A few questions regarding M17x R2 GPU Upgrade route

hey guys, I've been considering a gpu upgrade to my M17x R2 awhile and have been facing dilemmas between these two cards namely the AMD 7970m and Nvidia's 680m.

If i were to upgrade to either one of them i would be purchasing my cards from upgradeyourlaptop which further verifies that my cards to be would be clevo cards.

My question now is that if i were to buy the 7970m, would i face the same issues with my 6990m such as the lack of HDMI support or would I instead have to adjust my fans manually? As for the Nvidia 680m, I've heard that HDMI and fan control works but I would need to download modded drivers. Would this issue persist forever or would they come out with a solution for it? As far as i'm concerned, I'm willing to fork out the extra cash for better driver supports but not if I'm limited only to modded drivers.

TL;DR: 7970m (does the fan work properly or do I not get HDMI support), 680m ( Will I be permanently limited to modded drivers or would they come out with a solution?)

Looking forward to the feedback guys

 

But is it worth it? $500 for each card. If you have issues with the fans then only install nvidia drivers 301.42. they appear to be reliable.

 

Billyxq, here's what I've been told.

The 680m work near perfect with out R2s with one exception: if you have an extreme processor (which you do according to your sig), then the fans are stuck at the same speed. To have them run on auto again, you would need to use HWinfo and set a fan profile. Now I haven't gotten clarification if the fan problem is just for the GPU fan or if it the GPU and CPU fan together that are stuck. I have also been told this issue doesn't seem to exist with the Dell version of the 680m, only with the Eurocomm cards. The Eurocomm cards also require the modded driver files...something about the VBIOS of the card having a different device ID that the stock drivers do not recognize. I am not sure if Clevo 680m cards have the same fan and driver issues.

There are still problems with the 7970m cards and out R2s. To quote DR650SE,

Here is a thread with quite a few stories and opinions about which card to choose and the bugs associated with them: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/677680-another-7970m-m17x-r2-installation-photos.html

Hope this helps in your decision.

PS: that is the freakiest avatar I've ever seen...it's like the fun uncle that's always h1gh at family gatherings.

 

a much needed clarity on my case with that being said, do I need to start up hwinfo32 every time i restart my laptop just to get the fans running? or is there a boot on start up feature for it?

edit: what if i'm to use a Dell version of 7970m/680m, would i suffer from the same issues mentioned?

 

I think no problems with Dell versions but their prices are ridiculous. Crazily high !!!