M6700 upgrade to K5000m or K5100m

Hello All,
I am looking at the pros and cons of upgrading an M6700 to a K5000m or a k5100m. Let us assume for now that price is not that big of a deal.

I realize that both cards are versions of the 680m and the 780m. My experience thus far with the few cards I have run, is that when clocked the same, the "professional" cards perform as good or better than their "consumer" counterparts. The k5100m also has 8gb of memory which is probably overkill.


Here are my questions,

How is the overclocking ability of the 780m/k5100m? Is it as good as the 680m/k5000m, which had tremendous upward potential? (IE, does the over clocked 780m reach higher than the overclocked 680m, by significant enough margin to warrant the increased cost?

Assuming all cards are Dell manufactured, how difficult would it be to install a k5100m in a previous gen notebook like the M6700? Are the pads and everything different?

Is the card even compatible and would the card be fully functional, (assuming a dell card) or would I have to perpetually use modded vbios and drivers?

I don't mind putting some tech time in on this project so if a k5100m is more difficult, but can be fully functional, and performs better I might choose that route?

Thank you!

 

They perform the same or worse due to drivers optimised for cad rather than gaming.

They both reach similar final clocks.

 

So you are saying that both the K5100m will only overclock to about the same level as what the K5000m can?
I am not comparing a 680m to a k5000m, if that is what you mean, I am comparing the k5100m to the k5000m when both are maxed.
Maybe I should clarify that in the post

 

Okay so my research seems to show that all the Nvidia Kepler cards have the same chip pattern on them. So physically the k3000m and the K5000m or K5100m should be compatible.

Are there additional modules on the back of the k5100m that need to be thermal padded that wouldn't be present on the k3000m?

For now it looks like the difference in price between the 2 cards is about $340 give or take.

 

both k5000m and k5100m should work.

The k5100m would perform slightly better, ~500-1k 3dmark11 in similar thermal iirc? (not sure if svl7 have modded vbios for k5100m, but he probably willing to make one given time). My feeling is that pro card may get some hiccup in game where driver patch is needed, performance wise I never have any issue.

I put some pad on the back module my k5000m, but now i am unsure if it is even hanging there( no support , just the stickiness..)

I am not sure what the base price is, but for 340 less , i would get the k5000m.

 

Yeah at this point the question of whether or not it will be plug an play or require special drivers is what has got me. I may have a way to get one that would mitigate the price difference between the two cards, but I don't want to have to rely on modded drivers forever.

 

If you game and the K5000M/5100M doesnt perform like GTX 680M/780M, just do a simple INF trick and install Geforce drives. Whoila, you now have a Geforce card with the exact same performance as GTX 680M/780M.
Tired of gaming and want to go back to workstation mode? Install Quadro drivers, takes like 1 minute.

GTX 780M does not have the same overclock potential as GTX 680M. However a max OC 780M beat a max OC 680M by 15-20%.
I have no idea how well the Dell K500M/5100M perform overclocked. That is entirely up to the vbios that Dell made for the cards.

 

Thanks for the info, you answered a couple of my questions.
I think I may try to get the K5100m and if it doesn't work out like I hope I may just sell it again.

Does anyone know for sure if the k5000m/k5100m will need cooling pads on the back side of the card? I have heard that they do. If so, does the K3000m have the pads on the back that could be reused?

 

I had considered upgrading to a K5100 too, but not for gaming. Rather, the doubling of available RAM represents a significance performance advantage. Well worth the upgrade cost but only if your run the RAM intensive applications.

Kinda weird running a significant more expensive accuracy tuned card for gaming. In an ideal world, Nvidia would have given us a gaming (sports) mode. Perhaps next time?

 

K5000M = GTX680M
K5100M = GTX880M

K5000M OC bench:

Spoiler

 

That is impressive.
So if the overclocked K5100m could be about 15% above that, it is pretty enticing.

 

The k5100 is ~$1400 right?

 

Depends on where you buy it from. I am sourcing it for less than that.

 

Plus or minus $200.

 

Do you predict that the k5100m would require modified drivers to run properly?
Also does anyone one know if the m6600 touch screen or the m6800 touch screen would be compatible with the m6700?

 

I predict the standard quadro drives. But that's only my best guess.

 

That is good enough for me. I guess I will see how it turns out.

Now I have to find out about a touch screen

 

So any updates on this Spring?