Upgrade 680M 2GB to 680M 4GB

Hi,

Would it be worth the trouble upgrading the 680M 2GB to a 4GB variant?

I have both cards but I'm not sure if it's worth the hassle of opening the laptop just for the 2GB extra VRAM.

Thanks,

M.

Macbook Pro Retina - Alienware M17x R4 680M/16GB/512SSD - MSI GT70-ONE 680M/12GB/128SSD/750HDD

 

If I had both cards I would put the 4 vram in..I would not buy one for the difference but if you got it use it.. and welcome to the forum.

 

Hi manub, welcome to the forums.

At the moment, you're not going to be seeing games get very close to the 2gb RAM cap - especially at 1920x1080 resolution.

In my personal opinion you would be better leaving the 2 gigabyte dell card within the system. It has been proven on multiple threads that the dell card is actually much superior despite the smaller RAM capacity.

Especially with;
Gaming results
Benchmarking Results
And overclocking results have been proven to push much further than the Clevo cards.

If you were to install a Clevo card you would also most likely have to do a blind video bios flash, as upon initial installation the system will not support it with stock settings.

 

Welcome to NBR!!!

I agree with deepdarkness. it would be much easier just to leave the 2gb card in the system as you won't see much gain for the reasons deep outlines above.

 

To OP,
No there is no difference in performance between 2GB and 4GB version. The latter is best for running multiple displays.

 

Another vote to stay with the dell card

 

Another reason to possibly stick with the Dell card might be warranty, especially if you were thinking of selling the unused one. As for benefits of more vRam - external monitor at higher than 1920x1080 would be the only noticeable difference....running some titles on my U3011 at 2560x1600 would frequently see some games rapidly approaching 2gb usage....BF3, Skyrim to name a few.....

 

Thanks for the replies

I don't have a very high res external monitor, but it's higher then normal, LG 29EA93 2560x1080.

Untill now I didn't notice any slowdowns, BF3 is running nicely with a 70fps average and settings between high and ultra.
I could test with the MSI GT70, that lappy has a 4GB variant in it, and see if I get better FPS or not.

So I'll leave the original card in for now ;-)

Thanks again.

M.

 

good call! And testing against the GT70 is not going to give you any valuable results. Too many other factors in play

 

Not worth it at all, comparing between the alienware and MSI of the same generation is not that invalid really, especially at stock speeds.

 

Hahaha I own an ultra wide monitor too, they're pretty good for movies hey?

 

Last year I replaced my 2GB one with a 4GB one because the former had some issues with modding and overclocking. That is the only reason I went for the bigger one.

 

digging the beast in your sig man, looks pretty awesome.

 

Cool. I was just thinking about things like fan profiles, cooling, throttle limits, I believe that the clevo vbios is more 'overclockable', but as you say 'stock speeds' so I guess all that stuff does not kick in?

Good to know (79 rep :thumbsup: )

 

Indeed, and even for gaming, I just love BF3 with a FOV of 90

Sometimes I even use the splitscreen function with the Alienware on 1 side and the RMBP on the other side. I can have a quick gaming session while I keep an eye on my work on the other side



PS: does anyone know where to edit the signature in the posts, I can't seem to find it

 

I believe you need to have either 5 or 10 posts to have a signature.