M17xR3 upgrade of 6990m

Hello!

I'm now wandering about upgrading my M17x R3 a little bit. I thought that upgrading GPU would do it quite nicely,
I'm currently running a 6990m card. I was wandering which one should I choose for the upgrade - 7970m or maybe GTX 780M (is it even possible to install 780M it in my case?).

Before I spent about 500$ on the card I thought I'll consult you if it's a viable option and are there any problems I should expect?

Regards,
r45hnu

 

Hi,
I can't talk to AMD as I've never installed one but I'm sure it works. I just don't know the work involved with drivers and stuff.

For NVidia on an R3 the 680m is your best option. The 780m and (Nooo!) 880m cause audio and white screen issues that can be tricky to fix. Both run way hotter as well

Check out my posts from my profile to see what is involved .

Good luck

 

The 680M/780M/880M will all work but out of these, the 780M is probably the best bet.. Don't even get the 880M, its completely broken...

On the AMD side, 7970M and 8970M work but it is a bit of a pain to make them work..

Personally, I would wait 1-2 months.. NVIDIA's Maxwell cards should be out next week and they will be a significant upgrade so unless your 6990M is dieing, I would hold on..

 

Don't forget the 780m in the R3 requires the audio chip disabled and then re-enabled with the manufactures driver. I've seen some just give up on getting audio from the laptop and use a USB sound card. The problem exhibits itself by a white screen when windows starts.

680m with an overclock runs as fast as a 780m but runs around 10c lower, meaning it can be really pushed if you wanted to. I've seen a lot of 780m's hitting 80c and over, way too hot for my liking

Seems AMD are just as much trouble when using a non-standard GPU. Neither NV GPU's are easy plug and play, needing bios and driver mods .

 

7970M is a great upgrade and works fine in the M17x R3 (I had one in mine before I sold it). Don't waste money on a 8970M or a R9 M290x, they are the same cards as the 7970M. For 300$ you double your gaming performance. For me, it's an easy choice.

 

This are some of the main issues that you may experience if you install anything above the 680m. Also if you have 3D you may lose it's functionality with any of them. They aren´t certified upgrades for your machine and could cause issues. The 6990 should work without issues.