How to improve my K3100M's performance? (Dell Precision M6800)

Hi all!

I'm totally new here, so sorry for any mistakes!

I recently got my hands on a mint Dell Precision M6800, and it's a wonderful thing!
Only problem, it's rocking the Quadro K3100M 4Gb graphics card.
The overall performance of the laptop is awesome, but the gaming performance is balls.. like, really bad.
Cannot even play GTA V on the lowest settings without massive stutter.

Now did i see a post recently about flashing it's BIOS, but i have no clue where to start, or what to do...

So is there anyone that's out there, that will help me out?

 

Nobody I guess?

 

If you dont need a quadro, grab a used 980m, OC'ing wont get you much over 10% more performance and a lot more heat, given that its an M6800 I think the 1060 also works.

@RMSMajestic is the expert on GPU upgrades in the Precisions.

 

Thanks for the response!

I sort of know that a 970M would be a better idea, but I dont have the money for that card.
I just got this machine, and it wasn't that cheap.

The K3100M is fine overall, it's just the raw performance.
Maybe someone in my country will trade an 960 or 970 for my Quadro

 

Try 3DMark and see what kind of scores you get. Also use something like Cinebench R15 GPU test for something workstation-class.

Gotta isolate the source of the problem ...the card throttling/driver issues/software issues. Some baseline benchmarks are a good starting point.

Charles

 

Great thanks!

I will run the benchmarks tomorrow, and post screenshots of the results.

I dont't really think that throtteling is the issue, it's just that mine isn't overclocked.
And I have no idea how to use that flashing tool named 'nvFlash'

If there is someone that can help me out?

Thanks in advance!

 

Just a little update,

I JUST came across an advertisement for an GeForce GTX870M Clevo / Alienware.

Anyone any idea if that will work?

Just comparing the cards, by looks, they seem the same, except for the GPU itself.

 

Flashing the card isn't the first thing I would try. You can "brick" e.g. ruin the card that way. Overclocking has nothing to do with your troubles, either.

Benchmarks is where I would start. Baseline performance numbers are needed to assess where to go next.

Charles

 

The first thing I would do is a full teardown to clean everything, be it fans, heatsink/heatsink fins as well as all the dust that accumulates inside the chassis, I would also repaste with at least Artic MX4(and that will help a bit).

 

Already done that, machine has been cleaned out, no specs of dust to be seen.
CPU performance is awesome, the machine performs really whell, it's just the graphics that are horrible.

 

Here are the results.
The cpu scores just 1 point under the 3770 i7, so that will be okay i think
The GPU on the other hand, is performing worse than a GT650.... That can't be good right?

 

Its not that unexpected its a mid tier GPU from 2013, so today-ish games will be awfull, even worse if you have a FHD display.

Upgrading the GPU is your best bet, at least you know that its possible, and with some luck you might grab a 980m for 200-250$.

 

Any idea if an 870 will fit? Can grab that one for 70 euro's.

 

@RMSMajestic is the best person to answer that.

It should work as far as I know, but the 870m will "only" play at medium or low settings at FHD, its a massive upgrade thats for sure, and for 70€, thats cheap, just dont expect great performance on AAA games because those are always a crap show at optimisation.

 

Stuck at the K3100M, the 870M is sold now.

Any suggestions how to improve the GPU performance? I don't expect it to do 50FPS 1080P on ultra, but GTA V on 1080P on normal is the minimum

 

Did you check this overclocked vBIOS?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-k4100m-k5100m-overclocking-vbios-mod.784164/

When I had my K4000M on my M6700, I got some unlocked vBIOS and then overclocked the clocks by 50% with a marginal temperature jump (and got almost 50% performance jump, from e.g. 3800 points in 3dMark11 to about 5600 or so). Besides overclocking it like that, I don't see what else you can do besides buying a stronger GPU (I upgraded mine to 980M, but moved to AW 17 R4 eventually as I couldn't find a good deal on an MXM P5000M or something like that).

 

Tempted to say that you can boost the performance a bit but you got what you paid for. A really tough, reliable and fast machine suitable for the most demanding non-games software. There is a lot to love.

Rather than balls it up, why not wait and in time get a proper games machine? Always better to have two so that one always works. Plus you can choose them for different strengths.