**OFFICIAL W860CU/NP8690 Owners Lounge**

Is there any FPS gain with overclocking the 920xm in games such as BC2 and Civ V? If anyone wants to do some test I would appreciate it

Here are some tests of cpu scaling on a desktop 920 for those games.
Civ V:
Civilization V GPU & CPU Performance In-depth > CPU Scaling - Core i7 9xx - TechSpot Reviews

BC2:
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 GPU Performance In-depth > CPU Scaling – Core i7 9xx - TechSpot Reviews

Wondering if there is anything to gain in games such as these by upgrading.

 

Any news of the 6970 upgrade?

 

I am also dying to see how this works out

 

I dont think the cpu is the bottleneck with an 920xm but the gpu is definatly a bottleneck altho im still happy with my ati hd 5870 I will probably upgrade to the 6970M if it works well in this laptop.

I have changed my 1 core turbo to 3.4ghz my 2 core turbo also at 3.4ghz and my 3 core turbo is at 2.6ghz and 4 cores is at default 2.1 and for gaming this is pretty save I guess because the temps dont too go high. And in a laptop you cant overclock much any way so you maybe get a 10% increase in speed if the gpu isnt the bottleneck.

 

@ALL

Guyz, finally W860CU with AMD 6970M work like charm!!. Ill post some benchies and actual pictures later, I really love this beast!. now time for work

 

yess... please if you could post a guide on how you put it in, what psu you used, any coolers needed, and bios support. Thanks and great job

 

HEATSINK? old heatsink(Gtx 280m/5870m) will fit.. all you need to do is put thermal pads around memory, be sure no ram chips touches the heatsink. BIOS? I am using 1.18s(latest bios from sager). PSU? i used 180W P150hm psu, its more enough even you overclock both cpu/gpu. COOLER? i think no need for cooler 6790m idling @ 48c. which i think its fine.

 

Awesome news!!! Do you have the motherboard with USB 3.0 or the older revision without it?

 

I have one oldest mobo, without USB 3.0.. I can't believe it will worked!!!

 

the only thing matter of this upgrade is i can no longer used my 3d vision setup.. but AMD working for this, hoping i can used my 3d kit with moded driver LOL!! oohh what am i saying??

 

cool because that's what motherboard I have.

 

Congratulations kingkong! I was wondering about that heatsink, but it seems to have worked out for you
Looking forward to pictures and perhaps benches?

If you have the 120W PSU, and you'd be willing to, I would greatly appreciate if you could try this PSU with the processor set at 720qm speeds to see if the 120W PSU delivers enough power.

In throttlestop thses would be the settings to "transform" your beast 920xm into a 720qm:
TDP: 45
TDC: 37
The TRL is: 21/18/13/13

Enjoy your awesome rig

 

^^ totally agree. For those of us that only have the 120w PSU and don't got no money it would be great to see if the smaller PSU would work.

 

@

Thanks Bro!! Using my 120w PSU it throttles obviously.. 55w cpu + 75-100w gpu + lcd + etc, my psu really get hot not laptop itself coz it maxed out 80-85degC which is tolerable for gaming laptop.. 120w is fine if you are just browsing, watching videos and playing PLANTS & ZOMBIES..lol

If you are using 720QM, 120W is fine even you equipped with 6970m, but of course overclocking is a different story, 6970m is overkill WEI@ 7.6!! so no need to overclock. i used to overclock for benchmarking only.

Here are some photos, if i have time i'll try to disassemble my laptop to show you guys how i installed 6970m in our machine.

 

Sweet! Did you try the 120w with 720qm clocks/volts @ load?

 

yes I tried 21/18/13/13 @ 120W PSU it is working fine!! playing an hour of dirt 3, witcher 2 no shutdown issues/bsod! but with stock 920xm(using 120W PSU)i never got shutdown/bsod my temp maxed out at 80-82dC but psu temp go crazy! i cant even handle with my bare hand, im afraid my PSU push to its limit(fried) so i'll stick with my 180W PSU.

If you are using 720QM, 120W is fine.

 

Wow! That is great news! Thanks a lot, + rep for you

 

kingkong8
How come your GPU says only 480 unified shaders in the HWinfo32 system summary? Mine says with hd 5870 800 unified shaders. Or is that because you have an older version of hwinfo?

And do you think that the hd6970m wil also work on the ati 5870 heatsink?
Because I could use some more gpu speed

 

Well done!! I noticed you have the 17 inch version, I wonder if it would make a difference for the 15 inch.

Also could you provide details re what you ordered to eurocom? That would help me to get a quote form them.

Cheers,
M

 

meh, too much for me at the moment;

"Thank you for your enquiry. Your current heatsink would have to be modified to work with the HD6970. The cost of the HD6970 is $420.00 and with this I would include the heatsink for your W860CU."

maybe the price drops later....

 

420 dollar isnt too bad, in holland from mxm-upgrades it costs 450 euro's and thats a bit too much for me lol

 

hahah, lol that's why I fled from the socialistic states of the netherlands 13 years ago. now australian and living in Canada for a while....

 

will it be alright if I can install a 940xm and a hd 6970m in the old motherboard (2009) ?

 

^^ not unless you get a bigger PSU (180 watt). If you are using the 120W that came with the laptop it will not work.

 

i'll be needing the 8150 psu 180W right? what about the motherboard? usb 3.0? or no

 

The motherboard without USB 3.0 is what KingKong8 installed it on, but it will work on either motherboard revision. Yes you will need the 180w from the 8150. You should be able to purchase one from any re-sellers on this forum.

 

^ Can you still use the heatsink from the 5870 or you need a different heatsink?

 

yes the 5870 heatsink is a perfect fit (from what I've read anyway...and I've read quite a bit about the install).

 

Hmm I saw the hd 6970m on ebay for around 350 euro's including shipping, thats getting quite interesting, altho its still alot for a gpu alone...

ATI HD 6970 ( 2048MB RAM ) Notebook Grafikkarte MMX3 | eBay

 

whats the cuda equivalent for hd 6970?
how much does it have? in terms of cuda equivalent

 

The cuda equivalent for hd 6970?
Ehm.. what do you mean?

This is an AMD GPU and AMD does not have cuda...
If you mean what the nvidia equivalent is well thats the gtx 480m or gtx 485 wich dont work in the clevo, the closest one is gtx 470m.
Possible also the new GTX 570m.

 

^oh i meant like I think its called firestream or something? maybe thats only on the desktop cards. i tried googling and it says the 6970 has 960 million stream processor units. I know the 470m has 288 cuda cores. So thats why I wanted to know if theres an equivalent for ati cards, and how much does the 6970m really have. I was kinda interested in cad work or something, didnt feel comfortable about soft modding any gpu

 

Well there are quadro cards for cad that work in this laptop but they are not cheap. The Quadro® FX 2800M should work. Its pretty old tho but should work faster in cad programs then any geforce or ati.. it has 96 cuda cores/streaming cores running at 600MHz.

The ati quadro equivalent is ati mobility firegl and mobility firepro, im not sure if any of these will work.

 

hey guys i need opinions , should i upgrade from gtx 460m to HD 6970m for upcoming Battlefield 3? i want to play the game well in High setting but not max

 

Woudnt it be cheaper to just overclock your 460gtx? I dont know how far it can go but I think you could get a 15% speed increase.
Ive read that people managed to get 800+mhz on the GTX 460m memory and shaders can also go higher.

 

ok. what if ati or sager releases driver upgrades and what would happen if its not compatible?

 

I have no idea, my ati accepts the normal amd drivers from amd.com and I havent had an nvidia in my clevo so I dont know

 

yea thats the issue. Its funny I usually trust the drivers from ati or nvidia rather than sager or clevo because they directly update the card. I havent even upgraded my original bios(2009) from sager! one wrong video driver who knows what will happen. Its fully supported in the 8150, and now we know it works in the 860cu but the question is how long it will stay supported due to driver support for the 860cu. This is the only issue so far thats holding me back from buying it.

guess I'll wait for ivy bridge for a new comp

 

double post

 

If you install a wrong video driver:

A: It wont even install.
B: You can boot into save mode and remove it.

And amd has still support for the HD 2series wich is 4 years old already so.. i think the support is quite good. (same goes for Nvidia / Geforce)

 

hmmm. gives me a little assurance. i can only imagine what the battery life would be with a 940 xm and a 6970. probably non existent like 15 min?

 

Well my battery life is 60+ mins with my hd 5870 clocked down to 300mhz core and mem and 0.5v instead of 1.05. The 920xm runs then at 1.2ghz by using throttlestop.

So i guess with 940xm and 6970 its about the same and i think the 6970 is even better at idle usage.

 

good for you.. mine doesn't long 30 minutes even in browsing

 

Have you tried to change to voltage by altering the bios? perhaps that would help. And how many wh has your battery left? mine is at 33.267 (was 42wh when i bought it half a year ago )

 

never tried editing voltage and altering the bios. Actually i didn't use my battery anymore due to balloon issue, i am using direct source from my 180W psu.

Have you been ordered 6970m?

 

No I havent ordered 6970m, I will either wait for the price to drop or for the amd 7 series wich are made on 28nm and use much less energy . (or ultil I buy a new laptop )

 

I was about to take the plunge and the 6990m hub-bub hit. Now I'm waiting to see what the pricing and heat characteristics of the new card end up being. Though, the pricing on the 6970 is mighty tempting.

The 7 series might be a bigger problem to put into the w860, new architecture and layout might not work as nicely. Physically, the 6970 is nearly identical to the 5870 and so, the heatsinks are a direct fit.

 

my 860cu 120 w adapter is getting reaallly hot. dont have an exact temp maybe 30-32 c? but is this normal?

can you suggest some great cooling options too?

 

Yep. It's okay, maybe keep it on a solid surface rather than carpet fpr best results. Mine used to before I went to the 180 watt (for the 8150), new one doesn't really break a sweat on this laptop.

 

funny you say that its actually on carpet, would you suggest to place the adapter on a cooling pad or something? Another thing is on the back of the laptop it says "for use with 120 w adapter" only, so how can the 180w adapter for the 8150 work on the 860cu?