Doc. You will be able to afford all this and more. Just be patient. Once you get your doctor's pay, you'll be having M18x and Ultimate Ears Tri-fi IEMs in no time. I'm diverting resources elsewhere so no M18x for me. Have to upgrade M15x to 6970.

Well Im just future-proofing my machine for another year. And I think the 2GB 6970 is sufficient to play Ultra on most games. Regarding the temps, I will test out the different thermal paste and pad positions to ensure it reaches 80c+ max. 90c is pushing it dy...

getting from Kelvin...
i do my own paste job n add pads n test. will let u know the results.

I can't really confirm bro. I have an M17x-R3 too which is my sis's but I've never dissected her system. Anyways I bought my own thermal pads last year when I modded my M15x to the 5870 card so will be using those as well as the ones that came with the M15x initial GPU the GTX 260M.

Well she got hers for cheap.
Judging from the looks of mine, I think they're 1.5mm. I got them from a pc shop which had just that last batch of them. No brand thou.

Not rich bro. She buys herself I buy myself, my system cost more than hers I think lols....

BTW, The 6970 cannot be compared to the GTX 580M. Different league. Leave the challenge to the ATI 6990. From what I see their real world scores are close.

If I had much cash at hand I'll get 6990 as well la to test and see if it runs with my M15x. GTX 580M on the M15x a bit far fetched due to heat and power consumptions.

I've changed my motherboard more than once actually, and my GPU 3 times. No worries actually since you're under warranty. My last Mother board change in early 2010 til today no issues. I've even upgraded my GPU myself and no issues. Just give them a call

YEPS..Last I checked its by RAZER.

Selamat Hari Raya to Doc. and those Alienites celebrating it

Just came back from Raya open house... yums
Hope you guys have a splendid Raya and come back to the Mothership safely.

hows the 6970 Hans? Can't wait to get mine tomorrow.

Hey Hans. I'm getting this issue whereby my stock clocks from the normal 680/900 drops to 2d clocks of 400/900. I did a benchmark with kelvin-hata and the results with the stock clocks when working fine and the current drop in clock speed is almost 40% less. Do you encounter this? I encountered it this morning when turning on the laptop with the new GPU in after toying with it whole night last night with Kelvin-hata's hands on working on it.

BTW, Thanks a lot Kelvin. Sorry to trouble you pulling you from PJ and staying up at ur place.... lols

Yeah man. I'm trying to prolong the life of my system.
Thanks for sharing knowledge and helping solve the initial installation issues regarding the 6970M.
Hope to run proper test regarding the clock issues later tonight. Out now... so cannot check...

I didn't try 3dmark 06 but my 3d mark vantage score on stock clocks of 680/900 was about P11,800+ score .

Mine is running the Driver downloaded for M15x which is Catalyst 11.8. How about you? Did you download the M17x driver or the M15x one?
Im using HWInfo and GPUz.

Well I downloaded the Catalyst from the forums recommended by the US Alienites. I think I might have corrected my problem. I downloaded the newest version of HWInfo and the stock clocks are back to normal and never throttle down to 400/900 anymore. Temps from benchmarking have been good so far. Running PC-Mark Vantage on stock clocks had a max temp of 79c but have yet to try full ON 2 hour gaming on crysis 2. Will update you that later.
Anyway I attached a screenshot of the benchmark scores and the temps for you to compare. If temps stay down like around the mid 80s max I should thank Kelvin-Hata for his over emphasis on the thermal pads and being generous in bringing some extra high grade pads for me to cover almost the entire card///

The lat time Doc mentioned, the R-1 is limited in updating to the newer 6000 series cards. As far as I know, only the M17x-r2 is capable of taking these newer cards with the possibility of 2 2GB Gpus at a time, of course with the help of dual PSU's running parallel into the system... (Kelvin-Hata)

Dont take my word for it ok? Maybe we wait for the experts on this. I'm just saying there is a possibility you can't upgrade cos Doc was telling me his unit can't.....

Im not sure if GTX 285M works?

This post has been edited by julchin_09: Sep 2 2011, 03:37 AM

aNyway i updated to the newest monitoring software. Also I found out that its the Stealth mode which is causing the issue. When my pc starts and I open the HWInfo software it shows 400/900. Then I press the stealth button to go into stealth mode, then press again to go back to normal. Open the same software again and its back to normal. Im using Artic Cooling MX2. I bought it early last year when I installed the ATI 5870 into my system. My ATI 5870 trade in. No point having it with me. I already have an extra GTX 260M in my closet lols.

Still at kampung? Enjoy ya? lols.... anyways I agree that Kelvin-hata is very helpfull.

This post has been edited by julchin_09: Sep 2 2011, 10:37 PM

They didn't accept trade in?

Yays..

Hey bro. The fans are powered externally via AC?

I sorta modded my U3 as well but with an extra single fan. This is cos I tested the single fan and it runs at a noticably much higher RPM than the 3fans connected to 1 usb. This way, I arranged the higher RPM single fan to sit directly below my GPU Intake fan to feed in the cooler air, and the other 3 fans will cool the housing and 1 below the CPU intake fan.


On another note, the massive padding on the ATI 6970M with extra pads courtesy of Kelvin-Hata. The extra pads really helped in cooling the generally hot running card.



Comparisons of the Nvidia GTX 260M(Top right), ATI 5870(Top left) and Ati 6970(Bottom)