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I've got two 120gb 2.5 drives (vertex 3 + vertex 2), they cost a shit-ton more than that combined. There are smaller, cheaper versions, but they are much slower. This is effectively 4 x 60gb vertex 3 in RAID 0. A decent controller card and the four drives cost at least that much, then you've got SATA cables going everywhere. Plus I keep running out of space with 120gb. Good sense may stop me yet, but going on past evidence, that's pretty unlikely.

The AMD 6970m is an amazing card, great price performance ratio and really powerful. Only drawback I see is that there's no way to increase the voltage of the card through the VBIOS. This limits the maximum possible overclock and minimizes the benching capabilities of this card. To solve this I decided to do some modifications directly at the hardware which allow me to increase and also monitor the core voltage of the GPU How does it work? The core voltage of the GPU gets controlled by a PWM regulator made by intersil, the ISL62883C. It's a small 40 pin SMD chip, here you can see the pin configuration of it: The exact purpose of each pin is described in the datasheet which you can find at the end of this post as attachement. I won't go into details about how the chip exactly works, all that is needed for the voltage mod is Pin 12 (VSEN). This is the voltage sensing pin of the PWM controller, it monitors the current GPU voltage. As soon as the voltage drops below a certain level (e.g. because there's suddenly more load on the GPU), the chip will automatically give an additional PWM signal to bring the voltage back to the set level. So if the voltage at Pin 12 is too low, the voltage gets raised. This means if you trick the chip into thinking the current core voltage is too low (even though it isn't), it will automatically raise it (and thus overvolt the GPU). This can be achieved by slightly dropping the voltage at VSEN. The resistance between Pin 12 and ground is about 14Ω, putting a variable resistor between ground Pin 12 will allow lowering the resistance between ground an VSEN and thus lowering the voltage at VSEN. The resulting resistance is R1*R2/(R1+R2), R1=14Ω, R2 = potentiometer used for the mod. A 500Ω potentiometer will do the job, I use a 1kΩ which is fine as well. So all that's needed is: - a potentiometer between VSEN and Ground - a measuring point to monitor the GPU core voltage Here you can see the conducting path that leads away from Pin 12 (red), possible solder spots for the mod are marked with green. The parts are pretty tiny, you'll need a steady hand and a fine solder tip if you want to do this. It can be done without a magnifying glass, but it's good to have one for checking the solder joint afterwards. On the left picture you can see the cable which leads to one end of the potentiometer soldered to the card. Could be better, but it works. The other end of the potentiometer needs to be connected with ground. Since ground connection of the PWM chip isn't accessible (it's on the bottom of it) I had to look for a different possibility. I decided to go for an easy to solder spot, see the picture. This works fine, it has a big contact surface and soldering on a cable there is peanuts. Such a voltmod requires a possibility to properly monitor the GPU core voltage. You can't just adjust it without knowing how much it gets changed (unless you want to burn your card). Since this isn't a desktop system it's not possible to simply do some measuring with a multimeter while the system is running, you need to solder on a cable to a measuring point for the core voltage. The easiest possibility is to use one of the big electrolytic capacitors on the top of the card (the positive end obviously). Other possibilities are some of the ceramic capacitors on the other side of the die (which would probably be slightly more accurate). I tried this, but it's a PITA to solder there and I ended up going the easy way. For ground reference you can simply use the ground cable which is connected with the variable resistor. I also padded the VR with a high-end thermal pad. It'll run warmer than usual with the increased voltage. Hopefully it helps a bit. On the other pictures you can see the cables leading from the GPU leaving the system. Black is ground, yellow leads to VSEN and orange is the reference for the GPU core voltage. The picture on the very right shows my voltage control center The potentiometer mounted in a breadboard, this allows to quickly remove the mod. Here some quick tests. The first picture shows the system with the GPU idling, my multimeter reads 894mV and the VBIOS value is 0.9V (see GPU-Z)... perfect! Middle: System at 100% GPU load (furmark), multimeter reading 1060mV, VBIOS value is 1.1V. Right: GPU idle, I increased the voltage to 1V, card is still set to 0.9V (see GPU-Z) So... yes, it works, but... there's a huge problem. When I did some very quick tests with furmark, the voltage gets automatically set back... I raised it further and further, until it didn't get set back anymore and I had a voltage of 1.2V... but the core clock dropped to 400 MHz. I guess there's something limiting the maximum current, an overcurrent protection. Though what bothers me as well, was that according to GPU-Z, the VBIOS sets the voltage back to 1.0V when I raise it above a certain limit, so the VBIOS might be involved in this as well... I'm not sure. More testing will come as soon as possible, I'll also try to force the clocks in the VBIOS. I really hope to get this working. If you have any ideas, please let me know. Also if something needs a more thorough explanation, just aks. __________________________________________________- EDIT: This definitely works!! Just did some 3dM11 tests at 915MHz and more. I though I solved the downclocking issue, but it's still there, randomly. It's probably caused by software issues (driver, ... ). Since I was really annoyed by this I decided to simply mod the VBIOS and set the 3d clocks and the battery clocks to 915MHz (and later more). This worked, the clocks got forced to this level, so this indicates that it isn't caused by the card, but by software issues. Here's a 3dM11 test at 915MHz core, 1100MHz Memory: You may realize that it's not really a highscore for the M15x. I had to leave the CPU at stock settings, otherwise I run into serious power issues. Take a look at the graphics score, that's more interesting. As comparison, The Rev got 3965 GPU score on his best (submitted) 3dM11 test with the 6970m. This one is at 935MHz, only the GPU tests: I think there's even more headroom for the clocks, I upped the voltage to 1.25V, this should allow to get the clocks even slightly further, but I think I'll get limited by the VRAM at a certain point. Maybe I'll look for a voltmod for the VRAMs as well, but considering that there's already a power issue with this mod, it probably won't be of much use in the M15x. Run out of time, sorry, I actually wanted to do some more testing, but the term started again today and I'll be pretty busy from now on. Also I had some other software issues, I guess my bench partition needs some work... reinstallation and fine tuning. This was a very quick edit, just ask questions if something's unclear! ISL62883C - 6970m.pdf

Posted by Brian K. Posted by littleone562 hey Brian can you elaborate a little on what settings you used besides the video card OC, like tdp/bclk if you edited any for the benches? Posted by Jimbo Posted by Brian K. With the hyperx running xmp 2 (xmp 1 wouldn't boot) and bclk at 100 mhz + ssd, it's flying! The system boots in about 16 seconds and the 11.5 catalysts have raised the scores considerably over the stock dell driver. Unfortunately, we have run into a problem. If we choose to push out the review quickly, we have to down grade to the 11.4 Catalyst driver because that is what M17x-R3 was tested with. If not, then we have to re-do the M17x-R3 benchmarks using Michael's system but then all 3 systems would have results with Catalysts 11.5. I guess I'll put up a poll to see which you guys want. Originally Posted by Mumak Excellent info Martin! +1 Originally Posted by Jimbo Sure no problem. Originally Posted by littleone562 I used 100 mhz bclk, maxed out both power limits, kept short pwr limit enabled and set memory xmp profile 2. Posted by Eliphion Posted by Brian K. You're going to love the M18x, its an awesome notebook. Welcome to T|I! Posted by littleone562 Posted by Brian K. I'm at 105 BCLK now, totally stable. Posted by littleone562 Posted by Brian K.

Posted by littleone562 Posted by StamatisX Posted by littleone562 Posted by StamatisX Posted by mw86 Posted by littleone562 Posted by mw86 Also Arklight posted this video in the M14x thread... it should prove useful for that adjustment littlone562 Posted by littleone562 Posted by mw86 Posted by Mumak

No problem at all man, we're all here to help. My 2 cents is this: Decide what you want to do with the rig and what you're willing to tollerate on performance. Here's my 2 cents: -I would recommend the highest cpu you can as it will help in just about everything that is very intensive, gaming/productivity/etc. You can either pay the high upgrade cost from Dell or source a cheap ES cpu from ebay if you don't care about warranty on the CPU. -On the resolution/screen if you're ok with lower res then you can go with the cheaper screen and have better playability in games but keep in mind the higher end screen increases sellability and also the high end screen can run both high and low res the base screen can run low res only. -On ram go with the base ram and if you need more upgrade it yourself, same with the HDD. -On warranty I highly highly recommend going with the accidental at the least if not extended warranty unless you know you'll only have it for 6-12 months. The reason I say accidental at the least is it's a portable rig made of plastic, at around $50-75 a year for full coverage it is very worth it on a expensive rig. The rest is up to you man, either way good luck with the purchase

cause... good sense ends where Tech|Inferno begins LOL

Only one pot. Be nice if I had two. I normally just put the dice straight on the heatsink. Bit i tjonk that is what killed a 5870. Moisture. In other news, I have a pair of 6990s on the way. I also have a second psu in my possession. Just waiting for aarpcard testing of his adaptor and ill be doing the same. Gotta find a way for the system to share the power load.

^ excellent post. I have no retention mods yet and have my chip running at 3.5ghz with Shin Etsu X23D with FSB @ 140mhz and RAM @ 1.6v. Throttlestop really unleashes the power(literally ) of XM CPU's and I have my TDP/TDC set at 95/75 with a max turbo ratio of 25x across all cores. My GPU's are flashed to 850/1100 @ 1.1v also no retention mods with X23D paste. I can get my gpu up to around 830 with stock volts. I am still waiting for my ICD sample to perform the retention mod to bump up the clocks a bit. @Alex Six I see you're planning on using an SSD. Our PM55 chipset has issues with 4K read/writes with SSD's. Theres two well known tweaks to optimise SSD performance on this chipset. The first is @StamatisX Intelppm method here which he is using atm and the other which I am using is JJB's power profile tweak which you can find here. You may also want to also change your OSD icons as the default ones look a bit old. The link is in my sig. @KyleGates Welcome! Have fun guys, this is one gorgeous, powerful piece of art EDIT: you can also upgrade to Xfire 6970M's but its not really needed atm imho.

Oh wish I had a store which sells dice just around the corner... I always have to take the train for about 40 min per way... and it costs more, lol. Is there enough space beneath the heatsink for insulating the cards? Or do you have two pots?