I am having a lot of issues with the 7970m, I get a black screen crash on almost every game but I don't crash on fumark or OCCT, or unigine heaven. I have solved this issue by underclocking the core to 800 mhz, the max temp of the GPU is 76º on fumark. Is this a defective card or the problems are caused by inmature drivers? I want to know what people think before asking my technical service for a replace.
Right now I am using 12.5 because I have read that they are the best right now. But I have tried all of them.
Replace card could be lucky game !! Try some more drivers make you feel stronger, more confident about what you owned. Test, test, test until you are out of energy then replace new card.
You're not the only one with the problem. I have the problem too, as well as others. There is another thread about it here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/670175-m17x-r4-black-screen-crashes-ati-7970m.html#
To be honest your specs look like you're cutting edge for laptop hardware. I have to go with immature drivers in your case. I also don't think AMD gives the same priority to laptop GPUs as they do discrete desktop cards. My 2 cents, maybe worth nothing. Is your laptop a switchable machine or is it fixed to the AMD GPU? According to this that CPU was just launched the end of April: http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Core_i7/Intel-Core i7-3820QM (PGA) Mobile processor.html
Switchable but I have the integrated completely disabled. Others are a mix match of the same or switchable, so that setting is irrelevant.