help please: upgrading m18x r1

First post.

I got my m18x r1 in early 2011 and I've never upgraded it. I contacted Dell (Aus) but they were very unhelpful; so here I am. I've skimmed over old threads and read about upgrading the mobo from r1 to r2 in order to use better CPU/GPU (i think that was the gist). is that the best option? I'm not sure.

Specs:
i7 2760QM
4x Intel 2GB DDR3-SDRAM 1600mhz
2x AMD 6900M
1,5 TB RAID 0

 

You can use 780M in the M18xR1 without upgrading to M18xR2 components. 780M SLI works beautifully in the M18xR1 and that is the best upgrade option. 680M SLI also works flawlessly in it. @GodlikeRU is running 880M SLI in his M18xR1 and getting decent results as well. You cannot use a 970M or 980M in the M18xR1 or M17xR3 because they are incompatible. (Your system will not even boot with a Maxwell GPU installed.)

You will need an SLI bridge cable and, if you can get them where you live, the 100W NVIDIA heat sinks designed for 680M are the appropriate part to use. See heat sink part numbers posted here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/upgrade-860m-sli-gpus.775493/#post-9996062

 

Great advice. It's a shame that there are few suppliers of laptop GPUs.
I find it strange how the cheapest 780m i can find is $624 (aus) and yet I can find the 880m within $580-$650(aus). I'd always thought better was more expensive.
That said; performance wise and surprising cost wise, the 880m is the better choice but I heard that it gets really hot. I'd like GodlikeRU's opinion on that.....i don't know how to pm

Frankly, the 880m sli option sounds awesome and not likely to go obsolete for another 3-5 years. (I've never been good at guesstimating)

Right; with those prices I've just given; what would you personally recommend..... what does the fox say?

 

id recommend 780m SLI and a 2960xm

you can get a 780m for around $400US on ebay

 

I would pay extra for 780M. 780M almost always works better than 880M does.

 

Hey,

I saw your post. On 780M clocks maximum temperature was 78C with nearly 100% usage in AC Unity. I do not use 880M higher clocks but I think it should be same as overclocked 780M

 

It's usually a matter of availability. The older the card, the harder it is to get one. That's why they take advantage in the price. As Mr. Fox says, it's worth to pay the extra money to get it knowing how well it works.

 

Hey Mr. Fox how does the 780M work better than the 880M ?
I only ask as I am seeing both card on Ebay for good prices so I wouldn't want to buy the worst out of the two.

 

Cooler temps, no throttle. There's no contest... 780M beats 880M up one side and down the other. Any professional reviews, like Notebookcheck, that show 880M as better are full of crap. That said, 880M has improved massively with vBIOS mods and driver maturity from where it first started. There have been many threads in this community and others about 880M not working correctly. It actually works pretty decent now, with most of the problems it had before largely resolved it's not a terrible product like it was a year ago. But, 780M still outperforms it. My recommendation would be to go with 780M and avoid 880M if both are available at similar prices. Having 8GB of vRAM is nice. Higher temps and slightly lower performance detract from that.

 

The Vram was one thing I was concerned about looking at how memory hungry some games are getting. But in a laptop the temp's are a lot more important than Vram since it is a confined space.

 

Im happy with my choice but I don't want to force you to choose something that you don't like so do what you want

Mr.Fox is much more experienced than I am so if he says that 780M is a bit better then i believe him.

 

@GodlikeRU - thanks for the vote of confidence.

To be clear, everything for me revolves around overclocking goodness and number chasing. If you are not going to overclock, take some of my comments with a grain of salt, understanding my perspective in tainted by passion for overclocking. There are GPUs (880M is one of them) that do a marvelous job of playing games but do not overclock as well as I want them to.

It has a bad habit of dying prematurely, but that kind of applies to 7970M as well... nice low-budget option for gamers, very bad choice for overclockers.

 

I was under the impression that all people who tinker and build there own computers do so for the purpose of getting the most out of there system like overclocking. Hell I can't go on YouTube to look at computer components without the review talking about overclocking it and the various benchmarks.
I can't even install an unlocked BIOS but I intend to mess around as much as possible to get the most out of it.

 

Oh, yes, there are a tons of overclockers and anyone that thinks otherwise is kidding themselves. But, there are a greater number of people that are scared, don't know how or some that even have some kind of weird ethical dilemma based on a misinformed concept about overclocking being fundamentally wrong, like they are committing some kind of terrible sin against the OEM, LOL. But, lots and lots of gamers out there do not overclock at all. Gamers are sometimes a separate special interest group from overclockers (especially recent console converts). Then, there are the hybrids that have a passion for both. I view gaming as an extended benchmark session and another opportunity to see what my machines are capable of doing when I push them harder. I don't game for hours on end with my GPUs overclocked, but I do so for short periods of time to test performance and just for fun. When I do my binge gaming, the GPUs are running stock clocks and voltage.

 

I edit this post, Mr. Fox alread answer my question in another thread. Thanks. I hope someday the M18X-R1 be compatible with 980M just like the R2.