[Guide] Installing AMD Radeon Mobility 6970 / 6990 in your M17x R2 (Single GPU and CrossfireX)

[aarpcard]

Also, the laptop in my sig came with an i5 540m. I upgraded it to an i7 820qm. I gained about 2-5fps across the board in most games.

My gpu upgrade CFX 4870's to CFX 6970's saw me a literal 120% increase in literally every game. I don't think switching from an i7 820qm to an i7 2920xm at 4.0ghz if that was even possible would produce even 1/10th of that result.

[Douse]

Yeah I know what you mean.

With the 920xm clocked up, I did notice an increase in fps....but only maybe 5 frames. I found it made games feel more consistant and gave a generally smoother feeling....if that makes sense??

Hopefully moving to the 6990's, game performance will jump at least 50%...

[Mr. Fox]

Yeah I know what you mean.

With the 920xm clocked up, I did notice an increase in fps....but only maybe 5 frames. I found it made games feel more consistant and gave a generally smoother feeling....if that makes sense??

Hopefully moving to the 6990's, game performance will jump at least 50%...

I doubt you will see anywhere close to the performance increase from 6970 to 6990 that you did going from 4870 to 6970. If you look at the difference in specs between the 2 GPUs in the 6900M family, a 50% performance increase (I think) would be an unrealistic expectation. I expect the 6990 to definitely be more powerful, but I do not expect anywhere near 50%. Whatever percentage it turns out to be, more is always better.

Two things, I think a fairer comparison would be the i7 720qm versus the i7 2630qm since they are both of equal tier for their respective generations. Secondly, an i7 920xm or i7 940xm overclocked using throttlestop will match an i7 2820qm.

No doubt the Sandybridge parts perform better. Clock for clock they're 15% faster, but they're also clocked higher. However, when it comes to gaming, you will see a FAR greater performance increase from CF 5870's to CF 6970's than you would from an OC'ed i7 920xm to a i7 2820qm.

It's sort of humorous that you talk about fair comparisons and then shift gears and talk about using TS on an overclocked 920/940XM to match a 2820QM. I understand your point and the 920/940XM are excellent, but that seems like a double-standard to "fairness" to me. That's OK, because I don't really care about being fair that much, just care about results. I think lots of us feel that way, but could not resist pointing out that observation.

I can tell you from my personal experience there is a remarkable increase in performance going from my M17x 720QM/5870 CFX to my current M18x. I am still waiting to see some decent benches on the 6990 CFX and 580M Sli on the M18x Benchmark thread and I am watching this thread to see how well either of them perform on the M17x R2.

I think you're missing the boat dismissing the effect of the CPU on the GPU. With AMD products especially, graphics performance is partially dependent on CPU performance. If an AMD GPU is "CPU starved" performance will suffer. My M17x 5870 CFX with the i7 720QM was put to shame in benches against the 920XM with all other specs being equal.

I'm not able to compare the i7 720QM to the 2630QM because I do not have access to that CPU, but the i7 2720QM is the direct replacement for the 720QM. So, from that aspect the comparison is directly on point. That's sort of the point of an upgrade, right? Downgrading to create an artificially level playing field sort of defeats the purpose altogether. And, there's not much difference in system benchmark performance between the 2630 and 2720 if you look at the M18x benchmarks.

I would really like to see some CPU benchmark comparisons between the 920XM and the 2920XM. Do you reckon we can get some R2/R3/M18x owners to Geekbench their results so we can put them in a side-by-side?

[DR650SE]

I've hit 192sec on wPrime 1024. and 6.23sec on wPrime 32M. Never ran Geekbench though.

[aarpcard]

I doubt you will see anywhere close to the performance increase from 6970 to 6990 that you did going from 4870 to 6970. If you look at the difference in specs between the 2 GPUs in 6900M family, a 50% performance increase (I think) would be an unrealistic expectation. I expect the 6990 to definitely be more powerful, but I do not expect anywhere near 50%.

I'm not sure who's talking about going from a 6970 to a 6990. I was talking about going from Dual 4870's or Dual 5870's to Dual 6970's.

I can tell you from my personal experience there is a remarkable increase in performance going from my M17x 720QM/5870 CFX to my current M18x. I am still waiting to see some decent benches on the 6990 CFX and 580M Sli on the M18x Benchmark thread and I am watching this thread to see how well either of them perform on the M17x R2.

The reason you saw a remarkable increase in performance was mostly due to the fact your gpu's are twice as powerful.

I think you're missing the boat dismissing the effect of the CPU on the GPU. With AMD products especially, graphics performance is partially dependent on CPU performance. If an AMD GPU is "CPU starved" performance will suffer. My M17x 5870 CFX with the i7 720QM was put to shame in benches again the 920XM with all other specs being equal.

I think you don't really understand how benchmarks work. While it is true, that yes gpu performance is dependent to some extent on the cpu, (and it's not just amd, it's nvidia as well) if the cpu is not acting as a bottleneck - i.e. not being completely maxed out - then gpu performance will not suffer. A more powerful cpu will only aide in games where the cpu is acting as a bottleneck - and those games are rare - GTA4 is the only one really that will cause significant cpu bottlenecks.

Benchmarks on the otherhand - unlike games are designed to stress all segments of your computer to the max. Benchmarks are very cpu dependent unlike games which are largely gpu dependent. That's why more powerful cpu's will always have a big advantage in benchmarks. However when it comes to real world gaming, two computers with the same gpu's but different cpu's will perform similarly while when running 3D mark, there might be a few thousand points separating them.

I'm not able to compare the i7 720QM to the 2630QM because I do not have access to that CPU, but the i7 2720QM is the direct replacement for the 720QM. So, from that aspect the comparison is directly on point. That's sort of the point of an upgrade, right? Downgrading to create an artificially level playing field sort of defeats the purpose altogether.

No, the i7 2720qm is a replacement for i7 740qm or i7 820qm. The i7 2630 and i7 2635 is a replacement for the i7 720qm and the i7 2620qm is a replacement for the i7 620m.

[kongrad]

I exactly know that I will go for 6970m or 6990m and soon I will have enough cash for them. But one thing, could I go with 6990m's? Will they work properly(no manual fan control, shut down, sleeping mode and other problems)? And would it be better to buy m11x ac adapter(240w+65W=305W working in parallel), not to have problems with power?Also I'm waiting for Douse's experiment.Douse,good luck with your experiment!!!

[Douse]

My estimate of 50% was referring to an upgrade from 5870s to 6990s

Also, it may be worth pointing out that in game fps is a different ball game to benchmarks, where CPU power matters a whooole lot more!

I will hopefully be getting some 6990s soon, once I have them installed I will do some benching Bear in mind that I am fairly certain I wont be able to overclock anything due to power restrictions....

[Douse]

I exactly know that I will go for 6970m or 6990m and soon I will have enough cash for them. But one thing, could I go with 6990m's? Will they work properly(no manual fan control, shut down, sleeping mode and other problems)? And would it be better to buy m11x ac adapter(240w+65W=305W working in parallel), not to have problems with power?Also I'm waiting for Douse's experiment.Douse,good luck with your experiment!!!

I have been trying to find out whether it will work and information is limited at best...

Personally, I think it should be fine, however overclocking will be limited.
And if there is a problem, I will just down clock everything until something can be sorted out with the PSU.

I cant comment regarding the other issues, but seeing that the standard Clevo vbios on the 6970's worked, I am hoping the 6990s are the same....

[CptXabaras]

How a thread about installing 2 GPU on a laptop not meant to use them has shifted to what has it bigger? (the chip, i mean the chip)..

talking about gaming performance wich is, i believe, the main purpose of this upgrade, all the cpu starting from the 740qm and up are up to the task. Even the high-end dual core for that matter.

shall we go back On topic ?

[Mr. Fox]

No, the i7 2720qm is a replacement for i7 740qm or i7 820qm. The i7 2630 and i7 2635 is a replacement for the i7 720qm and the i7 2620qm is a replacement for the i7 620m.

Can you please direct me to an online resource at Intel.com to verify this information? I am going based on the naming convention Intel used and the fact that is was provided by Alienware as the direct replacement for my i7 720QM. I'd appreciate it having a chart or something from Intel showing that.