Yet another GPU upgrade question..........

Hi,
Have been reading a few threads over the last few months as have been wanting to upgrade my 5850m to something better.
I can't seem to find a clear cut answer on the most friendly upgrade.
Been looking at the 6990m 7970m but all seem to need new backplates or modding of some sort.

Question is, what is the best GPU upgrade that's pretty much plug and play (displayport functionality is a must) that i can use my backplate from the 5850 for?

I enjoy modding but just want something to chuck in and enjoy without much tinkering.

(Apologies about the 1000th or so thread on this topic)

Cheers

J

 

I would skip the 6990m entirely because it runs hot and you could get better performance with a cool running overclocked Firepro m6000.

For more power, the 7970m is a nice card and is more or less plug and play. That card uses a different shaped backplate (x-bracket) which has taller screw standoffs than the stock M15X x-brackets, therefore you will need to file down those standoffs to reach a shorter height. Otherwise there will be a large gap between the GPU core and the heatsink. Otherwise, it is plug and play.

The best card right now as far as I know is the Nvidia 970M, and it runs cool from what I've read. The 980M works but runs hot. Both are expensive.

There is also the issue of CPU bottlnecking which can occur with these high performance cards and the 720qm. You may want to upgrade to a 920/940xm to alleviate this. Then, you will also want to upgrade your PSU to at least a 210W model.

IMO, the Firepro m6000 is a real gem. It runs great with the 720qm, runs cool, and does not consume much power so you can keep the stock 150W adapter. And it's cheap (around 70 USD). I built a 2nd M15X for a family member with a 720qm and m6000 and he's a heavy gamer. He has not complained yet but of course he can't run all the latest titles at the high settings.

If you decide on the m6000 make sure to check out that thread. There are a couple of minor, but important, fitment issues.

 

I like the gtx 770m. Its a bit of a butt to get working initially. (I have the full driver if you get it I can give you so you won't need to mod inf or anything)

The bit of tinkering you need to do software wise is.
1. Put new card in.
2. Disable audio in bios.
3.(this is where my memory is a bit flakey) Boot into safe mode and disable or uninstall all audio devices in safe mode.
4. Boot into Windows and make sure everything is off and go to playback devices and disable several things there.

In short. It's a bunch of messing around with audio stuff once it's going though it runs like a champ and for a decent price too.

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Thanks for the info! I've just stumbled on the M6000 thread. Good read that. Seems a bargain for what would be a great card to think with whilst saving for the 970 further down the road. Think I'm going with this as around £60 here for the card.
The seller on eBay is China based but does anyone know if the cards come with the X bracket?
Thanks

 

If it's eBay it usually says so in the listing.

If not I'm a pessimist and assume it won't. I've never bought a card from China before.

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Even if it doesn't, you can use the 5850M bracket. In fact, the x-bracket that came with the m6000 is thicker than the bracket used in the M15X and that extra thickness causes the card to bend upwards when mounted in the M15X's MXM slot. Besides the thickness, both brackets share the same dimensions. So even if it comes with an x-bracket, you're still better off using the 5850M bracket imo. I posted about this somewhere in that thread.

Just make sure the insulating material between the metal bracket and card is intact and you should be fine.

 

Kosti,
That's great, thank you.
Didn't realise they shared the same dimensions, makes things a bit easier eh.

Think I'll try this card out whilst I save a bit for either the 970m or wait u till September 2 for when they show off the pascal laptops.

If the price isn't ridiculous (which you know it will be) I would fancy a nice shine new 1070 17"!

Think mines over 7 years old now and still a great laptop today.

 

Who knows 1060 might work in the M15x. So do check back to see what happens.

Regarding the 7970M you might find the 8970M and M290X at a cheaper price. The later cards are simply rebrands of the 7970M with very slightly higher core clock and 4GB vram. Also they are doubtless better binned meaning better overclock ability at lower/cooler voltages.

 

I have the 8970M. It works pretty well but there is no native fan control. Use HWInfo64 to setup a custom fan control profile. Otherwise it just runs the fan on full all the time.

Overall the 8970M does well. Driver installation goes normally. My experience with this GPU is the more CPU power you give it the better it runs. I overclock my 940XM for best results.

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

Had a quick look at the 8970M, looks a good card, thanks for that.
Will keep an eye out for one.

 

If you can get a good deal on one it's probably a viable option. It runs cool at stock. I have modded my vbios to run 1.000v and that's about as low as I can go and still run games.

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Seems a great option.
Still debating which way to go, this or the cheap M6000 to tide me over for a while. hmmm, decisions decisions eh!
(Can't seem to find a price on the 970m anywhere)

 

970M is $460 new from rjtech.com, so if you go used make sure it's priced below this.

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If I were you I would get the M6000 for under $80 and just wait and see if GTX 1060 becomes a thing for M15x.

Edit:
The M6000 is so cheap it can always be sold for whatever you have in it.

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

smiley, cracking info mate! My thoughts exactly about the gpu upgrade.
I thought that the 970M was end game for the m15x due to MXM being ditched for the 10 series? (May have read that incorrectly though)

 

GTX 970M is definitely the best (at the moment) option if money is not an issue.

There is talk that the MSI GTX 1060 cards will be MXM 3.0b compatible and might work in Clevo notebooks and possibly the M15x. However, as of today we don't know anything.

My concern is how badly at 920/940Mx will throttle the 1060, assuming it works at all.

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Lot of money for the 970M, be a fantastic upgrade on my 5850.
Be good to see if the m15x could fit the 1060 let alone run it properly.

M6000 & 920xm should be enough of an upgrade to last a while for all the info needed to surface.

Cheers

 

You can shop used 970M. I have seen them go for just north of $300. Still kinda pricey though.

The good thing is that you DO have choices as of today.

Sent from my overpriced Galaxy S6 Edge +

 

300 is getting nearer to pulling the trigger territory.

Choices choices eh. Ha.

 

A couple of quick (hopefully) questions: I currently have an 820QM and a 6970M.

1) I know I can upgrade to 920XM, but will a 940XM fit as well?
2) Do the upgrades to a 970M or 8970M require any other mods or bios updates?

thanks!

 

1) Yes but the 920xm is a better bargain. The 940xm can be overclocked further in theory, but it is not feasible in the M15X because of heat issues.
3) Both cards are essentially plug and play, no BIOS mods or custom inf files needed but the 8970M (R9 M290X) does not work with the native fan control (regulated by the BIOS) so you will need a program like HWinfo to manually set fan speeds (otherwise it will always run the fan on maximum). The 8970M also uses the same shape x-bracket as the 6970M while the 970M uses a different shape bracket which you will need if you get that card. You may need to do some minor heatsink tinkering for both cards to get proper thermal performance (e.g., different thermal pads), but otherwise both cards should work.

 

Thank you! I still have the bracket from my 260M, so hopefully that fits. I will prob wait on the 970M though, as it seems they are still expensive. I assume that will change once the 1060s are out in full force.

 

1060 may not play nice. Pascal seems to have removed LVDS support. In this case at the very least the internal lcd will not function. That is Ngreedia for you.

DP may still work. Needs testing. I hope our dp port is true edp and not routes through lvds. M15X is old afterall...

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Just to add, I can get a 7970m at a good price. Will my 5850m x bracket work on the new card as have read conflicting statements as to what people have used?!
The card is a clevo version, will the X bracket even need swapping to fit the m15x or is this just plug and play?

 

Yup, the 260M bracket will work with the 970M. The 970M has VRAMs on the underside so brackets designed for it also had heatspreaders for those VRAMs, but you can't use those anyway because of the limited space in the M15X MXM slot. I would not worry about the underside VRAMs anyway and just use the 260M bracket.

No, don't use the 5850M bracket on the 7970M. The screw holes line up, but the brackets have different dimensions and you will be risking a short or possible damage to SMD components that the wrong bracket touches or presses on. Check this link out and you'll see what I mean (second to last pic):

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/m15x3.html

EDIT: You may need a Dell VBIOS on that Clevo card for it to work in the M15X. I am not 100% sure about this though.

 

That's the thread I read regarding the different x bracket dimensions.
Would the clevo bracket work I wonder?
Shame to pass up on a good offer on the 7970M.

Cheers

 

The Clevo bracket should work fine. It should just be a regular x-bracket without any extensions and heatspreaders ( probably just a regular bracket because there are no underside VRAMs on the 7970M anyway).

Just check on whether you need a Dell vBIOS for it to work in the M15X. The 7970M I had was flashed with a custom VBIOS that undervolted the card to make it run cooler in the M15X. I still have my trusty 460M which is a Clevo card flashed with a Dell vBIOS. Still works fine and I keep it as a backup card. You may ask the seller if he can flash it for you.

EDIT: Your 720qm may be a bottleneck with the 7970M with certain, more CPU intense, games. Also, with the 7970M you may want to upgrade your power supply because the 7970M has a rated TDP of 100W. Add 45W for the 720qm (and factor in all the power needed for the rest of the laptop) and you'll be pushing the stock 150W adapter to its limits.

 

Thanks Kosti,
Have been looking into this, so will be purchasing a 920Xm with the GPU and have 16GB ram incoming soon aswell.

The stock power adapter will be at its limit, but should suffice for gaming and not going crazy with benches etc.
Will no doubt end up purchasing a higher output power adapter further down the line.

I will ask the question about flashing the dell VBIOS. Is the flashing process something I could do myself?, as have a reasonable amount of technical know how.
Obviously with modifications like this, there is certain degree of difficulty and problems that come with it.

 

I forgot about the LVDS issue. 970M is the end of the road unless AMD comes up with something.

@kosti 970M does need an inf mod to install drivers.

@Grads if you need an X bracket for that 7970M I have one I can send you.

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Thanks for the correction

 

No worries... you are right about the 920XM. No need to buy a 940XM over a 920XM. I have one because it came with my machine. It also came with 8GB RAM and a 9 cell battery. I got lucky. Didn't know it had a 9 cell until it arrived.

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@ deadsmiley That would be most kind sir. Thank you very much

 

920xm and 940xm there is no difference. Upper oc limit depends from chip to chip. A 920xm binned well will beat most 940xm chips

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Slightly off topic (apologies for this) but are there any fan upgrades for the m15x? Either drop in replacements or slight mods to the originals?
Would love to chuck some beefier fans in to get better cooling.

 

Better off removing (or modding) the bottom tray and sitting the laptop on a cooler. You can do something like what I did with my Coolermaster U3. If you are short on funds you can get one of those cheap Ikea laptop stands and cutout holes for 12V fans and use that. Even a block of wood with fans on it will do the job. Here's my mod:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/another-coolermaster-u3-bottom-tray-mod.789298/

 

@Mobius 1 was able to find a higher rated fan for the CPU. However the resulting temperature reduction was minimal (2c?) if I remember corectly.

EDIT:
This is your thread. Take it as far off topic as you like!

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Thank you both for that. The cooling mod is great kosti! Well done on that!
Will look into something similar myself.
On a side note, just how loud is your setup with 3 fans running full whack?
Fancy a lapdesk of some kind with a really good cooling solution built in.
Off to search for ideas now.......

 

It's pretty loud on full blast, but not noticeable whilst gaming with headphones.

 

Quadro M4000M might be a good choice too. Basically it's an GTX 970M with more ROP's, wider memory bus and less amount of memory.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2822/quadro-m4000m
https://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2623/geforce-gtx-970m

 

That's for the info. Price seems same as 970m good we have choice of top gpus.
Looks a good card, anyone here had any experience with one in a m15x?

 

The m4000m looks very interesting!

It features a fairly conservative clock speed to keep its performance down. Then again with its higher specs and better bandwidth this would be a faster card clock for clock!

Compared with 980M the card will run cooler and by lopping off a fairly useless 4gb vram the card will run cooler still and use less power.

Iam very interested!

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Deleted links...got confused between Quadro 4000M (older Fermi card) and M4000M (newer Maxwell cards). Don't want someone ordering the wrong card. Sorry about that.

 

Nope that is kepler based k4000m

Cheapest m4000m goes for around 300 euros.

Question is how would it fare in games? Quadro isnt geforce and the card is neither a 970M or a 980M so cant be flashed as either...

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Ah yes, got my hopes up too soon. So there's a 4000M which is the older card, and the M4000M which is the Maxwell card.

 

It is interesting though. I would assume the chip is the same as the 970M is based on with additional rops unlocked. It might work ok as a "970m".

Trading in 2gb vram for the extra bandwidth makes it far more attractive. Push that core up to 1200mhz plus and you will thank the card for having that.

I can imagine seeing this card running at 8970M/680M 4gb vram levels of heat.

A step belowcthe 780M and coolable in the M15x while leaving a little bit of tweaking room.

Anyone care to test or compare? Deadsmiley? You have lots of 970M experience perhaps a m4000m could be an interesting card to compare against?

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From Notebookcheck...not many benchmarks but the 3DMark11 score looks promising. This might become the next sleeper card ala Firepro m6000 if prices drop in the near future.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-Quadro-M4000M.151579.0.html

 

I second that. 970M scores bout 400 points more that m4000m stock for stock 9000 vs 9400.

Still considering the core clock difference i doubt there would be a difference if you matched clock. Quadros are well known to match up well with geforce cards in games.

Geforce cards are simply neutered with regards to compute to allow ngreedia to make money on quadro parts.

If m4000m is available therefore for 970m money it is win win for all. This is strange as usually quadros always have a premium on them.

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Ok, I will bite. I have one on its way from eBay.

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Awesome!!

Another thing to consider:

970M:
6GB vram at 5ghz (192bit)
Bandwidth: 120gb/s
1038mhz
Shading units 1,280
Texture mapping units 80
Render output processors 48
Pixel rate 49.8 GPixel/s
Texture rate 83 GTexel/s
Floating-point performance 2,657.3 GFLOPS

M4000M
4GB vram at 5ghz (256bit)
Bandwidth: 160gb/s
975mhz
Shading units 1,280
Texture mapping units 80
Render output processors 64
Pixel rate 62.4 GPixel/s
Texture rate 78 GTexel/s
Floating-point performance 2,496 GFLOPS

Facts:

Although M4000M features lower FP peformance than the 970M is runs at 63mhz slower core clock speed. If you were to bump the M4000M up the same clockspeed it would be the more powerful card due to having 16 more ROPs. In fact simple maths puts the FP performance at 2657 for M4000m at 1038mhz. Exactly the same but this will only increase as the 970M gets bandwidth starved and or needs more processing power in certain situations and games. In fact I doubt the specs due to the additional ROPs. There must be a difference between the two cards.

The bandwidth of the M4000M is FAR superior and the power consumption bump will have been largely offset by loosing 2gb vram. Also for the 970M to match the bandwidth you would have to clock the vram to 1650+mhz. Something that is just not possible with 95% if not 100% of all 970M cards. Pushing the 970M 6GB of vram up to attain say 6ghz will already comsume much more power than the stock 4gb on the M4000M and still not give as much bandwidth.

970M doesnt really have the horsepower to fully utilise 6gb vram. It is wasted.

Verdict: Almost certainly a M4000M clocked to 980M performance will use less power and run cooler than the 970M clocked to same levels.

In fact due to having all that extra bandwidth the 970M would not be able to touch it if one overclocked BOTH vram and core to high levels. Although it is doubtful the M15x would be able to cool and or power the card at that point.

A final thing to consider: according to notebookcheck the 970M scores 9400 min in 3dmark11 while the M4000M just over 9000. Doing the same calculation as above the M4000M at 1038mhz would score 9581. Add in the pointsmissed (40 points or so) and the card is 200 points or 2% faster stock for stock the lead would only widen substantially at higher core clock speeds where bandwidth matters...

 

I assume you collected one of the $395 cards on ebay? Sure is tempting!

The next cheapest is 450 which puts it close to 2nd hand 980M and new 970M territory. Really looking forward to your findings!

I also asked Woodz to see if he is able to source any of these cards. Probably not but worth checking!