Best GPU new or used for 150USD? m17x r3

I've been looking aound the forums for quite some time, and I haven't really been able to nail what the best GPU for this price is. It can be new or used. I'd love to spring for a 680m, but I'm just going to settle on the 150 dollar price point and continue saving my money for a real laptop upgrade on a new system since we have all these new technologies out.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions! I'm open to answer any other questions as well.

 

What is in it? At your price point you may well be looking at used - risky but I got my 680m used, and all was good....

 

It has a dead 580m. I tried everything including reflowing to get it going it again but no luck.

I'm definitely okay with used at that price.

 

You have my sympathies! I had two 580m's break on me and Dell replaced the machine with an R4/675m. Same card just a rebadge and yes it also failed. When they replaced it I swapped in the 680m and sold the 675m.

I doubt you will find a 680m in your price range, they are quite sought after even now. A superb performer and easily overclocked with very little heat generated .

As long as you stick to an old driver (314.22) you could get a year or two out of another 580m but it's a risk. Have you looked for an AMD 7970? You will need heatsink work if you find one as the captive securing screws are a different size but I have seen it done.

 

What's the issue with running a more updated driver? I don't understand how that affects longevity. Anyway yeah I think the 7970 may be the way to go at this point. I just wish the damn 580m wasn't a **** pile. I have a lappy with a 9800m still running strong.

 

It just seemed that as people were updating to later drivers cards were failing more often. That driver version would run my last 580m when all others would black screen and crash the machine. It is still a popular version to use when all else fails. The drivers do mess around with voltages that should not effect this card (it does not support 'Boost' V2) but I know for a fact that some drivers would run the card at a slightly higher voltage than was the design voltage (0.92v over 0.87v). It would not have mattered usually but these cards were so borderline to start with it does not take much to trash them. I must have worked at least a dozen failed 580m threads

When the 580m first came out there were overvolt VBIOS files available for 0.92v and quickly people found out this was burning cards.

The 680m is by far the most robust 'm' chip I have used. These 980m's are also borderline and don't like being pushed .

Good luck in your search.

 

Ah. That makes sense. Well if those super stable drivers are compatible with Windows 10 then by golly I will make to use em. If not I'll just adjust the voltage manually.

I may have gotten a free 580m from a junkyard computer. But I'll be on the lookout for a cheap 7970 or 680m like you recommended. Putting in an r4 mobo and everything I've heard about the 780 and 880m really turns me off to that not being a worthwhile solution

 

AFAIK there is no problem with win 10. The only issue may be that some of the latest games require you to have a higher version. They claim that this is to do with the driver version they used during testing. My opinion is it is mind-games aimed at ex-console kiddies to keep NV in their 'sight'. There is no good reason to update a driver with a version written for cards a couple of years newer. There is going to be no gain as they have already given up on getting better performance on old cards. Indeed, why would any company deliberately kill new sales by making their older products work better?

I see a lot of conspiracy theories about NV deliberately trashing older cards via drivers. Stupid really. Old hardware that runs with high-stress WILL fail eventually. If I get 2 years from a card (and I do punish them!) I consider myself lucky. Every time you install a new driver it stresses the HW in different ways often resulting in strange problems.

If you do manage to find a 680m I have a package of files and instructions on how to get the best out of it. I run my 680m @ +220 mhz clock increase with a considerable overvolt and it still never hits more than 72c, and around 68c at stock. Like you say the 7xx and 8xx are not 'on' for an R3 so if you can get that 580m to tide you over then we should be seeing some awesome laptops by the end of this year - fingers crossed.