YodaGoneMad

That version is overvolted and will probably throttle. Hence why I asked for the 900 core with no other changes, I think all these changes to OV and OC and all that just make the Dell card worse. The best bios IMO is the 850 no other changes and several people reported that 900 was stable at stock voltage. It will certainly depend on each persons card but I bet a large majority will be able to run 900 stock voltage and perhaps get no throttling. Of course, if you have a laptop that can software OC you can try it, just use the 850 no other changes bios and use EVGA Precision to add +50 to the core offset. It should be the same as flashing the bios and would let you test stability, I cannot do that because I am using an M17x R3 which does not do software OC at all on the 680m. It could be good for people who can't do standard 900 stable, if he did 875 as well then we would have 850, 875, and 900 which would represent basically the full range of "safe" (stock voltage) overclocks for people who want the free performance boost all the time. The 850 bios is already pretty sweet, just a nice performance boost with no downside.

I read somewhere that it only hits the highest voltage while engaging boost and then all the other clocks are lower levels of that highest voltage. Since the R3 doesn't boost I am just wondering how the voltage change will effect me. Will my card be running at what would normally be the stock max voltage (boost voltage) all the time while the true highest voltage sits unused (again, since boost doesn't engage on my system it won't hit the max voltage?) or am I still going to end up running at higher voltages than even the stock boost.

Thanks for the link, I had googled because I thought I had seen a 900 vBios but could not find it. I am a bit hesitant to overvolt, I really don't want to kill my card. Do you know how much it raises the voltage? I guess I am just wondering if it basically makes boost voltage default or if it is adding even more voltage. I might try it if it is just boost voltage (since nVidia clearly thinks that is safe enough and the R3 never actually boosts) but higher and I probably won't touch it.

svl7, if you have the time and it isn't too much trouble I would like a Dell 680m vBios with 900 base clock and no additional changes. With the R3 I have not found a way to OC with software so I have to get a vbios to OC. I am currently using your 850 base with no other changes bios and it works fine. Some people said 900 is probably stable at stock voltage so I would like to give it a shot.

It is basically the same as the jump for desktop 670 vs 680 except no clock advantage for the 680mx. Expect about 5% performance increase over the 680m, and if it is runs hotter or eats more power it might not OC as well, making it totally possible for the OC 680m to be faster just like in the desktop space for 670 vs 680.

Just thought I would post my experience. I put a Dell 680m in an M17x R3 today, getting the drivers to work was....interesting. Got it all working, at stock 5800 graphics score. Flashed to Dell 680m - 850 base - 889 boost.zip using the tutorial, worked fine. Re-ran the benchmark and got 6800 graphics score. I did not get any throttling in 3DMark11, it ran fine and stayed at 850. Can a 680m go much higher than 850 at stock voltage?

I think drives not being detected was why they killed the higher speed SATA transfer. Technically, our MOBO is only supposed to allow full speed on 1 port, Dell tried to make it work on 2 ports and ended up making it unstable for some drives. Thus, they issued a new bios lowering the speed and scrubbed any mention of the higher speed from all their documents relating to the R3. You might try a version of the bios without the A08 SATA behavior, I suspect that will solve your problem. It is mentioned in one of the bios notes that what they fixed was some drives not being detected and that was when they cut the speeds. Alternatively, make sure you have your drive in the center hard drive bay, as it seems to be the stable one at full speed.

As for Optimus it is weird, because what it seems like is that the card does not report the same device ID to Windows when it is in SG mode versus PEG. There is a whole thread over on notebookreview, but basically people have tried both Clevo and Dell 680m cards. For the Optimus they just cannot get the drivers to install unless they switch to PEG only, so it might be an INF issue, it might be a hardware issue, it is totally unclear. For 3D no 680m works at all, there have been people who have tried both the Dell and Clevo 680m and with the built-in screen neither will run 3D. Also, if you take a Dell 580m and flash it to 675m 3D stops working even on the exact same card, so it definitely has something to do with the card model in the vBios and the interaction with the system bios.

I have a 675m now and Optimus works, but of course it is the same as the 580m which was sold with the R3. I am not sure if any Kepler cards work with Optimus in the R3, we might know more in a few months as cards like the 675mx start to release and people with R3's try to upgrade. Right now the 680m is really the only Kepler card that is an upgrade for most people with an R3 so it is the only one I have seen people try. It is totally possible, and perhaps even likely, that the R3 hardware is just not compatible with Kepler and Optimus for whatever reason. I just thought perhaps there is some section of the bios that has all the hardware IDs or something for cards with Optimus and perhaps all that is needed is adding the 680m to that list. The 675m being the same as the 580m might match to an ID but the 680m is totally new and wouldn't.

svl7, if while you are modifying to get 3D to work you see something that might fix Optimus I will test it. I don't have 3D but would like Optimus to work on the R3.

I will probably just manually switch unless I can figure out how to get Optimus to work. Using the unlocked bios it is only a few keystrokes, all you have to change is the display adapter to either IGP or PEG and then hit F10 to save and go. Hopefully doing that won't murder my bios chip or something over the long term.

Awesome, thanks! Always great to be able to have the newest bios with full speed SATA and it is even unlocked. Everything we could ever want in a bios.

Follow up question, is there anyway to make give the 680m the same FN+F7 switchable behavior that AMD cards can use? I have noticed in the unlocked bioses there are these settings for muxless switchable, muxed, etc. Could I set one of those in a way that would allow me to have switchable graphics with the 680m? I don't really require Optimus, I would just like to be able to go between integrated and discrete so I can get good battery life and I am trying to figure out the best solution to do that with a 680m in the R3.

I know, what I am saying is that the only cases of people getting the 680m to work in the R3 that I have heard were either using changing to PEG in the unlocked bios or had the 120 hz screen. No one has ever reported getting a 680m in the R3 to work with Optimus. I am just wondering if anyone has any idea why or if it is just impossible at a basic level. I would like to put a 680m in my R3 that has a 60 hz screen and have Optimus.

Currently every successful story I have heard of a 680m in an R3 has been using the 120 HZ screen (so no Optimus) or switching to PEG only in the unlocked bios. I am wondering if anyone knows why Optimus does not work and if there is any possibility to get it working somehow.

I don't have a 680m (yet) but what I have read suggests that overclocking the Dell 680m is fine up to about 850 core, after that it starts to throttle. The Clevo cards can be clocked much higher and will not throttle, but one has to wonder how that will effect the life expectancy of the card. As for flashing being worth it. I think that you can now OC the 680m just using something like Nvidia Inspector. You can make the clock shortcuts and have them applied at startup. Thus, I am not sure I see a good reason for flashing. If you go much higher than the 135 mhz OC that is already allowed you are likely gonna hit throttling on the Dell card, so I would tend to say just do like a 130 Mhz OC to 850 core using inspector and skip the flash. I will test my hypothesis when I get a card. Perhaps some other members that have actually tried all the options will weigh in as well.

A 6 month wait is ridiculous, but you did get a free upgrade that is worth something like $400+, so pretty sweet overall. Grats!

Nvidia all the way. The constant driver updates, extra features like Optimus, and generally Nvidia just seems to be more reliable and stable. Some games will have problems with ATI, or ATI has weird glitches like their whole enduro problem. I guess I just don't feel like I can count on AMD cards to work without issues. On the other hand, AMD is competitive in performance and much cheaper, so they are a solid choice. Just have to be willing to tinker sometimes.

Excellent guide, I might end up with a 680m soon and was planning to try some of your awesome vbioses for the Dell card. I have flashed my 580m before but this is a very handy guide since I don't flash often enough to remember.

Awesome. Me and another guy have tested it and it still has the slowed SATA speeds (hence why I asked about that) but other than that it is kind of nice to turn off Intel graphics by changing the single value rather than having to go through all 3 in the unlocked bios. It might also have some other changes, since they skipped A11, so I would assume there might be something else new there. Perhaps new processor or GPU support? I only have a 580m so I can't test that, but it will be interesting to see if anyone finds any other changes. It would really be sweet if it included better 680m support since currently you don't get boost or 3D on the R3. If you do release a modded A12 with the SATA fix I will be happy to test it.

Long time lurker first time poster. Love svl7's work, really incredible stuff, I have seen him on a few other forums and used some of his bioses. Anyway, I was wondering if it would be possible to add the A08 SATA behavior to this release like was done with the A10 bios here: http://www.techinferno.com/downloads/?did=30 I would like to have the new option to quickly disable the IGP with 1 change while still retaining the faster A08 SATA performance. Either way, thanks for all the awesome stuff that comes out of this forum.