m17x R3 - Best bang for buck upgrades

Ok, I bought my R3 back in 2011, and after 2 years of loyal service (with a GPU/Mobo replacement thrown in for good measure) it is starting to wheeze a bit under the pressure of the games I find myself playing.

I already updated the 4GB RAM it came with to 16GB of HyperX, which did wonders for the Windows performance, but has not really made a noticeable diff in games performance

Whats the current best bang for your buck upgrades I can do to inject a bit more life into the old girl, as I have become quite fond of her and i'm pretty sure the OEM warranty on her parts runs out this month anyway?

Current Config
CPU - i7 - 2670 QM @ 2.2Ghz
HD - 7200RPM 300GB SATA
GPU - 1.5GB 560M
MEM - 16GB Kingston HyperX CL9 1600Mhz

NB - As a related question, in the long term is it worth performing upgrades over just getting a new rig in another year or so what with the cost of laptop components in relation to their desktop equivalents?

 

Well you can grab a 2920xm pretty cheap these days and a 7970m/680m. They seem to be the best bang for your buck cards at the moment and are much faster than what you currently have.

 

And of course a SSD disk for system, any SDD is faster than your old one.

 

Both of the above. You can even go 29x0XM overclocked with 780M overclocked and enjoy matching and exceeding the performance of the newest laptops.

 

I agree with the SSD, it's the most noticeable upgrade you can do besides the GPU when talking about performance.

 

Or you could go for a 670MX like I have, if you're not adverse to overclocking it wildly after flashing a modified VBIOS. That's probably the best bang for your buck, mine was £230, and overclocked it's about 10% faster than a stock 680M. Cheapest 680M I could see on ebay was £388, but of course you can overclock the 680 too, just not so much. Also, max overclocks will vary depending the luck of the draw of the quality of the silicon you end up with. Your 560M X-bracket & heatsink will work with the 670MX & 680M, just need to move around the thermal pads on the heatsink. You loose Optimus by doing these upgrades, and every time you install a NVidia driver you'll have to use a modified inf file. Your CPU is certainly good enough for gaming. Upgrading the GPU is a good value way of extending your laptop for another 2-3 years. SSD is useful for Windows responsiveness - not so much in games (except for open world games that constantly stream data).

 

I suggest GPU and SSD too. But not the CPU, too expensive for little gain.

Also it might be easier to sell your 560m compared to your 2670qm CPU. Since the 560m will work on older laptops and other brands with different architectures. So if you manage to sell your old GPU, it will offset the new one.

The SSD can stay with you for the next laptop/desktop.

 

Hands down SSD is the most noticeable improvement for an old computer. That or a video card upgrade should help a lot

 

I would grab an SSD and a GTX 680M now. You will love it.

 

Ok, so lot of people are recommending the 680m but they cost a fortune (especially the 4gb ones which are nearly as much as the 780's) for what is essentially a last generation card and as I am looking to get the most bang for my buck I have another question, I've noticed a lot of 770m's on ebay for about half the price of 680m's, now obviously I can infer from this that the 770 is obviously streets behind its big brother the 780m, but is the performance difference between a 680m and 770m really as significant as the price point would suggest?

 

The 770M is weaker than the 680M. You can't go wrong with the 780M. I'd go for the 680M if you want to save a couple hundred dollars. Otherwise, grab the 780M.

 

Yes I get that, but how big a difference are we talking about here, taking into consideration I'm currently using a 560m so either is a massive improvment.

 

If 770m is for 350$ and 680m is for 500$.
Then go for 770m imo.
In Review: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780M, GTX 770M & GTX 765M - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

Look at game benchmarks. Forgot about 3d tests.

 

If you plan on using the r3 to game for another couple of years I would recommend getting the best you can afford right now to future proof your system. If not and you plan on buying a new machine in the not to distant future just buy the 770m and save the rest of your money for the new machine.

 

770M is essentially the same as the 670MX (which I've told you about a couple of posts back): 960 stream processors, 192bit bus with 3GB RAM. I would estimate that you'd be able to overclock the 770M to the same level as my 670MX, if you flash a modded VBIOS, so overclocked you should be able to get stock 680M performance (or maybe a bit faster if you're lucky).

(overclocked my 670MX is 2.8x faster than the 20% overclocked 560M I came from).

 

Ok. For gaming improvements you have to think about what u wanna play. Some games really need bad bang but enough bang for buck cards. Some can use good bang for buck cards. Tell us what game and someone might be able to advice you what is enough now if u buy for todays use. Perhaps all u need to do for now is oc your old gpu.
For overall windows normal use without gaming the SSD drive is the by far cheapest and noticeable improvement smashing the h..... out of your very slow spindrive for an increadible bang for buck conversion.