*OFFICIAL* Alienware M17x Benchmark Thread - Part 4

[katalin_2003]

Spoiler :

I got it from pkhetan (member here) who gets them directly from Clevo. His prices are really good (you'll have to PM him for that), which is why I got two. As far as fans go, it was pretty much plug-and-play, which surprised me giving my first stint with 6970Ms, but they work and spool up according to temperature. Only thing is that if you get the p150hm cards (which I did), you'll have to flash the cards to X7200 type cards, which I'll document in the tutorial.

The only thing that doesn't work is audio over HDMI and I had (and still have) to do some physical modifications to get the heatsink and the Crossfire cable to fit properly. I'm going to work more on the Crossfire cable issue tomorrow and the heatsink mod is basically the retention clip mod but using the screws provided by Clevo because the R2's heatsink screws are too fat for the heatsink brackets already mounted on the 6970Ms. Aside from those issues, everything else feels stock.

I knew you were cooking something like this the moment I saw you were looking for the vBIOSes
Congrats, buddy, I may be interested +1 rep

[Basilownzyou]

M17x R2 with i7 920XM + two Radeon 6970Ms in Crossfire:



Official link:

Result

Wow dude, that's very cool. Nice job!

iChime, definately interested in this. Where did you get the cards and at what cost? Also, what did you need to do in order to get the fans working? I may pick up a set and put them in my system. Are they operating as if stock or did you have to find some sort of work around? Definately interested in benching these. I wonder if the voltage can be moded on the GPU vbios...

Feel free to PM me if you have any info you'd like to share. This made my day. R2 may remain king

Are you planning to update the bench scores anytime soon?

[scook9]

Nice work ichime! The heatsinks will leave you wanting though compared to the beefy ones in the M18x - at least that is my prediction. You are down one heatpipe and at about 50% of the fin surface area with the M17x R1/R2 heatsinks

[ichime]

Nice work ichime! The heatsinks will leave you wanting though compared to the beefy ones in the M18x - at least that is my prediction. You are down one heatpipe and at about 50% of the fin surface area with the M17x R1/R2 heatsinks

Yeah, but I also used the retention mod to improve thermals (had to because the screws on the original heatsink won't fit on heatsink brackets on the clevo 6970Ms). I thought about doing a heatsink mod but I think i'm at a good place as far as thermals go. I'll test how well it handles overclocking and such and get back to you guys.

Edit:

3dmark 11 run:

[scook9]

The retention mod only makes it fit the way it should have originally lol

Note the lack of improvement on cooling with the retention mod for the 4870s

Post us some temps! (FurMark and the like)

Also, how is that PSU holding up?

[djhuydx]

M17x R2 with i7 920XM + two Radeon 6970Ms in Crossfire:



Official link:

Result

Nice job bro

[ichime]

Cards overclocked to 750/1000



Other tidbits:

I edited the VBIOS to increase the overdrive OC limits (another benefit of using the Clevo VBIOS)

Ambient temperature was 81 degrees F

PSU never tripped and Kill-a-Watt read a max of 251 watts

The retention mod only makes it fit the way it should have originally lol

Note the lack of improvement on cooling with the retention mod for the 4870s

Post us some temps! (FurMark and the like)

Also, how is that PSU holding up?

PSU seems fine with the tests I've done so far. Once the basement is free, I'll do some furmark runs and such.

[inap]

wow nice even has overdrive, sweet cards, congrats ichime.

[Zero989]

wow 6970m xfire in the R2, id want that just to have the RGB!!

[DR650SE]

Wow dude, that's very cool. Nice job!


Are you planning to update the bench scores anytime soon?

Mark my word, Tommorrow. Working three jobs and planning my wedding (5.5 weeks away ) has taken too much time Tomorrow I have the day off so I'll sort the last 30+ pages out of this thread and update.