New M17x R3 owner here, questions incoming!

Okee dokee so, got this lovely little monster now instead of the R2, screen is MUCH better than most give it credit for and it feels a bit more sturdy than the previous model... oh and can actually run my 6970M without overheating... and is quiet(er). >.>

(Pretty much better in every way from what I can see.)

So I have a couple questions regarding the GPUs this thing can reliably use and whatnot. The R2 I had was finicky at best. It would occasionally BSOD for pretty much no reason... idling at the desktop (code 9c if that matters), I had to undervolt the 6970M to maintain safe temps and the CPU had no clue as to what it was doing half the time (Yay random overheating!).

1.) What GPUs, aside from the 6000 series and GTX 500 series, will work in this thing? (I want to upgrade to the 675MX specifically.)

2.) What temps should I see for a stock system under nominal conditions with the following specs:

2760QM
8GB RAM
2GB 6970M
128GB SSD + 500GB HDD
Killer 1103 wifi card
1080p screen
(IC Diamond thermal paste)

3.) Can this thing reliably handle the 2920XM if I wanted to potentially upgrade down the road and overclock?

Thanks in advance!

 

Haven't I seen you somewhere else?

Anyway,
1) You should be able to put in whatever card you want and it should run ok as far as I've seen minus the occasional weird bugs. You will also lose your IGPU switching and will have to switch from within the bios. Not a big deal if you usually use the computer in one place.

2) My 2630qm doesn't go past 85C while folding at full speed.
Not sure about how hot your GPU should be running as my 6990m is an ES model and for some strange reason runs extremely hot compared to other cards. I don't go past 80C though while gaming or folding.

3) For future proofing an XM processor would be a good investment. You will have to spend some time figuring out what clocks work best for your temps without throttling which can be challenging sometimes, but if you like overclocking it can be fun too.


Hope this helps!!!

 

You should be OK adding the 675MX, I've got the 670MX in mine. Bigtonyman made some good points. With the overclock in my sig temps don't go over 64 degC, so it's a great GPU to have in the R3.

The 2920XM has got a TDP of 56W. I've modified my 2630QM (same as bigtonyman) with Throttlestop & Intel XTU 2.0 to allow it to run at full turbo forever with no time limit. When running Prime 95 at a constant 54W temperatures are 84 degC at a room temperature of 22 degC, CPU fan reaching 4000rpm or 93%. So, if I was able to overclock my CPU, like the 2920XM, then I reckon given the efficiency of my cooling system I could have the CPU consume nearly 75W and stay under 95 degC, so I think you'd be OK getting the most out of the 2920XM if you optimise the cooling (good pasting, dust free heatsink, laptop cooler or no restriction of airflow to bottom of laptop). Not completely sure about the 75W figure I quoted just now, that's a slightly educated guess based on my current watt consumption & corresponding CPU temperature.

Here's a link showing you all you need to know about getting the most out of your 2920XM if you decide to get it:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...-2960xm-cpus-m17x-r3-without-modded-bios.html

Let us know if you decide to get the 2920XM & 675MX, and how they perform when you've got them, could be interesting!

Also, you'd probably want to overclock the nuts off the 675MX to get the most out of it, NVidia severely limited the core clocks (and voltage) to allow for very good thermals, but also so it didn't eclipse the 700 series (770M specifically). (That's just my opinion though). To really overclock it flash a modded vBIOS from TechInferno, user svl7:

NVIDIA Kepler VBIOS mods - Overclocking Editions, modified clocks, voltage tweaks

Excellent choice of GPU, performance & temperatures will be awesome!

 

Wow... that answered everything perfectly!

I think I'll just stick with the 2760QM for now. Cooling system appears to be the same as in the R2, as far as TDP restrictions go. But great to hear about the 675MX! That made my day. ^-^

Well aware of the overclocking potential in the MX series, the G75VX showed me what the 670MX can do, so my thoughts regarding the 675MX should put it right on par with the desktop chip it's based on... after the overclock of course...

 

Yep, you should definitely be able to overclock it to GTX 660 levels, ah but the memory bus is wider on 675MX, so it's not really a GTX660! Funnily enough, I always used to think the 670MX was based on the GTX 660, same memory & stream processors, but 670MX is GK104, and GTX 660 is GK106. GTX 675MX is also GK104, which is the bigger chip, same one in 680M / 780M / 680 desktop - they just cut down which 'clusters' are active (some parts don't work after the production process). Funny thing is the GTX 770M is GK106, which is a smaller chip to the 670MX/675MX, which means I reckon the cooling is more efficient on the 670MX/675MX due to a larger surface area in contact with the heatsink. 670MX/675MX for the win!

 

Great answer, had pretty much everything that there was to say. +1

@imglidinhere 675m should work fine, just needed to let you know that since it is not a verified upgrade you may encounter issues with tech support. Better to keep the original card somewhere safe, just in case you are asked to put it in.

 

Hi, did you ever get around to buying & installing that 675MX? How did it go?