What kind of Upgrades could I get

I admit I dont really understand how you tell the difference between graphics cards,, if someone could explain what to look for in the numbers etc I would appreciate lol.

But anyways that said I was thinking of doing a couple of upgrades and wonder just what I could expect to get.

My system is an i-7 740Q 1.73ghz
4 Gig RAM
Nvidia GeForce GTX 460M

I have upgraded RAM before so I know how i can get it up to 8Gb but am pretty clueless at Graphics cards

Can anyone give me some ideas ,,how much roughly (in Uk) and is it easy to do yourself ??

 

For the hundredth time lol the following:

CPU: 920xm/940xm

GPU: 680M/7970M/8970M best so far. Anything works except for 780M properly as it is so power hungry.

RAM: 16GB of 1333mhz DDR3 ram. 2x 8GB modules will work. System bios registers it as 0mb ram BUT windows will see all 16GB and be able to use no problem.

PSU: 150W, 240W work fully. 210,230W work but don't charge battery. Highly recommended to get AT LEAST the 240W one and do the center pin mod to allow full power delivery to the M15x. Something that is necessary with a 920xm/7970M or 680M combo if you don't want to suffer throttling in games. 330W to be tested shortly. Likely also to need pin modding for full power delivery

Easy to upgrade everything. Only pain is getting at the dvd drive to change it out for a secondary HDD. Also not that it is relevant but the screen is also practically impossible to take apart in the M15x. At least cleanly. Otherwise easy.

If you are unsure of what I said above spend some time reading

P.S. With GPU's try to look for Dell cards. Stay clear of Clevo or MSI versions in case of vbios incompatibilities (fan not functioning properly or perhaps HDMI audio etc...) If it is Dell it is good no matter if the card happens to be OEM, ES (engineering sample) or QS. Mine is QS. Also my cpu happens to be ES. I am cheap!

 

So many threads like this, we really ought to get an updated sticky thread.

I would definitely get a 680m if I was updating now.

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk

 

Cheers guys and sorry I have to admit to not being a regular on here.

Do you get your cards direct from Nvidia etc or do you have other websites I might check out to see prices etc ,, i had a look on Dell website after you said dell ones but found nothing there through the service tag upgrade options,, i then had a look on ebay and came up with 680m's all from america at around £400

Are all those Nvidia cards then and are all just as good as one another ??? 680M/7970M/8970M ?? ,,, told you I dont know much about graphics cards lol

Really sorry for the noob questions but I really wouldn't even know where to start reading when it comes to graphics cards,,, i have always been a console gamer before so I guess just used to everything been done for me under the hood

 

7970M/8970M AMD cards. 680M is NVidia.

Check out the NBR marketplace on here. Usually plenty of second hand cards selling cheaply (and new ones)

 

You can get them on retailers, online and straight from DELL.