A little help here, want to upgrade or maybe purchase a new one?

Hi there

Ok I bought my M15x probably around 2-3 years ago (give or take), and I'm still in love with my little workhorse. But recently I've noticed that the specs I decided to go with 3 years ago, are no longer considered as "acceptable" according to most gaming forums I've read so far. Don't take me for a noob (even though probably I am one) but I'm not quite sure if I should buy a few things here and there to boost my M15x a bit, or if I should just sell it (at this point I wont get much in return). Here's the rundown of what I have at the moment:

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
CPU: Intel Core i7 720QM @ 1.60 GHz
RAM: 4 GB Dual Channel DDR3 @ 650 MHz
Motherboard: Alienware (Bios version A06)
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GT 240M
HDD: 256 GB Western Digital 7200 RPM with 16 MB cache

I do have a DVD +- RW, but I was looking to upgrade to a BluRay unit, although I have no clue whatsoever which will work for my M15x. What do you think guys? should I throw my laptop away and buy I new one? or can I save part of my budget and upgrade my rig?

Thanks beforehand

 

Get a XM processor and an ATI 6790 or 6990m and you're good to go. 8 GB of RAM probably wouldn't go amiss either. Maybe around $600 for those upgrades?

 

Sweet! thanks a lot!

Now, I'll look for that processor you mentioned and the cards as well, but are you positive that those are compatible with the M15x? probably I'll hand my laptop over to a Dell technician along with the upgrades and pay for them to do it, or do you think is not that complicated?

And finally, do you have a website that you'd recommend for me to purchase this?

Thanks again

 

What are you wanting to do with your M15x? general computing tasks, CAD work, photo editing, intense gaming, etc. This really determines what upgrades will be most beneficial to you.

If you plan on gaming then you should upgrade that lowly gt 240m first, if not then don't worry about it. The processor isn't a necessary upgrade, you probably wont notice a big difference in performance during general use with that upgrade. You could put get some extra RAM, but unless you're doing heavy work or gaming it wont make much of a difference. Replacing the optical drive is a pain, here's a guide that will show you how to get to take the optical drive out. There are guides all over the place on how to dissassemble the M15x, but its up to you to choose to take that on. I can't comment on what bluray drive to get, surely somebody knows.
IMO a SSD will give you the best all around performance increase. You'll notice a huge difference in boot/shut down time, programs will load faster, and the system will be all around snappier. Not to mention this is probably the easiest upgrade aside from replacing the RAM.

 

Yeah the video card is probably the best thing to upgrade first, see how it runs and then do more from there.

See the 6790 thread for TONS of information, ebay will have some and you can get some good deals on the marketplace here as well.

It is a pretty easy install if you've got moderate hardware knowledge, the copper pipe mod on the heatsink takes a bit of a leap of faith (hammering computer equipment feels a bit wrong at first).

 

Well I am looking forward to just do mostly gaming. The card probably will be my first upgrade and they will go from there, then definitely will go for more RAM. I'm quite confident that I can do the upgrade myself, all I needed to know was which card was the one that would work along with my motherboard

Appreciated people! Thanks a lot!

 

The M15x is capable of what is in my sig! Add to it 9 cell battery and 240W adaptor as well

Also one could even go further from the specs I have and add up to 16GB ram, upgrade the wifi to something more current and put a 1TB drive in the optical bay...

It is a very capable machine considering it was released 2 years ago.

 

How's the 6990 & 920 going in your M15x with 150w PSU? is it stable during high load?

 

Not badly thank you! On the whole stable but with cpu heavily OCed and GPU running at stock with a undervolt the 150W isn't sufficient. 240W is in the post as I type.

That said I have run as high as 25x on all cores stable at 87W tdp and 6t0W tdc with temps peaking in the low 90s and no shutdowns.

I usually run 24x now while video encoding which demands just 83W tdp at 3.2ghz and can run for hours in the high 80s

 

King of Interns, thanks a lot! I'll keep your sig as a reference so I can upgrade my M15x to the max, thanks again!

 

nice specs indeed.

 

I thought max power mother board could handle was 150w?

Soits recomended I get bigger a/c if I want 560m and 920 ?

 

I have it now and it helps I can now push 24 or 25x and the GPU to 100% for as long as I want no shutdowns. I haven't tried 26x yet but I don't want to as the temps will then reach 95C+ Still at 25x133 video encoding is about 45% faster than at 15x133. At these speeds my chip probably can munch even a 2860qm in a encoding task!

If you intend to have a 920xm then I recommend it. I am lucky as my chip is super stable allowing me to get performance beyond most sandy bridge chips however the xm will take things beyond what the 150W can handle especially if the gpu is under any kind of heavy load. Just test things in increments as every chip is different.