ichime

To help pay off bills

If anyone is interested, I'm selling my 6970M (yes, the one with 1120 shaders). PM me if interested.

Apparently there's a more updated version of the 11.4 preview drivers that's supposed to have a bit more performance over the original 11.4 drivers. Has anyone tried those yet? Link can be found:

Cat 11.4 Preview (.dlls, etc dated 3/22/11). Website Dated 3/29/11 - Guru3D.com Forums

still can't do it.

i didn't have alot of time to test it, since i don't have an M15x. but i check ed the fans and they were running, i manage to do a vantage runand max temps were 83. still could be power issues with the xm chips. just wished i had more time to test.

Great day to be an M15x owner...

The M15x never had compatibility problems with foreign GPUs with the exception of the 4870. The M17x on the other hand...sheesh

The most serious problem i see with 6970M is the fact that it doesn't allow any increase in the voltage, so the overclockability of the card is limited to whatever clocks the stock voltage can support. Brian didn't have any luck with that so far.

Depends on how you look at it. The fact that it can go from 680/900 to 850/1100 and possibly even 875/1150 (basing this on max reference desktop 6850 clocks) on stock voltage is pretty impressive. 1.15v would allow for 900mhz on the core and not much more on the memory.

Reminds me of what I did to my whitebook/AW M17. Awesome Job!

After 11 Days of use i returned my R3 to Dell why because of 4 problems

Keyboard flex

Service access panel flex , is build to cheap

screen lid bent every time i open the laptop

Battery loose

i can't complaint about performance because is amazing but on the build quality even the Asus G73 is build better sorry guys if this is not what you want to hear but is my experience

I've heard some problems with quality when it comes to Compal notebooks. I hope this isn't inherited on to these new Alienwares...

That works I guess, haha!

Well, I'm not that lucky I did pay about $580 for it and I'm sure future retail versions will be cheaper. Also, this could be the 6990M Eurocom mentioned in an e-mail to someone, though I think a card with that name should be based of a desktop 6950 (which BTW consumes less power than a GTX 560 - what the GTX 485M is based off of).

Let's call this card, the 6970M XT?

EDIT: BTW Brian, what games are you going to test for your R3 review?

Here are some Vantage benchmarks that could be of interest:

M17x R2 with i7 920XM (Turbo boost to 3ghz) paired with a single Radeon 6970M using 11.4 Beta drivers:

Result

Same setup with the card overclocked to desktop 6850 speeds (775mhz Core, 1000mhz memory):

Result

I think these 11.4 drivers could make this card as fast or a bit faster than the GTX 485M based on the other games I've tested with them as well.

Also, I ordered a new set of thermal paste and pads. When that arrives, gonna try Vantage @ 850 core / 1100 mem then 3dmark 11 with the same settings.

aha! So this is where all the action is...It sucks how they closed the M18x (and the M14x) thread. It seems as if NBR is being over-moderated/over-regulated as of late to the point where people are even scared to post stuff.

As to the specs of the M18x, looks to be what is expected. Of course, not a big fan of 16:9 (though I didn't mind the screen on the Asus W90) and I hope that they give more headroom for the extreme CPUs. If the 15 hr battery life thing holds true, then that'll be huge. It's possible too if you think about it: since the M18x will be huge, there'll be enough space for a large battery. And if the M18x supports the integrated GPU in the intel chips with switchable graphics, then it starts to make sense.