So im thinking of upgrading the GPU of my Sager Np8150

I mainly play wow and my np8150 currently has a amd 6990m which pretty much sucks since i get 0 fps during the 25man raids. It's not my cpu since it is strong enough for it, i7 2760qm 2.4ghz-3.4ghz, i heard its due to an optimization issue( blizzard optimizes for nvidia gpus rather than amd gpus) so i'm thinking of just buying a Nvidia GPU. Question is which one? The Equivalent of a 6990m is 570m or 580m i believe but i'm not too sure. I'll probably be buying it through ebay too or if you guys have any suggestions please feel free to share with me. Anyways if i bought a Nvidia card would i have to flash my bios or something? Would i need new heatsinks? This is my first time installing a gpu so, sorry for all the questions. Not even sure if im posting this in the correct forum, if so i apologize.

 

Not so sure its the gpu, 6990M is pretty decent (not that your cpu isnt) and afaik wow isnt that graphic intense. If it only happens in big raids its more of a sign of lacking cpu power imo.

If youre gonna upgrade the cpu youll have to stick to Sandy Bridge 2xxx, the chipset wont support newer.

Yes the Nvidia equivalent is 580M, i think its marginally faster than 6990M. Upgrade options are 7970M and 680M (670M too?). They both need specific vbios to work, a couple of threads here have more info. I just got my 6990M upgraded to 7970M but it was done by my reseller because the 6990M died during warranty, so they handled the vbios.

You probably need the latest bios. Dont know about the heatsinks.

 

How can you get 0fps in 25man raid? 6990m is similiar to a 6870 desktop chip it should more than enough for WoW.

Did you check GPU/CPU usage while gaming? Temps?

 

not exactly 0 fps but more like anywhere around 3-5 fps during raid bosses which is pretty much unplayable. My temps while gaming are:
GPU: anywhere from 75-80 C
CPU: Don't really check this as often as the GPU but i believe it's usually around 57-65 during heavy gaming(i also play skyrim/bf3 often)
Anyways would i need to get a new Vbios for the 580m/570m? if so how would i do this.

 

Those CPU temperatures sound too low, especially for CPU-intensive games such as BF3 and Skyrim. Are you sure your CPU isn't throttling?

And why would you go through all that trouble for a sidegrade (GTX 580M) or downgrade (GTX 570M)?

 

WoW is the main game i play and if having a Nvidia GPU takes away the fps problems( since i've been told that wow has optimize for Nvidia and done the oppposite to amd gpus) then i might as well get it even if it would be a downgrade to other games.
As for the cpu, that was just a guess since i mainly look at my gpu's temp, anyways right now its @70 atm and i'm playing skyrim got some music from youtube playing and a few programs in the background. The highest i've ever seen it, if i remember correctly, is at 79 during summer.
Note that my room is freaking cold since i don't have a heater.
Also on Average my laptop is on anywhere from 5-10 hours a day.
My CPU is normally at 40c give or take 3c

 

How's performance in other games besides WoW? You mentioned Skyrim and BF3. If it's fine in those other much more intensive games, then it's not a hardware problem. Getting another GPU is just a waste. I have never heard of WoW or Blizzard games being optimized specifically for Nvidia GPU's, and in any case it shouldn't make that much of a difference, certainly not enough to warrant spending the time, money, and effort to do the swap that you're proposing.

 

It runs just fine on skyrim/bf3 little to no fps problems unless i got a lot of programs on my background. I did my own research and found out that wow and blizzard games in general are optimize for nvidia gpus. Anyways i'm thinking instead of just buying a new gpu i'll sell this laptop for ~650 hopefully then wait for xmas to get more money and buy a lenovo(since it seems to be pretty cheap for the specs and SLI 650m hopefully) or 510p if its within my budget since they have Nvidia gpu's.

 

Look at my sig.

Never replace one strong GPU with two weaker ones hoping that they'll be faster.

What you're saying makes no sense. So you're willing to ditch something with much better future upgradeability, cooling design, and consistent performance for a finicky system that overheats, is a hit-or-miss with driver and application support, and may or may not be faster than what you currently have?

Why not just upgrade the current system to a 680M/780M/7970M/8970M? You'll save money and get much better performance.

I really don't understand your obsession with Nvidia GPU's, as if they'll run WoW a million times better than AMD ones, which they don't. It could just turn out to be a CPU bottleneck which is causing those FPS drops in WoW. If that's true, all your efforts will be for nothing.

I've never played WoW, but I know that MMO's in general are CPU-limited, and those 25-man raids you're talking about certainly sound like they could be causing the CPU to bottleneck the GPU, especially since WoW is a really old game and might not be properly multi-threaded.

 

Alright you seem to know a lot about this so i'll take your word for it, Hmm what about gtx 670m/670mx/675m/675mx ? the gtx 680m is a bit too expensive for me atm. Would i need to get new heatsinks? And how would i change the vBios(if it requires me to do so)? Also if you have any other suggestions that's hopefully below $350 please do tell me.

 

Out of that lot only 675MX is faster than your current 6990M, and even then you would need to overclock to see a significant difference. I would only consider 680M/7970M and up to be real upgrades. I have no idea about the other stuff.

 

Out of those cards only GTX675mx is faster than your 6990m and only barely.

I too sugest only 680m or 7970m as an real upgrade, otherwise it's just a sidegrade.

 

Might be a silly question but have you made sure your windows performance plan is set to high performance and not power saver? It seems like you are jumping the gun a bit with wanting to upgrade your GPU just to play one game.

Sent from my GT-I9305T using Tapatalk

 

I would say that your CPU is throttling. Clean the heatsinks out of dust.

 

Im thinking this too. More than once Ive had normal readings but still a bit poor performance. Cleaning the heatsinks and vents solved it.

I know you checked the temps, have you also checked if its throttling? Logg with hwinfo64 or similar and check the cpu and gpu speed.

 

Been using hwinfo64 since i got the laptop, the cpu temp seems fine if i'm reading it right....
Guess i'll try cleaning the dust out of the heatsinks see how that works out.
Right now my the speed for the following is:
CPU: 2089 RMP
GPU: 1520 RMP

EDIT: Fixed the problem thanks for all the help here.