Upgrading Gaming Laptop Query

Hi guys, new here.

I recently purchased a Clevo P150HM Laptop, about 2 months ago, got it cheap second hand. I recently sold my Xbox360, so thought this laptop would fulfill my gaming urges for a budget price, as I'm not really in the position to go and lash out a couple grand at the moment for a high end lappy.

It's been pretty good for games so far, but I'm finding it starting to struggle with newer titles on higher settings.

As stated earlier, I'm not really comfortable with forking out a few grand for at least the foreseeable next 6 months to play games, so I did a little poking around online and saw that I may be able to upgrade the 2GB AMD HD 6990M chip with an AMD HD 7970M 2GB or 4GB Nvidia 680M for a few hundred bucks.

I am assuming the Gfx card is the weakest link in my computer's spec list, although I'm not up to date at all lately with what's what in gaming hardware.

Maybe you guys could lend some advice, here is my spec list:

Intel Core i7-2720QM Sandy Bridge 2.2Ghz w/Turbo boost to 3.3Ghz, 6MB Cache
2GB AMD HD 6990M
8GB DDR3 1333Mhz (2x4gb)
500GB 7200RPM HDD
etc...

So am I right in assuming the Gfx is the weakest link gaming wise? If not is the CPU upgradeable?

As it worth attempting to upgrade this laptop for $500-$700 or try and sell it for maybe $750 and get something MAYBE for $1500? Thing is, most Laptops I've looked at 2nd or new are far above my budget for better specs.

Any help is appreciated guys, thanks.

Edit - Alternatively, what's considered good specs for decent gaming on a modest budget these days?

 

Exactly the machine you have.

It's not worth spending the kind of cash required for a top-flight mobile GPU after the fact. I think maybe your expectations were a bit too high going in. Unless you drop $2500+ on an SLI/Crossfire system, most notebooks are going to struggle playing games at maximum settings at high resolution. Lower your resolution and/or in-game settings. The 6990M is still an excellent GPU and even if you drop things a bit, you'll still get better visuals and overall performance than you did from your 360.

 

Thanks, I see your point. I would get a desktop PC, but I take my gaming laptop around with me regularly and play games at friends etc... and hauling a desktop around is not really an option for me. I did spot another clevo Laptop actually for probably an extra $900 on top of this one if I sold this, specs are as follows:

Clevo P150EM:
Display: 15.6" 1920x1080 LED Matte
CPU: Intel Core i7-3740QM Quad-Core 2.7-3.7GHz
RAM: 16GB DDR3 1600MHz
Storage: 240GB Intel 520 SSD 550/520MBs Read/Write
GPU: Nvidia GeForce GTX 675MX 4GB
WiFi: Intel Advanced-N 6235
Bluetooth 4.0 Compatible
HD Front Camera
Customisable Backlit Keyboard
Fingerprint Reader Enabled
1 x Optical DVD+/-RW Drive
3 x USB 3.0 with 1 x e-SATA
1 x HDMI, DVI-I, Display Port

How would this fare for gaming compared to my current Laptop? Would it be a noticeably better performer?

 

I think you might get around a 10-30% increase in performance between the 6990m and 7970m but I could be wrong.

You ideally need the 770m, 680m, 7970m or 8970m personally, anything else is a step backwards.

Just tune the settings for better performance, AFX16 is always possible, anti aliasing is the most demanding, FXAA or low level AA will give you best FPS.

 

what games do you want to max and why?

most games these days look equally good on medium/high settings

 

Mostly agreed but the performance increase from 6990M to 7970M is at least 50% across the board. As far as synthetic benchmarking is concerned, the difference is even greater.

Also, the 770M is actually not quite as strong as the 675MX judging from tech. specs so OP's upgrade options are limited to the few expensive cards.

My personal take on situations like this would be, make your junk (nothing personal to the OP that machine is still a decent rig) last as long as possible then break the piggy bank for the latest bling bling

 

770m is about 10-20% faster than the 675mx.

Should be around 10-15% slower than the 680m/7970m, according to notebookcheck.