Best functional GPU for the M17x R4 and other upgrades

I hate to ask this, but after looking through all the related posts, it has been more than a month since the GPU question has been addressed and it appears progress has been made with some of the newer cards.

I am purchasing an R4. I plan to:

1) Upgrade the CPU to a 3940XM
2) Upgrade the memory to at least 16GB ( I really can't see any reason to go to 32GB)
3) Install a 256GB SSD as the boot drive (maybe 512MB)
4) Replace the DVD with a BD
5) Install the 120hz 3D display
6) Upgrade the GPU. It appears that dual 780m's in an SLI configuration might be the best today, but I can't tell
7) Should I upgrade WLAN/BT, if so, to what?

I am not a heavy gamer, but I definitely want to run Wolfenstein: The New Order and I would like to run modern games for awhile. I expect to hook this to the TV via HDMI, but I will also play on the laptop on occasion. The computer is not a status symbol for me, so I am not interested in buying more than I need unless it provides some clear "future-proof" ability. I don't care about benchmarks, I am interested in the ability to play any/nearly any game with something close to max settings. I am not interested in waiting indefinitely. I would like to purchase something in the next 30 days. Thanks for any advice. FWIW, it seems to me like this should be a sticky that is updated one a quarter or when a new GPU, etc. is fully supported.

 

Why would you buy an older model and then sink that much into it for upgrades? First off the R4 can not handle SLI, nor can the new 17. The R3 can but then your going older again. The best GPU for an R4 will be the 780m but your going to have to modify drivers to make it work. The highest GPU that just worked without any tricks was the 680m. Your looking at probably $400 for the CPU, and another $500-$700 for the GPU. Ram is probably $150+ , SSD's are fairly cheap but add another $150-$250 for the SSD depending on the size and if your upgrading the screen at least another $150. I don't know what your getting the laptop for but by the time you upgrade the whole thing you might as well just order a new 17 and get the warranty with it.....

If your getting this all for super cheap then that's great but it just does not seem worth it to me....

 

Well the only 17" AW that has an SLI is the M17x R2 .

 

Correct you are, I was thinking it was the R2 and R3 that were SLI but it was the R1 and R2.

 

hi i have msi gt683dxr but i am trying to upgrade my gtx 570m to gtx 675mx.. my old GPU was gtx570m was working but my new gtx 675mx gpu not working when i plugged it in.. the screen was black.. is anyone know about this problem? please help/

here's my specs:
Current NotebookEdit Valuemsi gt683dxr
OS: windows 8.1 64bit
MOBO model: MS-16f2
MOBO bios ver: e16f2ims v3.0s
RAM:12gb
GPU model: nvidia geforce gtx 570m
GPU bios ver: 70.24.2c.00.08

 

First Skippy, don't hijack my thread. Second, go post this in the appropriate vendor forum. Now, be off with you...

Mog, good points. I will do some comparison today. I am expecting to get the laptop in the $800-900 range. I have some of these parts laying around already (SSD, etc.). I think that even when I have all of the upgrades done I will be at half the cost of a new 17, but I will do the comparison. It looks like an AW 17 w/ i7 and 16GB is about $3K. I expect to be about $1400 when I am done and I can buy the pieces on my schedule. I was originally looking at an AW Alpha, but it looked like this route would be more upgradeable and more useful (mobile).

Do you suggest getting one of the earlier models like the R2 rather than the R4?

I have read the info on the 780m's. It sounds fairly straight forward. I will read it again today.

What are your thoughts on the other upgrades (other than the 3D) display? Also, 7) was supposed to ask for input in reference to upgrading the WLAN/BT. Thanks.

 

If you can get it for that price then by all means it would be a good deal but that is a lot of parts for a pretty low price. The GPU's are quite expensive anywhere I have ever seen. And that would be a pretty stellar deal for a working R4.

Honestly no just for the simple fact that you are losing more CPU power the farther back you go. People have installed 780m's in their R2's but I don't know at what point CPU bottlenecking will become a factor with those cards. I think a single 780m in an R4 would be more then adequate for your needs, and there is a good chance you could put a 980m in there down the road if need be as well.

I didn't mean to infer that it wasn't fairly straight forward, just pointing out that you do have to deal with modified drivers , that's all

Memory, depending on what that machine has you could go with 8gb and still be fine. I have 16 in my 17 and honestly the only reason I got it was it was a free upgrade at the time and it has been pretty wasted as I never come close to utilizing even 50% of it. That being said I don't multi task all that much either so maybe if you do a lot of tabs in chrome and multi boxing of games or something like that it would be more worth it. If you can get the 16gb cheap enough then why not but it isn't necessary IMO. The biggest plus to the 3D screen is going to be the 120hz panel, it really makes games pop and bring them to life, the screen quality is just far far better then the normal 1080 screen, there is a large write up about it stickied at the top of the 17 section if you want more info. Obviously the install procedure will be quite different as well as the part numbers as I wrote that for the new 17 but from what I understand the screen is the same part number. As for the Wifi/BT card that is the easy one to handle as they can be bought on Ebay for usually dirt cheap and installed in just a few minutes. The slot is under the keyboard so you do have to remove that but it does not take to long and is quite a simple upgrade. Unless you are running an AC router in your home there is no sense on going overboard, a decent Intel Wireless N with bluetooth is sufficient unless your looking for something like the Killer cards.

The only other thing worth mentioning with the R4 is it tends to have a tempermental sound chip in it. It is a Creative sound chip and when the system resumes from a low power state and even sometimes on boot the sound card is failed to initialize. When I had my R4, the only sure fire way I had to get around this was just swapping to the Intel GPU and then back to my 7970m and it would pop right back up but I am not sure how having a 3D screen would affect that as you will lose the integrated GPU at that point. Another thing to look into would be the 3D working in an R4 with the 780m...it should work but you might want to find someone who has actually had it working to confirm you won't lose the 3D functionality just to be on the safe side. Funny things have happened when people upgrade their GPU's into laptops that were not designed for them such as 3D no longer being implemented. I am surprised no one else has chimed in yet, although I am sure they will eventually.

 

You were correct that I missed a few decimal places in my ciphering. More like $2K for my original list.

My thought as well, get the latest rev from that model line.

The one I am looking at has a 7970. I plan to try that for awhile and see what I can't do. If I have read correctly, the 7970 won't drive the 3D screen and I would need a GTX 680 or 780.

The one I am looking at has 6MB. I imagine I will see if I can match the 4GB module to take it to 8GB. Otherwise, I will probably go for 16MB.

I appreciate your pointing out that it is not as simple as plugging in the card, auto recognize and auto load the drivers.

Thanks for the heads up on the 3D. I am most interested in the crisp screen, the 3D is secondary and more of a novelty.

You've got me thinking more about just going for Alienware Alpha. By the time I get this set up like I want it, I will probably have twice as much into it and it still won't be as powerful as the $899 Alpha. If the GPU in the Alpha was upgradeable, I probably wouldn't think twice. I use a Macbook Air most of the time, so this would be primarily for gaming, occasional travel and a backup for my MBA.

 

The 7970m is no slouch , I used it in both my R4's and it was a fantastic card. The only problem with them is we have seen a lot of them burn out on these forums so it is possible that you could see the 7970m fail at some point if you have one from a bad batch, but that being said you could easily wait and see if that happens and update the GPU at that time, however you are correct the AMD cards will not run the 3D screen. Honestly even though I have 3D I almost never use it...you have to turn it on and off if you don't want it always on, you don't just select when you run a program if you would like 3D this time or not, you have to go in tot he Nvidia control panel and turn it on or off depending on whether you want to use it or not. Some games are ok to play in 3D while others really bother my eyes, the movies are pretty nice though. If your anything like me I got the 3D and used it pretty religiously for about a month and now my glasses almost never come out of the case I just find it a hassle. If the R4 is anything like the 17 which I presume it is, you can upgrade the screen and the cable and not worry about the emitter and the glasses and just not have 3D as well.

6gb is not bad, and mixing and matching while not ideal isn't necessarily a terrible thing if your trying to save money, your not trying to run OC's or anything like that so it probably won't matter to much.

 

Well...step one is one the way. An M17x R4 w/ 3610QM, 6GB, 750GB, 7970M and DVD. Now begins a period of patience and sniping as I collect the rest of the parts... I think I will be able to use it for the foreseeable future as is as I only own one newish game. So, I will probably be pretty frugal on the rest of the pieces.

 

That will serve you well as is I am sure, I played the BF4 beta on my R4 and it ran just fine but I had my 780m by the time the game was fully released I think, either way I don't think you will have any problems for the foreseeable future.

 

I actually have almost the exact setup you are looking for
3940xm, 32gb, 512gb ssd, BDROM, 120hz, however my GPU is 675m

To get an idea of what I spent, I dropped about $1700 for the base config, which actually had most of the components. I upgraded the RAM for $200 (sold old set for $100 2x8gb), installed my own SSD, Bought a 120hz screen.

The hardest part was finding a 120hz designed for the M17x R4. I think I got one of the only ones available. I did have it for sale but no one wanted it so I just put it back in my laptop. I dropped 400 for the screen assembly. I opted to buy the entire setup and not just the LCD, since you would have to take apart the old one and risk cracking the glass, then seal it onto the new LCD, risking dust getting in and making it look like .

One thing my R4 has is the upgraded CPU fan. It has about 3-4x the CFM of the stock fan, so my CPU never really gets too hot, even though I'm at 44x on all cores.

Had I known you were looking we could have struck a deal, since I actually want the Alienware 18 (I'm just a large laptop fiend).

 

PM me with what you are looking for. If it is in the ballpark, I can probably resell the one I got and make a few bucks. Honestly, part of the fun is hunting/sniping the parts and putting everything together, but I would also like to avoid some of the cost.

Did you use the fan out of the M14x? I have been reading about that. Sounds like an excellent opportunity of a little fabrication.

Actually, I'm just the opposite. My other machine is an 11" Macbook Air. It is connected to two 29" Thunderbolt displays. Unfortunately, a few select ASUS models are the only ones that seem to support TB display, so I want my laptop screen to be large enough to play on once in awhile, but I expect that most of the time this will sit in the entertainment center and output to the 65" plasma TV.

 

Hey I have a R4 too.. Are you interested in it? BTW, are you in the US or in the UK/EU?? Just wondering as if you'e in US, its probably not worth it...

 

If you have a machine that is exactly like I described in the first post or very similar and you want a realistic price, PM me. I am in the US, so international shipping may put the delivered price outside the realistic range. Thanks.

 

PM sent...

 

So today, I ordered the BD and 16GB of memory. Once I get the 3940MX, I am going to stick with the m17x I have. I'm not in a hurry. If you have the other components to sell at a fair price, reach out via PM. As danyune can attest, I PayPal like lightning

 

GTX 980M works in the M17x R4, but in optimus mode only

 

Thanks. I have read the same, but don't really know what "in optimus mode only" means to me. As the m17x I purchased has the HD 7970, I plan to use that until the 980's (or the next great card) are better supported and come down in price. As a long-time Linux user, I am not a great fan of ATI/AMD as their driver/app support has always lagged NVIDIA. Kind of like the joy of using Broadcom products on Linux (not). I know the experience on Windows is different.

The buy/sell thread here is pretty dysfunctional. I can't post WTB. If anyone has an Intel 3940MX to sell at a fair price, please PM me. Cheers.

 

Umgh.. AMD's linux support has been better then NVIDIA's for the last 2-3 years.. In fact much better...

 

Entirely possible, it has been about that long since I gave away my Linux gaming machine. Thanks for the correction.

 

I'm looking to ressurect my M17xR3 and ditch the Alienware 18 so I hope you don't mind me posting here.

Before I go and buy a few bits and pieces I'd just like to be 100% sure I'm getting the right things. Is the 3940XM the best compatible CPU? And it seems that I can take out one of the 880Ms in the 18 and put it in the 17 with only a little driver hassle, correct?

And one last thing: Will that be capable of outputting 4k? I plugged it into a 4k monitor yesterday and the option for that resolution wasn't even available, but this was running on the integrated GPU. Obviously a 880M will be a big change, but I want to ensure that this is in fact a limitation of the Intel GPU and not in fact some kind of chipset limitation that will cap it at 1080p no matter the GPU.

 

Actually, that is a quite different topic than what I started. You can use the R3 owners lounge or start another thread, but I would like to stay on topic here. Thanks.

 

1. Best CPU is 2960XM or 2920XM.
2. Yes should work, you will need to mod drivers...
3. Should do 4k @30Hz through HDMI and depending on your displayport version, 4k @60Hz is possible too..

 

I purchased my 3940MX today, so I am no longer interested in another M17x. I am only still interested in the following:

3) Install a 256GB SSD as the boot drive (maybe 512MB)
5) Install the 120hz 3D display
6) Upgrade the GPU. It appears that dual 780m's in an SLI configuration might be the best today, but I can't tell
7) Should I upgrade WLAN/BT, if so, to what? Maybe the Killer N if at a good price.

You can PM me you have one of those items (new or used). Also, it appears I will need a higher wattage power supply. I've read a number of threads that recommend the 240w ps and a few that discuss the 330w. I am going to order one, which way should I go. I ordered the right angle adapter so I can remove the pin as recommended.

Thanks.

 

3. I suggest the Sandisk Extreme Pro
4. Might not work with the laptops with AMD cards as I believe there is a different mobo
5. Best GPU is a single 780M.. You cannot have dual 780s.. The 980M might be a upgrade but you need to wait... Work is still in progress to make it work but new news has been optimistic..
7. No need if you have Intel.. its enough...

 

I didn't realize there was any issue on compatibility for the BD. The M17x will be here today and the BD should be here Saturday, so we'll see.

 

The 980M may work in the M17x R4. It works in the M18x R2. The 3940XM is the best CPU you can purchase.

You cannot have SLI in the M17x R4. They stopped SLI at M17x R2. You need to upgrade to the 18" notebook for SLI.

 

I'm not sure... You'll have to check... IMO, this seems unlikely as Alienware wouldn't waste money on 2 different mobos... See the R4 part list somewhere on this forum and if there are 2 , then forget 120Hz....

980M is confirmed working in R2 with SLI.. It seems you need to have UEFI enabled in BIOS and basically use Windows 8/8.1 but that's fine for me...

 

That win8/8.1 & update1 are a crippled OSes, I guess there will be a vBIOS mod/update from svl7 as he's having an AW17-3D and he was getting his 980M by this weekend.. or an official dell release of 900M gpus would suffice without all that disabling legacy option, win8, UEFI BS .

 

Uh yeah. Tried to update to 14.9 today. Looks pretty similar to the same PITA I remember from years ago. If the rest of the industry made this type of progress, we would still be playing wumpus on an HP programmable calculator. Finally got it though. Played a few minutes of Wolfenstein: The New Order.

 

Based on the feedback from folks here, I went another direction. I decided I really wanted the 120hz display and the installation looked non-trivial. Also, I tend to keep my machines quite a while, so I wanted to get something as current as I could afford. So, today my AW 17 arrived. As you guys said, the display is awesome. I boxed up my M17x R4 and all the upgrades I purchased and they will soon be on eBay (I got some great deals I am going to pass on). FWIW, in the week I had my R4, there was nothing it wouldn't do and with a few upgrades (once you've booted from SSD you won't go back) it would have been fine. However, I think I will be satisfied with my AW 17 longer. Thanks again for the advice. I'm a happy camper and looking forward to tearing in to the AW 17.