upgrading M17x r2? graphics PC world Gloucester no help :(

Hi
I have an M17X i think R2 as i have an i7 Q820 processor installed.
i also have 2 ATI mobility radeon HD 4870 graphic cards installed ( tho one says it isnt working and no idea whats wrong with it etc).
I decided that having looked on the forum and online a bit that i wanted to upgrade these sightly.
However i am not confident enough even following a video to install any new cards or software to go with them.
I went to my local PC world in Gloucester, UK and the guy said that as its alienware they cant upgrade it as it needs new motherboard etc so dell has to do it.
From the internet and this forum this seems to be incorrect.
I was looking at something like 2 ASUS AMD Radeon HD 5450 PCI-E Graphics Card or something slightly better as these are quite cheap but would still provide a boost over my currently installed cards ( if these cards are useless /wouldnt fit i apologse as i was hoping the tech guys would help me pick an appropriate one).
I was hoping PC world would do it as if anything went wrong i imagine there is a warrenty etc as they provided parts and labour.

Could anyone advise me as to a good graphics set up that wouldnt cost too much (say £100 max for now) and as to if they know if PC World or some other reputable place can upgrade as i would wish someone else to do this for me.

Many thanks
Mike

 

You can't just put desktop sized cards into the M17x R2, it has to be a special mobile size, I am not 100% sure on the R2 but I would assume its the MXM PCIE? not sure sorry, but even the ultimate of ultimate cards the HD7970m or GTX 680m should fit in, but at that price, its almost better to save your money towards a new laptop.

 

Look @ my current signature......tommorow it will say 680M.
All AW from the M17x R2 and up have PCI-E 2.0 slots. You can upgrade to whatever MXM 3.0B card you want there is no limit.
Beauty of the R2 is that you can still use SLI or CF....
Downside of the R2 is that it has a 240W limit but there are ways to mod around that to the 330W from the M18

 

I wouldn't take my laptop to PC World if you paid me....

 

Well, with a budget of £100gbp (I'm from the UK too) you will be hard pushed to make a significant upgrade. PC World are a bunch of nobs anyway so I'm glad they didn't entertain opening up your baby - that was begging for trouble. It's really not that hard to physically change the gpu modules themselves - it's more daunting than anything but if you take your time, I wouldn't see you running into any major difficulty.

If you can stretch that budget, I would say the best (and cheapest) substantial upgrade for you (without needing a psu mod.) would be to grab a single 7970m. See this for a quick guide on "how to" : http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/677680-another-7970m-m17x-r2-installation-photos.html That's gonna put you right up there in terms of gaming performance. If you look on Fleabay, you can grab a 7970m for around £400 or less and would probably be the best performance/cost investment.

Other options to consider might be 580m Sli or 675m Sli (basically identical, just rebadged) / 6990m/6970m Crossfire or single versions of any of those (bear in mind the 240w psu would need to be modded as those gpu's are too power-hungry to run off the 240w power supply - single's would be okay) - still, those gpu's still hold a relatively good price though - around the £200 mark for the cheapest single 6970m, so by the time you've bought x2 6970m's for example, you'd have been better off with a single 7970m anyway. Same goes for a 680m - one of those will cost even more than a single 7970m but likely a better option if you did decide to splurge. This single 580m for around £250 on Fleabay seems an okay deal as it's new and comes with the required heatsink etc: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Alienware...t=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item27cee5b528 - that would be equal to or slightly more powerful than Crossfire 5870m's, which IIRC, were the flagship R2 card of the day....I had a pair myself in my old R2.

Even cheaper options (if you can get hold of them) might be Crossfire 5870m's , 460m Sli, 560m Sli - whichever way you go, it looks like your £100 ain't gonna stretch far - in which case, if it's gonna cost upwards of £250 to make a "significant" upgrade, you might be better of selling up and starting over, maybe with an outlet machine or Ebay/private purchase.

 

User rusty_dough was selling his crossfire setup of 6970m for £210,00...at least he was a few weeks ago...perhaps you can arrange something with him?
He is from Holland (so am i)

 

Certainly would be a good idea to have a trawl through the NotebookReview buyer's/seller's section located here for parts upgrades etc: Computer Components or the main Marketplace here: NBR Marketplace for everything.

 

Officially we support up to the 5870 on that PC but I have seen some success stories with the latest ones (7970 and 680).
Good luck on your quest