M17x R4 780m upgrade + PSU compatibility

Hi all. Having done some research around the area I would like to upgrade my M17x R4's GTX 660 to a 780m. I am familiar with process, however had some questions regarding the physical upgrade -

Here is a Link to the card I'm considering. First of all, would it be compatible to use with my system? Also would I have any issues with the supplied x bracket? or would I need to purchase a separate one? Finally, as there are no included thermal pads, would I be able to purchase these separately and if so could you recommend any?

Also, I currently have the 240w PSU, and just to confirm, would it be better suited to upgrade to the 330w one?

Thanks!

 

Hi there, just my 5c

Look closely at a 680m. This is a serious upgrade from the 660m and is very overclock-able to reach 780m performance. It also runs about 10c cooler leaving plenty of room to push it .

As a recommended GPU for the R4 you won't need to modify the NV driver to get it to install or get an unlocked bios to force the GPU as a boot device. Plug and play. When the 9xx cards finally hit then it might be worth all the hassle of an unsupported card IMO.

You should always try to get the x-bracket with the card. This sets the pressure of the card to heatsink. In practice reusing seems to only be responsible for a couple degrees warmer due to the new card being very slightly thinner.

Simplest solution to the heatsink/pads question is to buy a new 680m one from dell (even if you go for a 780m). It comes with all the pads and paste pre-applied and only needs screwing together . Otherwise you can reuse. There are full kits but a little expensive : ALIENWARE M17x M18x VGA Upgrade Kit; NVIDIA GTX 680M; 4GB DDR5; MXM 3.0b | eBay

This card is a reasonable price: Nvidia GeForce Dell GTX 680M 2GB DDR5 for clevo Alienware upgrademonkey | eBay Same seller and no bad reports about them. You'd need to ask how much for the x-bracket, this always used to come with a new GPU but not so these days

PSU is fine as long as you're not going for an Extreme CPU as well!

Oh, and the 2gb 4 gb thing before you ask, has very little effect on performance except with multiple hi-res displays or the occasional game that preloads loads of textures.

 

Hi, thanks for the quick response. The 9 series cards were the reason I was considering the 780m in the first place , I just assumed it would be a better long term investment than the 680. I was also considering straight out upgrading to an r5 as it would work about the same as upgrading. I'll take a look at the 680 in the mean time

 

The 780M will be better, long term. I recommend you grab one. You can easily exceed 10k in 3DMark 11 with a 780M and a custom vBIOS when overclocked. It's a great card and has plenty of vRAM for monitor setups and more demanding games to come in the future.

Your PSU is fine. Make sure you grab a triple-pipe heat sink and you should be set.

 

Now might not be the right time to move on this...