M17x R4 GPU upgrade questions

Hi,

Fairly new here, but I've owned a M17R4 for the past 3 years now, it has a 7970m in it.
But the time has come to bring 'err up to date again by putting in a 9XX series card, 970m is what i was thinking about.
After having looked here for a bit, i'm finding partial answers to my questions. But i'm really new to all of this bios flashing and stuff so I'm looking for a couple of concrete answers to push me in the right direction for purchasing an upgrade.

- Are there any big downsides to upgrading (no win10 or bricking and all that stuff)
- Can i just plug it in and use the new card? or do I really need to flash bios and modify drivers? and will I have to modify the drivers everytime a new one launches?
- The best place to buy a new card (I know Hidevolution exists, but the taxes to europe are making it an impossible deal)

If someone would just post me a small how to, that would be sweet.
I found some sellers on Ebay from germany, wich would be a better fit for my purchasing situation.
But maybe some europeans here can point me in the right direction?

Thanks in advance guys!

 

if you can i'd wait a few mounths and see what happens with the GTX1000m series cards & if their compatible and even if there not by then the GTX900m series would have gone down in price

 

The used prices on the 900 series will go down, not the new price.

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

I can wait a while yes, but I just wanted to know if it's worth upgrading it...Cuz if its too much of a hassle, i'd just sell the R4 and get a new 14" clevo system. I don't mind having to have time invested in modding the files and stuff. I just can't find a good starting point... I'd love to know what steps you had to go through in order to make your 980m working in your R4

 

I wouldn't even know where to find used mobile cards. Not in my country (Belgium) anyways. And maybe when some of the veterans here upgrade, i can buy theirs haha

 

Ah yeah. I have a friend in Romania. Ebay and Amazon won't ship there. Is this the case in Belgium as well?

 

how you upgrade it depends:
if you want to run win 7 you must have a 60hz panel and always use optimus (SG mode)

on a 120hz panel or want to run in dedicated mode (PEG) you need win8.0/8.1/10

upgrade guide 120hz/dedicated mode by @Solo wing
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/installed-980m-in-m17x-r4-120hz-3d.778177/#post-10037550

upgrade guide by @mikecacho follow the optimus settings to get it to work in win7 & 60hz panel:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/m17x-r4-gtx980m-upgrade.766867/


You might also want to run hwinfo64 with a custom fan profile as i find about 75% of the time the card will throttle if it goes over 64 degC / it reaches a certain fan speed so i have set up a very aggressive fan profile for it

Also it is worth getting a 330w psu

 

You can always try online sites such as eBay or NewEgg.

 

I got my GTX980m from @woodzstack and got it delivered to Germany in less than a week

 

Don't mindMahmoud, he is just another super happy 980M user, lol....

So what kind of scores you got when you bench that card dood ?

 

11.2k all at stock ... Pretty decent

 

yeah thats pretty good. Impressive. Now you understand why I shipped it FAST.. pun intended

 

I see what you did there

 

haha. yup.

 

i also bought 2X 980m's from Woodzstack, and i also do live in belgium i can only say his cards are very good quality.
To bad airport customs fhkedd me with 300 + € TAXES.

it still hurts..