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    Best Budget GPU upgrade

    Discussion in 'Alienware M15x' started by Snodge, Jan 31, 2017.

  1. Snodge

    Snodge Notebook Consultant

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    Hi there,

    I'm going to be taking delivery on a M15X soon with the following specs.

    I7 720QM
    8GB
    260M 1GB

    Nothing special but it's a decent price what's the best budget gpu out there for this machine ?

    Firepro M6000? seems like a good choice another have any tried/tested solutions.
     
    Snodge, Jan 31, 2017
    #1
  2. kosti

    kosti Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yup, the Firepro m6000 is pretty much the best performing budget card atm.
     
    kosti, Jan 31, 2017
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  3. Snodge

    Snodge Notebook Consultant

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    Snodge, Jan 31, 2017
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  4. kosti

    kosti Notebook Virtuoso

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    There's a huge thread on this card here in the M15X sub-forum, but just a couple of notes from my experience:

    1- You may want to replace the x-bracket that comes with the m6000 with the x-bracket from your 260m GTX. The m6000's x-bracket is .5mm thicker than the required x-bracket for the M15X chassis which causes the card's board to back-bow (flex upwards).

    2- The m6000's die (gpu core) sits a bit lower than other cards which means you may need to make some adjustments to get thermal paste to spread properly. You can compensate by applying a bit more thermal paste but that can have detrimental effects on thermal transfer. I found that removing the thermal pads and replacing them with K5 PRO (google it) thermal pad replacement paste allows the heatsink to push further down on the die so that paste spreads better. I tried different thermal pads before using K5 PRO but none of them compressed well enough to allow the paste to spread in a thin, even layer.

    Other than those minor fitment issues, no other mods are needed from my experience. For drives, you will want to download AMD Radeon 7800 Series mobile drivers instead of the certified Dell Firepro drivers.

    I have two of these cards in two different M15Xs including one that is paired with a 720qm. I gave that M15X to a family member who games and has not complained to this day.

    The card runs cool, draws very little power (no need to upgrade power adapter) and performs very well. It can also be overclocked easily with a vbios flash for an extra performance boost which makes this card compete with the Geforce 765m in benchmarks.

    Take a look at the 7870M (m6000) thread.
     
    kosti, Jan 31, 2017
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    MZWiZard and deadsmiley like this.