GTX 680M OC --> 780m OC worth it in R4?

At the moment I have GTX 680m installed in my laptop, which I am looking to keep. I want to keep it until the release of GTX 980m or something better, at which point I will probably need to buy a brand new machine. Is it worth buying 780M as a replacement for 680m to prolong the life of the notebook? I would be downloading different vbios and overclocking the new card. How much performance one can squeeze from overclocked 780m compared to overclocked 680m? 680m would be sold to recover some funds for the new card. I am using the newest official BIOS and Windows 8.1 Pro. Would I need any BIOS mods or is it straight swap of the cards?

3D Mark Fire Strike score 5568
3D Mark 11 score P7975
3D Mark full test

 

Hi, I'm doing the same - waiting out true next-gen stuff while this machine more than copes with all my gaming needs.

You will need an unlocked bios (I believe, I've not checked the latest release to see?) So you can set the boot graphics to PEG. If you don't disable the on-board optimus locks the machine in 'Intel' mode. You see everything and the driver installs, it just won't use it!

You've also got to get or modify a driver .inf file for the installer to work with a non-standard' configuration.

Of course see what the 780m is being pushed to but it may be a case of just wanting to try it?

It's going to be interesting if Dell manage to time the release for the next model around the new maxwell GPU release? NV must have OEM's working with this new stuff, after all, it's not like there is a huge after-market on mobile chips like desktops. That's where my money is going .

 

IMO it would not be worth it but it depends on how much you want that few extra FPS. By OCing , I am sure you could probably reach 780m levels but then if you OC a 780m you will go higher so it all depends what you want to do. A new 780m is still quite expensive so the price to performance ratio is just to high for my tastes.

If you did decide to swap the cards I don't believe any BIOS mods are in order but you will need modified driver files which are not hard to get your hands on and most people actually mod them themselves. You basically need the device ID added to the drivers because that card did not come stock in any R4.

I can tell you from personal experience that the firestrike score you posted beats my 780m at all stock clock speeds so unless your planning on heavily OCing a 780m it just wouldn't be worth it.

My opinion is wait for the next release from Nvidia and see if it is compatible with your system , we really don't know yet if they will be or not.

 

You should wait for the 980M. It may or may not be upgradeable in the R4, but probably will.

Waiting is a win-win situation for you. The way I see it: if you wait and the 980M does not work, the 780M is just going to be cheaper. If you wait and the 980M does work, now you've got the best GPU on the market.

 

This is true for the 120hz display where the Intel is already disabled. If dell have added the option to switch at least it's a simple change and not an unlocked bios to find and install? The intel/optimus gets stuck with a non-standard card .

But, yeah, not worth it unless it's just for giggles

 

Thank you all guys for the advise. Do you have to disable Intel card completely in order for nvidia card to kick in? Could somebody confirm for sure if you need modded BIOS for 780m please? I can not disable Intel card with Windows 8 with FN+F7, might be due to uefi and secure boot enabled. PC would not post, but restart again and boot back into windows with both cards enabled. I used to be able to disable Intel card on Windows 7 though.
MogRules, what is your fire strike score when your 780m is overclocked?

 

From other threads I have followed it has to be disabled on any NV card not sold with the model.

Also it seems that you cannot start a machine on the NV with uefi and secure boot enabled. Only found this out today working with someone installing a 120hz display - that also needs to be able to boot from the NV card.

I'm waiting on the results of turning off uefi to see if this is the cause of a machine to fail POST when the intel is disabled, but it's looking that way...

Let us know what happens in compatibility mode?

 

My OS is installed using GPT rather than MBR, so it would not boot in compatibility mode. This would not be a problem with Windows 7, but I would not want to change the whole OS to be able to upgrade the GPU. Well, it seems I will be keeping my 680m for longer if it is confirmed you have to disable Intel card to use unsupported GPU. I was hoping it is just an easy driver *.inf mod.

 

I don't play around with OCing much. I oced it slightly the other day because I was bored on a night shift and had nothing better to do but I didn't leave it there. Take into account I know next to nothing about OCing.

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-4800MQ,Alienware 068R5X

This was completely stock CPU clocks as well. I probably could have pushed harder but without more knowledge I wasn't going to take any chances.

 

Ah, I'm not really familiar with the uefi/win 8 stuff except that all the people I asked about it said not to use it. Too new and offers nothing to a gaming rig but problems with things like boot and drive allocation? Even the fast boot has been superseded by the speed of an SSD so the difference is negligible.

Can you not convert it to MBR using a windows repair straight off a boot CD? It should detect the boot problem and fix it if the bios is in compatibility mode - the win Cd will be forced to use MBR to boot.

I am certain that a 780m cannot co-exist in an R4 with the intel. In fact a very recent poster had bought one and gave up in preference to a 680m, he did not want to mess with a 3rd party bios....

 

Like Micky said, you will have to disable the integrated graphics card with an unlocked bios. I'm currently running Windows 8.1 installed using GPT but did have to disable secure boot and fast boot in the bios. In my bios, boot options read as: Secure Boot [Disabled], Load Legacy Option Rom [Enabled], Boot List Option [UEFI].

 

i just happened to think about the same, the answers here have now changed my mind. thank you

 

It's close enough not to be worth it, I understand the itch though