M17x R1 upgrade options (need advise)

Long story short i dont have much money but i want to upgrade my M17 x r1:

my specs are qx9300 with gtx 285m sli 8gb ram

i was thinking on getting one of the following options:

a -5870m CF (is there a big difference in preformance from gtx 285m sli?)
b -upgrading mobo to an r2 (i have a dell precision with a i7 940xm cpu)


both upgrades are like 230,00 bucks more or less


thanks in advance for your help

 

Confused at option b. How would you upgrade the motherboard? The chassis won't fit anything else, will it?

 

upgrade to an r2 mobo is an option since both motherboards have the same shape . the only thing i have to purchase (besides the board ) is the cpu cooler and the metal piece that is beneath the keyboard / palm rest

look at this

Upgrade M17x R1 to R2 motherboard » imsolidstate

 

+ soundboard... the R1 won't work with R2 motherboard as far as i know.

 

Go with the Crossfire'd 5970's.

 

I'd do the same if I were you. The R2's mobo may not fit perfectly the R1's chassis.

 

It fit, the grey plate will not but you can cut it with a dremel, not a big deal.

Anyway if you upgrade to 940xm you will see somme better fps but not a lot, you will have less fps drop. In fact you should go for 940 xm and a new gpu like 7970m/680m or 970m if you wanna be the first to try.

 

yeah guess i will need the daughter board too !!

 

i have a dell precision M4500 with a i7 940xm that is screaming "!! i want a new home!!" xD .

I think i have decided to purchase the r2 mobo along with the cpu cooler , metal piece (i dont want to cut the r1 one because i dont have the tools) and the daughter board . The 5970cf project can wait for now . i will save some cash and maybe get a 580m sli or 7970 cf (what ever is cheaper).

Again thank you guys for your valuable information and time

 

The 580m sli is not a good option , modded driver and things , all the 580m dies after some time ( same for 675m as it's the same card ).

 

tanx for that info regarding the gtx 580m !!

 

all this talk about 5970 CF, but it's actually 5870 xD the 5xxxM series flagship was 5870 ...

I think single 7970M would be the best choice ATM or a 770M if you don't mind runing external soundcard.

 

Hello sorry for not updating !! i got an r2 board from a chinese sller on ebay but unfortunately when using the second mxm slot the laptop wont display any video . with one card the laptop runs fine . tested two gtx 285m in sli and two 5870m cards and in cf and i got the same problem. also i used the laptop with all four cards in single card mode and the cards run fine on the left mxm slot and before that i tested all cards on the r1 board and they work in dual graphic card configurations (the only problem with the r1 board is when enabling 5870m in cf the fans wont work properly) . There is another problem with the board : every time i boot i get a bios write error (i dont remember the exact error because this was like a month ago) and i presume the bios is corrupted because i could not flash the board from windows i was going to try flashing from dos but i got lazy after all that ordeal trying testing the gpus in every possible way , btw the board came with the latest bios but i think is corrupted . The good news is that both r1 and r2 daughter boards will work fine with either r1 and r2 main boards . right now im using the r2 daughter board on the m17x r1 without problems .