M290X Discontinued

Hi there everyone, I apologize if this is the wrong place to post this since this is one of my first threads however I have recently found out that the AMD M290X GPU has been discontinued for the Alienware 17. I recently ordered a new 17 during their black Friday special that featured this card (I really needed a new laptop and my old M15x had completely died on me) I had been waiting over a month for my order that was supposed to ship out tomorrow. However while surfing youtube I saw a video from a guy who got the same deal I did and ordered after I placed mine so I decided to call and see why I had not received my order if someone else had. I was informed that my order had been canceled because they were no longer offering the 290x in the 17's. They offered to upgrade me to the 880m and free next day shipping all at the same price as the black Friday deal. I suppose this is more of a heads up that if you had placed an order with that card you might want to call them to see if you are one of the unlucky ones who had their order canceled.

 

Alienware is going to only offer soldered GTX 980M and 970M with Alienware 17 R2.
Unless AMD does soldered GPUs and can offer same performance as Nvidia, Alienware will stay Nvidia exclusive

 

get the 880M and live with for now.. Upgrade to the 980M/1080M later.. This BGA filth that is coming is not worth waiting for!

 

pardon me if its a stupid question, but can you upgrade a system with amd chip to nvidia? ( i have the aw 17 with r9 m290x)

 

Yes you can go from an AMD card to an Nvidia card but you will more then likely have to change the Bracket for it to work as the AMD and Nvidia brackers are different. Some have made them work but most of them time switching the bracket is suggested as it is pretty cheap and easy to do.

The only time you will run into problems is if you have an Nvidia 3D setup and want to go to AMD , that will not work as the AMD cards don't support 3D.

You could go to the 780m or 880m now with minimal to little effort. Drivers will work and no mods aside from the card and bracket should be required. The 900m series are still being tested by people on the forums here and there are gimmicks to getting them working properly, such as running in UEFI mode and so on.

 

I would up accepting the offer they made me with the 880m. I figure that will hold me over until the 980's come down in price and then one day upgrade to that

 

It should tide you over and is a fair swap.

 

I'm glad to hear that. After reading about some of the issues with the 880m I was getting a bit worried. However I have some IC diamond 7 ready to repaste as soon as I test it all

 

the R9 M290X isn't the most powerful GPU and is roughly on par with a 770m or even less. so getting an 880m isn't the best you haven't really lost out in a way.

 

Get ICD it definetly helps ... Also get some good thermal pads for the GPU such as the Fujipoly ones if you can find them.. Phobya XT pads will do too...

 

Can you buy the fugipoly pads in a kit so to say with like three different thicknesses or do you you have to buy each sheet individually. Probably the later huh.

 

Thermal pads are one thing I don't have too much experience with, I've usually only left the stock thermal pads on. When I get a set of them should i just apply the pads in the same spot that they are stock or should I apply them to different spots?

 

Same spots and a bit more.. Here's the pad outline for the 780M.. it should be similar for 880M..

View image: DSC 1827f

You want good thermal pads and paste with the 880M oven ...

 

Awesome thanks for the tips, I'll have to pick up some thermal pads and get those on after I get my system.

 

The 780m and 880m have an identical layout

 

The M290X is basicly a faster HD7970M and that one is already a lot faster than a GTX770m (5000 vs 7000 3dmark11). A M290X is about the same as a GTX780M

 

this review is saying otherwise

AMD Radeon R9 M290X - NotebookCheck.net Tech

a 13% difference is not "about the same" as a 780M.

 

It still is a lot faster than a GTX770M, but not as close as to a 780M I thought those weren't that much faster than a GTX680M (which is a bit slower than the M290X).

 

I should have asked this earlier but when I'm looking at the thermal pads what thickness should I get? I see most are listed as either .05MM or 1mm thick.

 

7970M is noticeable better than 770M. M290X which is slightly better binned too sits between the 680M 4GB card and 780M cards.

However 680M OCed still beats it! I ran a 7970M before the 680M and clock for clock the 680M is much faster. You would need a good 100mhz clock advantage on the 7970M to keep up.