? Honestly speaking, that's not anywhere near a "BIG" amount extra for a functioning card. And if you think dealing with the enduro issues is exciting, then you're a wild man! I'll take a "boring" card so I have time to game and actually do other truly exciting things My idea of a good time is not fixing computer problems.

We're not justifying anything (not any more than the the 7970m supporters, such as yourself). Again, the fact that there are still issues associated with the 7970m and we're still having these conversations is telling. Some people will choose to deal with the problems, and for those that won't there is the 680m (for a price, of course).

 

I haven't had a terrible experience by any stretch. Most of the games I play never fell ill to the Enduro issue, so I simply count myself as fortunate there.

My only real complaint is the relatively poor performance in Minecraft, which I find completely baffling.

Far Cry 3's lighting is kind of a bummer, but every card I've ever owned has had some graphical issue at one point or another until a suitable driver fix was released. Hopefully FC3 will be fixed in the next update.

I would buy the 7970M again because I just can't justify putting the extra money into a mobile GPU at this point. This is very subjective, of course.

Boy, what a useful review

 

I agree with this statement 110%. I have a family, I have a very busy career as a professional consultant in which my laptop is my tool. Do you think I have any time or desire to troubleshoot these issues? Absolutely not I pay big $$$ for a system, and I want it to work PERIOD. Having it work reliably is much more important than a 20% increase in performance as an example.

Some people seam to be ok with hunting for tweaks & fixes to all these problems. Something that perplexes me, because the only reasoning for this behavior that makes sense is that they enjoy it. Otherwise your much better off going to work for a day or two to earn the extra $300 for the Nvidia card, other than spending countless hours reading forums, applying patches, reinstaling OS, etc.

There is just no way I would ever buy another AMD/ATI product........ My experience with 7970m has been soo awful, they have pushed me right into Nvidia's arms.

 

Hi,

I just want to add my two cents to this topic.

I purchsed a Clevo P170EM with 7970m around a month ago.

Initially I went with the beta drivers, and I did have BSOD's and lockups . I tried the performance driver, and while it gave me excellent performance, I had the black screen issue.

I then downloaded the stock drivers from Clevo and I have had zero problems since.

I have been playing Battlefield 3 , Witcher 2 , Deus Ex Human Revolution , Skyrim and Arma 2 and Max Payne 3 on Max settings without any issues.

For me, this was my first gaming laptop, and the price difference between a 7970M and a 680M was too big to consider($400) .

So far, I am happy with my purchase. Hopefully the official drivers, will fix the reamaining issues.

 

p170em owner here w/ 7970m..... 0 issues across the board. happy I am.

 

Other than the under-utilization issues that everyone knows about before AMD started releasing drivers, I've had no problems with my 7970m. I think I've blue-screened once, and that was from trying to overclock when the card wasn't active. (Big duh on my part.) I still don't understand comparing the 7970m to the 680m though; it's obvious Nvidia has much more mature (and probably much more stable) drivers than AMD. IMO it's kind of silly to compare relatively new Enduro to Optimus which has been out for a few generations of cards. On the other hand, that doesn't excuse AMD for having relatively poor driver support either.

I've gone from a Radeon 4570m in my old laptop to a desktop with a Radeon 5770 and finally to my 7970m that I have today, and I have to say that now, especially with the new beta/performance drivers, this card wipes the floor with any card I've ever owned. Maybe in another year or so I'll see what my NP9170 can support as far GPUs go... if AMD still has issues I'll probably defect to team green. If they do clean up their act, however, it's hard to pass on the price/performance you get with AMD.

 

Based on previous experiences with mobile GPUs, the customer should expect a GPU that is properly supported through drivers. We should not be getting BSODs, freezes, black screens, lighting issues, or very uncharacteristic performance in many games. We paid money just like we did 5 years ago for our GPUs, and now the user experience for the money is suddenly lowered from previous generations and that is "ok"? Our money is devalued when the customer base shows support to AMD for a GPU that still has improper drivers after 8 months. That is why it is tough for me to recommend the 7970M, but I still do it because the performance is still there for many games. That does not let the 7000M series off the hook, however.

If you want to show appreciation through your money for a product that is properly supported, then buy either AMD+Alienware or Nvidia+anything. Buying the 7970M with a Clevo EM may be great, but when you do it, you acknowledge that you are supporting AMD and their course of actions. They are currently doing their best to solve all of these issues, so give them some credit.

 

Nvidia's First generation with Optimus used Mux's like the ATi's in Alienwares at the moment. I'm suprised Clevo didn't expect this and do the same thing. I mean the Mux's bought nvidia a year or so to get out better drivers for optimus. I think its more of a fail on Clevo to not add the Mux's while ATi cleaned up the act.

 

What did AMD do during this time? I'm pretty sure Clevo thought they were getting a fully functioning component. Of course I would have liked them to add the mux but if AMD led them to believe their card was working fine, there was really no reason to suspect otherwise (and Optimus was working at this point). AMD must have known about the problems of Enduro, I can't think of a reason they wouldn't have. If Clevo knew about the problems as well, shame on them too.

 

Well the fact that dell knew to add the Mux's would lead me to believe that AMD warned someone.