Is the Clevo-91x0-7970M-Enduro issue hardware constrained and hopeless?

I'm nearly a total newbie, and haven't purchased a new laptop since WinXP. After doing some reading, I purchased a 9170 with 7970m from Xotic. It took awhile (1.5 months), but its finally on its way. Since then, from what I've been reading, there has been some cause for concern.

Forgive the newbie question, but as I understand it, Clevo 91x0 laptops with AMD's 7970m installed are kind of nerfed in that the GPU seems to be underutilized (and running kind of hot) in lots of situations. From what i'm reading, it's because Enduro is active even when the user doesn't want it to be, regardless of CCC assignments specifying Enduro to be off for specific games, or regardless of power situation, plugged-in or using batteries.

If I understand this correctly, many attribute this to Enduro being new(er than Optimus) and hence, a little stupid as to when it concludes it should be active. Some power laptops, like Alienware, were designed to allow a hardware switch to simply disable Enduro (through the Mux(?)), but that Clevo's hardware makes this impossible, meaning Clevo owners are at the whim of Clevo and/or AMD to update the drivers to allow Enduro to be turned off (or at least to be made a little less dumb).

But as I understand it, neither Clevo nor AMD has been very quick to update stable drivers historically speaking, so it might be a LONG LONG TIME before Enduro, and hence Clevo7970m's, to get de-nerfed. Some of this skepticism directed towards Clevo is at least partially attributed to Clevo's NEW Bios, which, as I'm reading, are NOT NEARLY AS OPEN as they used to be, further frustrating any efforts for users to find a way around the handcuffing of the 7979m when in a Clevo.

So, for the forum out there:

(1) Is my summary even true? If not in detail, then in the point that, no matter what, Clevo7970m laptops are wearing Enduro handcuffs for the indefinite future and possibly forever, due to hardware design coupled with difficulty in absorbing stock AMD updated drivers, if they ever come available to address the Enduro dethrottling?

(2) Any workarounds? I thought I read that some people were opening certain utilities (msi afterburner?), making certain settings, and thereby bypassing Enduro. Is that right?

Thanks for any dumbed down advice or outright corrections. I'm still excited about the laptop (due tomorrow!), but more than a little nervous that I spent this much on an underperformed... And haven't even turned it on yet!

Thanks!

 

Been running my 7970m for about a month now, and I honestly don't see the same issues people on here are talking about

Using MSI Afterburner to log my games (BF3, Mass effect 1-3, Sniper V2, Need for speed the run, Crysis 2, Deus X, and Skyrim) there have been almost none that I've had running below 99% GPU

In the very rare chance you have one doing it, all you have to do is start Kombustor in the background (Not run it, just let it Idle) and the solution will be fixed.

As I am extremely knowledgeable in building and tweaking systems, I've found this one doesn't really need a lot of work to operate how you want it to. In fact It was running just find out of the box (Albeit I did repaste my GPU/CPU with Prolimatech) And is now running stable overclocked at 1000/1600 and giving me some wondering benchmarks and FPS in games.

Don't stress it too much, it really works fine now, and we will eventually see an enduro workaround that will free up the extra 2-3 FPS lost.

 

pardon my scepticism, but i find it really hard to believe you are getting constant 99% gpu utilization when everyone else isnt. i've tried every single driver, with 4 complete windows re-installs, etc - the result is always the same. could you take a screenshot of your msi afterburner graph when say you're playing first SP map in crysis 2 (the one where propher gives you the suit).

 

I HOPE what killerrobotjews is saying is true (please please please back it up as per arcticjoe's request!).

But it's this EXACT type of message exchange between killerrobotjews and arcticjoe that makes me skittish.

 

I haven't done a ton of testing on mine as I got hooked on Terraria and thus spent time playing a game that my damn calculator is probably enough to do. However in my testing I was able to get the GPU to hit 99% in BF3. I didn't play much, just fired up MP on Metro real quick, but it did max out the GPU.

I doubt it'll be 99% all the time, as I don't get that on my desktop either, which has a GTX 680 and a 2600k. Some things just don't max out your GPU depending on settings because they are inefficient at using resources one way or another.

In terms of Enduro being always active, yes that's the case because the only video output is via the Intel chip. Everything gets directed though that. On Alienware laptops there's actually a physical connection that the BIOS can flip to connect the video to the AMD chip and bypass all that, which is why it takes a BIOS chance and a reboot.

However that doesn't mean it ignores your settings and doesn't use the AMD card or anything. It does, you just tell it what to use. You can tell simply by the fact that the fan on the AMD card doesn't turn on unless it is in use.

 

guys it will get fixed...the same thing happened when optimus first came out.

 

SlickDude,

Thanks for the words of encouragment!

But with Optimus, weren't the problems universal, regardless of manufacturerer?

So wasn't there a TON of pressure on Intel to fix Optimus?

Yet with Enduro, while problems exist, they're much more severe on Sager/Clevo manufactured laptops than the vast majority of alternatively manufactured laptops, so there won't be nearly as much pressure on AMD to fix issues that, while they affect EVERYBODY with 7970m's, DISPROPORTIONATELY affect Sager/Clevo's more.

If I understand correctly, which by no means is a given.

 

Rick, I'm in the same boat as you. I just ordered my Sager yesterday, and I took a leap of faith because I didn't want to spend $300 more for the 680M. I wouldn't call myself a hardcore gamer and I don't do any benchmarking, so hopefully I will be ok, but I'm still a bit nervous about the GPU heat issues. I hope AMD releases new drivers to fix this soon enough...I am holding out hope that they will!

 

i can get mine to hit 99% every now and then as well, however certain rendering elements (not sure what they might be, sometimes I am in the same scene with no real changes in geometry or effects but utilization will drop from 99% to 60%, and so will the fps) can quickly drop my utilization to well bellow 70%. This did not happen with my 6970m or my GTX 480.
Could you test a different map in MP BF3? Its important to know whether this issue affects everyone or if there are variations between seemingly identical hardware.

 

well...just to be fair, I think enduro issues are universal...however, other laptop manufacturers either give you the ability to bypass the integrated graphics all together or many laptops with 7970's don't support integrated graphics so there are no enduro issues.

For example, in my Alienware, i have shut off integrated graphics in the bios. So i'm running on the 7970m all the time and performance is slightly better than on enduro enabled machines.

Clevo HM's don't support integrated (correct?) so those machines won't slow down either...same with the few MSI's i've seen upgraded to 7970m

So dont get discouraged. When optimus first came out, it was a mess too. Computers with optimus enabled were slightly slower than without optimus. Nvidia has really improved things on this front, but optimus was introduced in Feb 2010, so there have been many driver revisions and improvements since.

Enduro is brand new...give it a few driver revisions and you will see improvements

 

Okay, just got my 9170 with 7970m...
... and I'M A BELIEVER!

THANKS XOTIC PC!

This thing is SWEET!

I'm not going to fart around with the drivers. Xotic got it to me running beautifully, and I'll just wait for new drivers to show up on Sager's website before I touch them. Not interested in being a tester at this point (but appreciate those willing to take one for the team)!

Anyway, thanks for talking me down off the ledge!

Great laptop. Card if FINE, and will get better!

 

A belated congrats!

 

I don't have the 7970, and correct me if I am wrong, but even those with the issues, doesn't the card blow away the previous gen from either manufacturer? My understanding is that it is much faster, just sometimes doesn't give ( due to Enduro) the expected performance consistently. But, and again, correct me if wrong, isn't it far and away faster than anything before it?

 

that depends, in some situations my 6970m gave me higher / more stable fps (due to enduro issue), though for the most part it is faster.

 

It really depends on the games you play. But I would say on average if you played 10 random games on your 7970m, 8 of them would run at max/ultra settings perfectly, 1 might have some minor problems, and the other 1 will annoy you with inconsistent framerates.

When this card works correctly, it is very impressive.

 

Okay. Well, right now, I'm trying to play Pirates Of The Caribbean. An older game, but that has new life breathed into it by the mod community such that it's pretty flipping fun if you're into pirates and sailing ships.

The thing of it, though, is that it uses an engine for 3d ships called "ENGINE.exe". And ENGINE.exe DOES NOT LIKE INTEL GRAPHICS. The game supposedly runs GREAT on other graphics cards, but choppy, buggy, crashy, with Intel.

So, theoretically, via the CCC, I should be able to, on pulldown menu, select the 7970 as the active graphics card instead of the Intel...
... but I don't see that option.

In fact, I've opened the CCC multiple times and have YET to see for piece of software, the option of running just the 7970 as the graphics card.

That's the ENDURO problem at work, right? Or is this another issue altogether?

Any ideas as to how I can just tell my Sager to just use the 7970 when I place this fricking old 2002 game? It's just so ironic that I have this old game and a graphics card that can run it without breaking a sweat. But it has to use INTEL, which the game engine just doesn't run stable on.

Pisses me off that I paid $2k for this.

 

Under 'switchable graphics' in the CCC set the .exe that is giving you grief to high performance. Also don't fiddle around with the Poweplay settings in CCC as it seems to be buggy and switches to the Intel card despite when being set to high performance.

 

Yeah, did all that. Here's the thing: Pirates Of The Caribbean has a clunky workaround for Intel graphics. They have this utility called SwiftShader, that one installs in the game's directory. Problem is it is VERY KLUDGY, and the game crawls, and crashes frequently. But at least the game STARTS UP, which, without SwiftShader, it will not do at all on Intel graphics.

So, when I do all that you recommend (and I have done it), and uninstall SwiftShader, Pirates Of The Caribbean will not load up, and crashes to desktop, implying that the CCC is STILL USING INTEL INSTEAD OF THE RADEON. This is with Powerplay disabled and ENGINE.exe set to high performance, just to be crystal clear.

So even with those settings, in order to play this game, I have to use SwiftShader, which plays like , because this fricking Sager/Clevo/Xotic laptop with a state-of-the-art CPU and graphics card can't simply USE the graphics card on a 2002 game, though the same card in ANYONE ELSE'S fricking laptop CAN.

I'll give it until Wednesday next week, then I'm calling either Xotic or Sager for a swapout on my 7970. I work too hard and paid too much money to be a test platform.

 

I've found that I need to specify power saving for on battery and high performance for plugged in in the powerplay tab lest I get buggy performance and it switches back to the Intel card when playing a game. This is just me though, try turning powerplay back on and switching it back to this default setting and see if it fixes it. Other than that there's nothing I can suggest I'm afraid .