[M17x R2] with AMD 7970M CrossfireX

[StamatisX]

I received early in the morning a couple of 7970Ms and a cfx cable from MXM Upgrade Home Page

3DMark11

Unigine

If you are upgrading from the 5870Ms, the screws are a bit bigger in diameter and they won't fit the backplate of the 7970M (probably a clevo card? I will find out soon). Other issues I encounter is that both display and HDMI port don't work so I attach my Dell 2410 with a VGA cable... Temps are fine and I am idling at 56-58 C with the external monitor attached (which brings the clocks up to 300/1200 @0,825V) so not that bad.

7970M.zip

[mav]

You can't play any game.. you have 0 MB Memory PWHAHAHAHA

Do you have any power issues (like svl7 at M15x) when benchmarking?

[StamatisX]

Yeah I had to lower my CPU overclock...

[unreal25]

StamatisX, how much did you pay for it?

[StamatisX]

I didn't buy them, I have them just for testing

[unreal25]

Oh OK. I asked since I don't see them listed on their website.

[Jimbo]

I'll test them for you! Just send the pair to me and I'll keep them for a reasonable period of time (18-24 months or until something better comes out). Then, as a bonus to you, I'll pay return shipping. :D

[svl7]

Hahahahaha Great deal, go for it! LMAO

[StamatisX]

@ichime does the display or HDMI port play with your 7970s?

[StamatisX]

btw I need to buy a second PSU asap... tried to play Metro 2033 and crashed the PSU 3 times in a row (no CPU overclock)

I wonder where I can get one...

[Jimbo]

Will an M18X PSU work for you? I happen to have a spare one.

[StamatisX]

Definitely interested, I told my father to send me a diode bridge that can handle at least 20A so I can connect the 2 PSUs in parallel.

I will probably need an something like this

[Jimbo]

Damn character limits.

[StamatisX]

no seriously i need something like that since i will cut the cables

[svl7]

Better use solder, it's neater and makes better contact.

[chmod1337]

@svl7:

we all know you are obsessed with soldering.

Btw my free60 doesn't glitch anymore. I suspect cold solder joints, damn lead free solder! - Can you fix it ?

@all:

I'd prefer the screw terminal, as it is mechanically stable. Just don't forget to use cable-end sleeves.

[StamatisX]

Just ordered the second PSU from Dell. It will be here on Tuesday. Now I will have to wait for my father to send me the diode bridge.

Also an update concerning temperatures

Metro 2033, everything maxed out, primary GPU was hitting 96C and the secondary 86C. Really hot...

[StamatisX]

Undervolting to 0.975V help the temperatures a lot, 9C difference... but I experience throttling during gameplay, the FPS drop and the load on both GPUs drops to 64%. (It's not due to temperatures since the secondary GPU is 5C lower)

Anyways... I run a Metro 2033 benchmark real quick

[StamatisX]

And while on break, a 3DMark11 @890/1300: P9809

(due to very high ambient temps - 36C -the GPUs throttle)

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-940 Processor,Alienware score: P9809 3DMarks

[mav]

StamatisX, do you recommend having 7970m in Crossfire?

Is it possible to run the cards flawlessly without throttling?

Jimbo[/MENTION]"]@Jimbo nice picture

[StamatisX]

The problem right now is the PSU... 240W are simply not enough when playing games like Metro 2033 maxed out in CFX... especially when you have a XM CPU OCed... You can always undervolt @0.975V but then you will experience throttling.. I will be able to answer your question in a couple of days, when I will have an extra PSU to run in parallel, to keep my CPU overclocked and run the GPUs at stock clocks. Then I will tell you what the system can do.

Another issue that should be taken into consideration is the display and HDMI ports not working... CrossfireX or not...

[mw86]

M17x R2 with 7970m is awesome i reallly hope the parallell psu unlocks those beasts. Stamatis seems the lowest i got true stability on was 1.025v stock clocks. I could flash lower but i too got clock drops at lower volts. But under good temps and not an extreme load the low volt SVL7 uses would be fine

[StamatisX]

I received the second PSU from Dell today

and just a teaser...

[svl7]

Oh yeah.... I like it

[Whap-A-Chow]

Howdy fellas,

Long time lurker, but here's my first post on your forums:

I too have an m17x-R2 that I bought with the ATI 4870s in CrossFire, got hooked on the NBR forums about the possibilities of the upgrades for this thing and successfully installed the 6990Ms in CrossFire. Then I got word of the 7970Ms available and bought myself a pair here. I specified the P170EM version of the cards and had them in my hands within a week. I already saw the success that others had with installing these cards from Eurocom, I was thinking that the ones I bought were just a vBIOS flash away from getting up and running if I ran into any problems.

Well, I got them installed and got a blank screen. So then I backed out the card in the secondary slot and tried to boot just off of just 1 7970M - still no luck. I switched cards and again, no luck. Attempting to boot off the secondary slot was a dead end as well. The machine would post as I was able to hear Windows start up - just no display on the screen. So my next thought: make a bootable USB drive and blind flash it to ichime's vBIOS from his successful Eurocom cards. I did a few test runs with my 6990s installed and got the keystrokes & timing down to blind flash and made a batch file with all the appropriate commands and assumed that I had successfully flashed it - but still no display on my R2 from these things.

Making sure that I had operational cards, I installed one in my wife's m17x-R3 and was able to flash it to the Dell OEM vBIOS through DOS and it fired right up without any problems. So now I could confirm that I was able to flash the vBIOS in DOS under ATIFlash and move the cards from the R3 into the R2 after a successful flash, yet not yielding any successful results.

So my question is: Do you guys have any insight as to why these Clevo-based cards would *NOT* work in my R2? I'm at a loss of ideas to try and any help would be appreciated.