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    260m upgrade to a 680m

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by garth1800, Mar 17, 2014.

  1. garth1800

    garth1800 Newbie

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    Hi i just bought this laptop off of someone i know for 500$, nothing has been upgrade so far so here are the parts that i want to upgrade. Im really new to laptops but i want to upgrade it and im not looking to buy a new system either,First question is do i have to upgrade the cpu first in order to upgrade the graphics card? if anything i want to upgrade the the graphics card and also the ramm. I am going to get the ramm first of all since i know what to look for. but from what i read the gtx 680m is the way to go for the graphics card i just need to know what i need and of course where to buy it? thanks :D
    i5 cpu M540 2.53ghz
    Geforce GTX 260m
    4Gb Ramm
     
    garth1800, Mar 17, 2014
    #1
  2. johnfisher

    johnfisher Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ebay, is where I get all my graphics cards, they have the cheapest individual ones. You should be fine, the heatsink mount on the underside of the current graphics card will work with the new one, so the heat sink will fit.
    Nothing else has to be swapped in order to swap the graphics. You will just need thermal paste to apply to the GPU.
     
    johnfisher, Mar 17, 2014
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  3. garth1800

    garth1800 Newbie

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    ok iv been looking on ebay and found a dell gtx 580m. Will that work as long as the bios are the same?
     
    garth1800, Mar 17, 2014
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  4. johnfisher

    johnfisher Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yup, the 580m will work, have you considered going for the 7970m? Much better benchmarks for the same price.
     
    johnfisher, Mar 17, 2014
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  5. garth1800

    garth1800 Newbie

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    i looked into it but now im just wondering would i have to get extra parts to use it?
     
    garth1800, Mar 17, 2014
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  6. johnfisher

    johnfisher Notebook Enthusiast

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    Nope, the mxm 3.0 cards are mostly standardized, the only possible issues would be if the bottom mounting brackets for the heat sinks are different, in which case, they could be swapped, and if the heat sink does not fit, which it will according to the pictures of the heat sink.
     
    johnfisher, Mar 17, 2014
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  7. garth1800

    garth1800 Newbie

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    garth1800, Mar 17, 2014
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  8. johnfisher

    johnfisher Notebook Enthusiast

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    Yup, its will fit and run, make sure you update your bios to the latest version on the laptop
     
    johnfisher, Mar 18, 2014
    #8