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AMD 7970m - modified VBIOS


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svl7, your vbios mods are a god send, i was having trouble overclocking my 7970m, 900/1300 was the best i could get with the stock vbios, i used Dell7970m-900-1300-ov1075v.ROM and just for fun i turned up the clocks to 1000/1500 and ran 3dmark 11 basic, and was surprised that it even loaded lol, it would crash or BSOD on me with stock voltages, this is the score i got from 3dmark, AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3820QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P6745 3DMarks , i really think that the small amount of added power is what this card needed to hit those marks, thanks for all your hard work, i dont think ill be testing any of the other vbios files because im pretty happy with my current setup, ov1075v for the win lol

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Hi lilkuz2005, welcome to T|I! Thank you for the feedback, great to hear that you like it and that it works!

So I am good to go to put one of these bioses on a Dell OEM card then?

EDIT: NVM just saw you say they are OEM bioses that are edited. Cool. I look forward to seeing what my card will do.

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Sure, and feel free to modify the vbios yourself with our new vbios patcher ;)
chmod1337, geischtli and svl7 - thank you for the vBIOS patcher. I tried it and it works awesomely. A donation has been sent for your work. I hope others follow suit in rewarding your generosity and labor.

I still have not dialed in the 7970M CF yet. It seems each benchmark can handle a different overclock. Vantage will handle a higher (1GHz) GPU overclock on my system than 3DMark11 does (about 950Mhz on core). For several days it seemed 950/1400 at 1.1v was perfect for everything, but now 3DMark11 decided it does not like that any more. Not sure what changed.

Question: do you know what causes the black screen with overclocking on AMD cards? It is too high core, memory or voltage? Or any one of the above?

Oddly, I can run Furmark at just about any overclock without issue. I just ran it with 1000/1300 with no artifacts, black screen... smooth as silk. Temps are cool, but don't know what I should back down on to avoid the black screen with other benchmarks and games?

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Hey Mr. Fox, thank you very much, really appreciated!!

Regarding the black screens I can only guess, it never happened to me. Oddly all I experienced during overclocking were driver crashes... the screen froze and after a while it recovered. For a black screen my guess would be a power draw / voltage issue, it happened a lot when I benched 6900m series cards in my M15x. Usually a too high core or memory clock does not result in a black screen, at least not as long as the clocks are more or less sane.

Maybe try lowering the voltage to 1.075V, I can imagine that the cards can handle 950MHz at this voltage, though you may have already tried this.

Could also be a CF issue, when it comes to dual card systems I have pretty much no experience.

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@Mr. Fox

How hard was it to purchase the cards from Dell ? Was it expensive ?

It's hard to judge difficulty because the experience between reps is so inconsistent. Some say no, and some are either misinformed or liars. Some say it will void the warranty (which it does not). It's easiest to get the upgrade going through a Tech Support rep, especially if the rep is above Level 1 Tech Support. As previously mentioned, the price is just over $500 per GPU. All the parts (heat sinks and CrossFire bridge) will run close to $1200. The 6990M heat sinks will work, but the new heat sinks for the M18x R2 with 7970M are beefier than those designed for 6990M. I have the R2 heat sinks. Also, try to get an Ivy Bridge XM 3-pipe heat sink. They are like $38 and worth every penny. Edited by Guest
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At stock voltages it's a dream. Bump it up slightly and boom during the most stressful part of vantage it will trip.

I tried going up to 1.1v and it tripped a bit earlier.

Might see what 1.025v does.

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Also, try to get an Ivy Bridge XM 3-pipe heat sink. They are like $38 and worth every penny.

Are they beefier than the upgraded heatsink for the XM CPUs in the M18X R1? The more I read the better the R2 sounds.

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Hey Mr. Fox, thank you very much, really appreciated!!

Regarding the black screens I can only guess, it never happened to me. Oddly all I experienced during overclocking were driver crashes... the screen froze and after a while it recovered. For a black screen my guess would be a power draw / voltage issue, it happened a lot when I benched 6900m series cards in my M15x. Usually a too high core or memory clock does not result in a black screen, at least not as long as the clocks are more or less sane.

Maybe try lowering the voltage to 1.075V, I can imagine that the cards can handle 950MHz at this voltage, though you may have already tried this.

Could also be a CF issue, when it comes to dual card systems I have pretty much no experience.

It seems 1.075v is the sweet spot. Marc suggested the same thing and the results are more consistent. I just achieved the highest 3DMark11 run that I ever have before, without any AC cooling.
Are they beefier than the upgraded heatsink for the XM CPUs in the M18X R1? The more I read the better the R2 sounds.
Yes, most definitely. I had a 3-pipe heat sink from a prototype M18x R1 that was pretty sweet. The 3-pipe heat sink for the M18x R2 with XM CPU looks identical. Have a look at the temps in the 3DMark11 screen shot below. (The Vantage run was with AC cooling, so ignore that one.)

3DMark11:

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P11421 3DMarks

p11421.jpg

Vantage: AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: P37870 3DMarks

p37870.jpg

3DMark06: AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2920XM Processor,Alienware M18xR1 score: 33117 3DMarks

3dmark0633117.jpg

Edited by Guest
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It's a balancing act. I dropped gaming clocks to 925/1250 with no more freezing or black screen issues on stock 1.05v.

On 1.075v I can bench at room temp the following. 1050core stock vram or under. 1660+vram with stock core. Combined I get a nice score at 995core 1560memory on 1.075v as mentioned. For some reason afternburner for feeling out overclocks can lock vram max at 1560 and othertimes not sure must be config file... It can show 1700vram as max.

The vram modules used are rated at 1250mhz and GDDR5 has error correction but clocking to high will lower score as more time is spent resending textures etc.

Using Vbios Patcher I've found 2D can be downclocked to 100/100 on 800mv without flickering on desktop... At 750mv and 775mv desktop shows artifacts for a few seconds at windows desktop load then disappears. So I've used 100/100 for now at 800mv with no issues. Figure it will keep the cards even cooler at idle.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I know, atiflash doesn't seem to work in the current Clevo systems, else I would have posted modified versions for the Clevo card as well.

I think it's not a card issue, but an issue with the Clevo system. I have a copy of the Clevo vbios, but unfortunately you can't flash it... Maybe try contacting your seller and ask them what's up with that. There must be a way to flash the vbios...

And welcome to T|I!

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I can't tell you for sure, from what I've seen so far it works. Ichime got eurocom cards running with the Dell vbios, though there are issues with the cards in his system.

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Oh I do apologise, I thought it was well known. I recently got my 7970m and installed it and now when I boot using the 7970m the screen even though its set to max brightness is much more dim than it should be. When I boot using the IGD then the screen works as it should.

I have tried using multiple drivers, multiple settings in my bios (enabling IGD with sg/peg) and tried using hwinfo as some people have found fixes with these methods.

The one breakthrough i have had is that when i get the grey lines after clocking too high i managed to get back to desktop without a reboot and the brightness was at its fullest. but when i used fn+5 to go down then try to go back up it was back to being dim. I have now found if i close my lid and send the computer to sleep then wake it the screen is also working at the correct brightness... so this must mean its a bios or driver related issue???

I was just wondering what your input is...

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