Undecided - Alienware 17 780m 120hz or Alienware 17 r2 980m

Hi Guys,

I need a bit of help with a decision, I really don't know what to do...

I currently own an AW17 with a 120hz 3d screen and the gpu is a 780m with the unlocked bios loaded on to it, it's performing really well in game and having the 120hz screen makes it look amazing...

Now my dilemma is I would like the graphics to look even better if possible, so I don't know if I should upgrade the AW 17 I have or sell it and get a new AW 17 R2.

I'm not sure I would be able to keep the 120hz screen if I upgraded my current machine.. Bit of a dilemma, any advice is always welcome...

Thanks

Ian

 

Upgrade it to 970M or 980M. If you want a brand new laptop with only one GPU, go for the Clevo "Batman" laptop with desktop CPU. Don't buy the 17 R2 BGA abortion... it's not the best available choice for performance, and it's also not as good as what you already have.

 

+1 ... Exactly do what the man said ... Newer ain't always better and in that case it is much much worse

 

i'm waiting for woodzstack to ship a 980m so it's gonna be good fun.

 

Awesome. So glad you chose the 980M. I think you will be much happier. 970M is a great GPU, but not enough better than 780M to warrant the purchase. 780M to 980M is a massive performance increase. + Rep

 

yeah, i saw that woodzstack was selling cards on the ebayz so I PM'd them and got ordered a 980m for a reasonable price - lower than what places like Eurocom were charging the same hardware for. I was hoping for woodzstack to ship it out last week but they got super busy so will have to keep waiting...should be by at least tuesday as they're in the next province from me.

i have been waiting for a good few months now, just waiting for a decent opportunity where i had the money to actually buy one....and now i have so it should be good.

as i've said, the install is the easy bit.

 

I'd say If you want the full control over the machine, get a clevo P7xxZM forget Alienware (UEFI mess applies to all AWs / Locked BIOS on Haswell Gen 1 / BS laptops on Gen 2 due to BGA filth, more..)
Really I never thought I'd say this...damn this Dell going private, they will never care about any of their users past / present / future.

 

I also agree with Mr. Fox, stick with the Alienware R1. I know I will be. God help me if I ever need to use that warranty though....

 

Thanks guys, its much appreciated, i was worried about retaining the 120hz if i upgraded to a 980m in my AW17 R1

I will go and read up more before i take the plunge..

Thanks once again

Ian

 

From what I've read as long as you're using win 8.1 and UEFI boot you should not need to make any bios changes, only a modded driver, but you may find (like I did with the 680m upgrade) that the installed driver works fine, so don't mess with it until you have to .

Edit: If you are looking for a replacement the X8 in my sig is simply an awesome gaming rig - all games running fully maxed out and seeing 120+ fps in GTA V!

 

Tweak the 980m and it's great with the 120hz 1080p screen.

 

Your welcome.Thanks for mentioning me too ! I gave a discount because I offered a discount to the community awhile ago. Still stands. Anyways I came to say that the AW 17 can actually use 120Hz and a 980M if using windows 8/8.1, incase anyone was wondering.

 

The question is ... Can the vBios be flashed in pure UEFI without Optimus ?

 

possibly, though it's better in optimus as it's not fully active. if you know someone else that can flash it for you then it would be better.

 

Dose that include the 3d with the 980m/120Hz of just use the better refreshrate on the panel?

Cheers

-m

 

I can answer that one - nope. I finally found someone that told me why and it made sense to me. I spent a long time trying to get 3D on a non-standard GPU working and even purchased an external emitter for my X8/120hz. Forcing the 3D install results in a warning the panel is not capable - rubbish.

NV in their greed made laptop OEM's pay a machine specific license fee for every machine sold that is 3D capable. NV issue a 3D certificate for the configuration the OEM has paid for and this is stored in the BIOS. The NV driver looks for this cert on an M chip machine. If it finds it and the config matches, the 3D is installed in the NV CP, if not no 3D, but 120hz works just fine - if you follow the rules .
The 120hz panel in the R3 is the same as the R4 but put a 680m in an R3 - illegal config in cert - no 3D

 

Ah, makes sense (as to why it won't work and hasn't been made to work.... not as to why Nvidia decided that was a good idea...) Haven't seen that mentioned previously.

So am I right in thinking that an AW 17 can be made to work with a 980m (with a 120hz panel), but you won't ever get the 3d... ?

Next question would be: Is a 780m worth upgrading to a 980m

Cheers,

-matt

 

AW17 120Hz does work with a 980m don't worry. The worth of the upgrade is based on your preference in playing games & the type of games you play. Big blockbusters Witcher & GTA for example usually have high system requirements if you are planning on maxing every single option. With some compromises I believe with some compromises in graphics quality you can pull sometime out of the 780m till Nvidia next card is out and either get it or get the 980m at a price drop.

 

As Mahmoud says, the 980m works in the AW17 but you do loose 3D.

NV adopted the MS strategy of cheap processor based licensing for OEMs, but it screws over us up-graders.

Is it worth it over a 780m? Right now probably not IMO. Yes you get to run the very latest titles at max (or close), but my 680m, overclocked to better than 780m spec, still performs great. I didn't want to loose 3D, in some games it is just awesome so I decided to get a second machine. But I am ready for the latest titles with the 980m. Very much an individual choice.

 

Well I took the plunge and ordered a 980m kit for my AW17. Let see what happens. Hopefully it will be here Friday, ordered with a member from here Woodzstack. Great price for the full kit.

Looking forward to seeing what it's like, think I will sell the 780m once it's up and running. I'm not that bothered with about losing 3D as I have a setup I watch 3D movies in the lounge at home.

Thanks

Ian


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Finally someone with the 120Hz taking the plunge ! waiting for your results !

 

friendly bump
any updates?

 

Just waiting on the card to be delivered, it's been posted from Canada yesterday. I ordered the full kit. Just been playing BF4 on ultra settings with my unlocked 780m and was get anywhere between 40 & 62fps, that's not bad to be honest. Wonder what I will get with the 980m


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you'll be able to achieve it easily

EDIT: I was able to get a stable 60fps with the 780m OC'd on medium/high settings and lowering the internal rendering resolution to 90-95% and it still looks awesome.

 

Look what arrived today, fantastic service from Woodzstack, highly recommend if you are looking for 980m. Thanks a lot

Now the fun begins, need to read up a bit to make sure I have everything I need, ddu unistaller, new drivers, etc

I have 120hz screen so I can't flash it for now with the unlock bios unless I fit my 60hz panel back in

Can't wait

Ian


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from what i have seen it's only about 2-3 connectors the display has to the motherboard so i would do a quick switch because you have it.

 

right update time.

installed my 60hz screen back into my alienware 17, that was a pain... over 30 screws... installed the 980m, loaded 353.06 drivers from the Eurocomm website (60hz version).

i havent loaded a new bios onto the 980m yet, i wanted to test it first. its now 2am in the morning here in the uk, so far so good. i did notice when installing the 980m that the underside that lays down on the laptop may need some more pads, there was a thick blue strip left from where the 780m was but i think it needs more. temps during playing bf4 min 50c max 72c. Not sure if that about right...

next is to decide if i load the unlocked bios on and refit the 120hz panel, thats for tomorrow

Thanks

Ian

 

once you flash the vbios (either prema's or svl7's) you can reattach tyhe 120hz panel.

 

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, did you add any pads to the underneath of your 980m when you installed it?

Thanks

Ian

 

there was 1 white pad underneath the card when i removed the 780m - think it's more for cushioning rather than thermal, i didn't add any pads. now i want to see if i can find a 120hz panel LOL.

 

Another thing I noticed, Eurocomm had the same driver listed one for each depending on the panel you have, 60hz or 120hz.

I'm guessing I will need to uninstall the driver I have loaded, then install the 120hz panel and then load the 120hz versions of the same driver...

Do that sound right?

 

that doesn't sound right cos you don't uninstall drivers when you swap displays for a desktop so i don't see why this is the case here. also, if you're on tech inferno just download the latest drivers and get j95's modded infs and you'll be set.

 

Some say it could be hotter with thermal pads on the underside of the GPU. You can test with both before you deciding what works best.

 

Yeah, you never need to un-install an NV driver when replacing an NV card or display. It figures it out.

 

Another update

I was getting 8 beeps on boot, just couldn't get it to boot at all. I have no idea why this is happening since I switched it off last night it was fine and the performance was great in game.

I have now put the 120hz screen back in and installed my 780m and reinstalled suitable drivers and everything it working great again.

So I have decided that I'm not going to try a load an unlocked bios on the card, I just want it stock with a 120hz screen.

So which drivers should I use, and do I load the drivers after installing the 980m back in, then copy the INI file over to the nvidia folder ?

One step forward and two back at the mo

Thanks in advance

Ian

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I think I will try J95 driver set that's for the advice theGhost

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You could just try the existing driver and don't un-install the one working with the 780m. It will figure it out and you'll need the ini for any newer driver you try.

 

There is a modified windows version of nvflash for non-optimus machines. Apparently all you do (and it tells you when you use it) is to disable the card in the device manager. I've not tried it yet but not seen anyone have an issue, although you would have thought disabling the active display would? I just goes to VGA so I'm told. If this messes up you would need safe mode to correct.

Premamod.com - MXM mods. Quote: To use it to help with the throttle on Alienware, please take a look HERE and use THIS NVFLASH!

 

What does the INI file actually do, and do I just drop the file inside the nvidia folder after I have installed the 980m using the signature disable in win 8.1

Thanks a lot

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It just adds your machine ID to an entry containing the new card, OEM's supply NV with these combinations for the machines they sell.

It goes in the display.driver folder under the install. It is version specific so you need to match the ini to the driver. You can get them at laptopvideo2go/drivers, note win 8 is also win 7. You don't need their driver file just the matching ini to the one that failed installation (hardware not found).

 

Think I've had enough of these laptops, just installed the gtx980 back in didn't change any drivers and I get 8 beeps on boot up. I can't get into bios

Stuck !! Spent about 6 hrs already on this, about to give up and sell the 980 and stick with my trusty 780


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ok, so what's the current gpu + display config?

 

Hi mate

It's a 780m unlocked and a 4700 cpu


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It's a 120hz panel set to 120hz 1080p screen resolution


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is your mother board BIOS flashed to the latest version?

EDIT: what display/GPU combo does not work for you?

 

Hi yes version a14


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Both the 60hz and 120hz dont work, I did manage to get it working last night using the 980m with the 60hz but this morning it just beeped 8 times on wouldn't boot up. So I switched displays hoping that would be the problem but it wasn't.

So I took out the 980m and put in my 780m and it's working fine with the 120hz panel.

Not sure what's happening to be honest or how to fix it


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maybe try and clear the CMOS and see if that does anything. also see if you know anyone that has the same model in your area that can test the card to make sure it isn't faulty cos that's what it is sounding like to me and if that's the case then you might need to replace it.

i know i get 8 beeps when i try to access the laptop diagnostics only - regular boot up is fine here.

did you get in touch with woodzstack for help? they should be awake since it's like sunday afternoon here in the canadian east coast.

 

I was going to try the cmos, but the 780m is working fine

I will email woodzstack see if they can help

Thanks


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Is your bios set to UEFI with compatibility rom disabled? I think you're just up against the new card is only UEFI boot and you don't have the iGPU when the 120hz panel is in there? The 780m will boot with the legacy mode.

Try those changes with the 780m in and then shutdown and swap. Your windows installation may not start but if you get past POST you are on the way