Sager NP8120(X8100) Owner, looking to upgrade to a 7970M.

I currently own a NP8120 with dual 5870's in CrossFire. However, recently the 2nd GPU seems to show up as Unknown under the BIOS screen. I have swapped the cards around to check the 2nd GPU and the secondary GPU slot. Putting GPU2 into the master slot, gives a black screen, so I assume I'm correct to say that the card is dying/dead.

Now I have found a couple replacements from eBay for a 5870M. But with the 7970M being so much better, it looks like I would get a 60% increase swapping dual 5870M's to a single 7970M. I'm curious if this would be possible for the Sager NP8120, or if I would run into any major issues. If it is possible, what all would I possibly have to do to make sure it works (other than drivers ofcourse). I'm assuming BIOS updates but I've never flashed BIOS before, and the BIOS my laptop shows is the same version as what sagernotebook has on their site.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

I'm not sure if you're able to with that Sager model... I think the 7970m has a different MXM slot. Wait for somebody else to clarify though.

 

As far as slot goes, they're both MXM 3.0b, so actually fitting in I'm not worried about. From the specifications I've found their both the same width and length. Already been browsing around the forums and finding that many are saying the 7970M doesnt run as much voltage as specified. With all of that combined, I'm being very hopeful that this upgrade would work, especially with GW2 coming out. It ran pretty decent on medium-high settings for my dual 5870's, I'm very excited at the thought of running it with a 7970M.

 

Ah nice one. Yeah I'd say go for it but I own a p150em with 7970m and the issues it's having with Enduro at the moment are killing its potential performance. You'd be better off going for Nvidia's GTX 680m I reckon.

 

Enduro is a non issue for older laptops as there is no means to run integrated. It should run at maximum performance in that regard.

 

Lol yeah, totally didn't occur to me! In that case go for it

 

Yeah, I just came across the 7970M Survey and alot of people were complaining (and rightfully so from what I understand) about the Enduro, and someone else had mentioned they had an older laptop, so Enduro didnt effect them, and they had no issues. My only actual concern is about BIOS, and I've even seen the term VBIOS as well. I've never messed with BIOS as I'm worried about bricking the laptop itself, and if that happened I would cry. If I were to update to a 7970M would I need to do anything about the BIOS or VBIOS or anything else for that matter?

If not and all I would have to do is install the new card, some thermal paste, and the drivers, I'll go order one of those beast off eBay in a heartbeat. :O

 

well i presume ud need to flash ur new gpu with a modded vbios in order to shut off the integrated enduro functionality. with the stock vbios the screen would potentially stay black cuz the gpu wouldnt be able to detect an iGPU. i would ask mythlogic for example if they have tried the 7970m in that machine yet!
aside from that, 7970m utilization in older machines like the clevo hm series are a total non-issue and the amd gpu runs like a charm with cool temps and good OCing capability (check my sig! )

cheers

ps: what kinda chipset does that laptop have?

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

It worked inside a W860CU.. it should work in the X8100 with some configurations to begin with though.

 

oh nice was it confirmed in the w860cu??? thats so awesome! lets see if the hm series can take another upgrade haha

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Not really confirmed, found this bloke at some Asian forum, didn't understand what he did, but it somewhat worked..
Wouldn't recommend it though, he had weird crashes from time to time -.-'

 

Hey Katsuragi,

Have you upgraded to the 7970M yet? Any reviews? My cousin has a X8100 he'd like to upgrade as well. His currently GFX card would be the 470M. Looking to upgrade any card from Nvidia 650m - 675m or 7970m is fine for him. Would all of the aforementioned cards fit? Any necessary steps to make it work?
Any advice would be great!

 

I did not upgrade to the 7970. I contacted upgradeyourlaptop through eBay, as well as emailing sagernotebook.com. Upgrade yourlaptop suggested the 6990M, as they had not tried a 7970M and the 6970M/6990M has been proven to work through their Leopard 2.0 line. Sagernotebook.com also said the 7970M would not work, but I had already gone with the 6970M upgrade (didnt feel an extra $100/per card was worth it) compared to a small 10-15% increase from what I've read between the 6970M and 6990M.

So, I ordered dual 6970M's, and a 300W AC Adapter from Eurocom through upgradeyourlaptop on eBay. They definitely run a bit hotter than the 5870M's, but right now I've been running SW:TOR just to monitor temps in a gaming situation. I peaked at about 71ºC, and this is with a CrossFire set up. However, SW:TOR, I hate to say it, is highly unoptimized to tell whether it made a difference or not.

However, I would not suggest running FurMark under these cards with an X8100 line laptop. I planned to cancel furmark if I hit 90ºC. I slowed at about 86ºC, hitting 87 and going back down, until the heat made it go up to 88. When I hit 89ºC, it froze for a second, I'm assumming probably about the time it actually hit 90ºC. Windows 8 crashed at this point with the sadface smiley, and told me it was a graphics issue, as I have auto-restart on crash turned off.

I feel that from what I've seen between benchmarks on notebookcheck and PassMark, 5870M's in XFire to 6970M in XFire seems worth it. I'll find out for sure when it comes to GW2's headstart come Friday. I just suggest not trying to run a benchmark program in the process, lol. But for actually gaming, I felt 71ºC is perfectly fine. And I would love to see how they handle GW2 with the new 12.8 drivers and running the 12.7 CAP3 profiles. I'm not sure on nVidia but I know 6970M's are rated 75-100W. So anything between that for gaming I would think would be fine. I just wouldnt go for something that is constantly rated at 100W TDP. I'm not an expert, but I feel that is the best conclusion, as this is the first time I've upgraded my laptop.

 

so uve just installed a new cfx system and u havent benchmarked the crap out of it yet???? whyyyyy? thats the first thing id do in order to check and see how much faster the new config is compared to the old one!

congratz to ur upgrade btw

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Honestly, I dont think I've even done any benchmarks? :3 My first thought was heat, as the 5870M's are rated 75W TDP and the 6970M's are rated 75-100W. So my first worry was overheating. I havent done any benchmarks before but I do know the software by name as I've seen it so many times. I'll look into 3D Mark and PassMark later today.

 

Yeah the 6970Ms are definitely a nice upgrade from 5870Ms. I came from a single 460M and the 6970M is like night and day. o-o Crazy fast even at 1920x1200.