Alienware M17x R5 980m upgrade or Eurocomm Sky X4C GTX 1070?

Ok, so I've been doing a lotttttttttt of thinking lately, and I've decided to sell my desktop in favor of a laptop. So I went out and bough a local Alienware M17X R5 (lowest spec model) for $300. However, I've also decided to sell my other video game collections, as I don't play them, ergo they;re useless to me, and I released I could afford the Sky X4C (i5 8400, 1070, 16GB RAM). So I was wondering, as someone whose main games are GTA V, Rise of the Tomb Raider and MC, when I bother to play games upgrading to a 980M be better value for me, or would going with the Sky X4C be better? The 980M upgrade would be ~$400 for parts (heatsink, charger, MXM card) and the SKY in that config is ~1600, but with 10% student discount is closer to ~1500 and then there is also maybe ~200-300 off for trading in this laptop, so around ~1200, would X4C be better, or the 980M upgrade?

 

I mean we don't know about what you get in terms of perforamnce if we don't even know what CPU etc. you get in your AW.

Also keep in mind that the alienware has MUCH better software + Bios support, better keyboard, better sound and is quiter than the clevo.

Performancewise the Clevo is superior tho.

Lets assume:
You get the AW notebook with 4900MQ or better, 16GB ram and SSD for 300 bucks. Then grabing a GTX 1060 from @woodzstack would be the cheapest thing you can do. You would be able to play your games on high settings while having a power efficient and quiet notebook.

 

I already bought it, it was the lowest end spec possible, as pointed out in the previous post. How much would a 1060 be?, i've seen 980m's go for ~350 were I live . And all the features you pointed out Clevo's suck at are big points for me, so I guess I'm sticking with this AW(AW 17 R5
4700MQ turbo oc'd to 3.6
8GB RAM
HD 4600 (MXM GTX 765M GPU is faulty)
120GB SSD
500GB SSHD)

 

The GPU cannot be faulty since that would mean the CPU is faulty. You should probably ask woodzstack for more on the pricing, he does sell them cheap with warranty.

Also getting another 8GB ram is probably something you would want to do as well, especially considering that DDR 3 is rather cheap.

Also with some microcode abuse you can actually unlock that 4700MQ and overclock it to 4ghz+

 

@woodzstack


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The original GTX 765M is faulty, it doesn't work correctly, I've already posted about this on different post. My dad has given me his older dell laptop with suprisingingly exact same memory as this. Also, how would you "abuse" the microcode for that i7? Can you tell me or point me in the direction of a guide?

 

I was under the impression that:
HD 4600 (GPU is faulty)
Was reffering to the HD 4600, not that u have a faulty GPU.

https://www.techinferno.com/index.p...version-intel-haswell-cpu-microcode-bug-hack/

 

I should have been more clear, my bad. But as for that CPU microcode OC-ing, could you try to provide more help on that? Like specifially where to get a BIOS dump, and how to hex-edit it? You've been very helpful so far.

 

For the Haswell microcode hack, it's not guaranteed to work. I wouldn't do it unless you know your motherboard's exact recovery procedure. When I modified a stock Clevo BIOS with the old microcodes and flashed it on my previous laptop, it bricked the motherboard and would not POST. I had to use an SPI programmer and inline flash the BIOS chip to get it to boot again. I tried every early microcode with the OC bug as well as removing all microcode updates (000) and all of them resulted in a brick.

 

^-This

If you want to attempt this, make sure you buy something like a CH34A1 first.

 

He sent me a PM already, but I'm here.

A 1060 with a modified heatsink to fit, is best in class for this AW17.

 

Yes but better to go for X4C


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yeah the 4600 is the iGPU built into the CPU, it's possible it can be faulty but more often then not, if you have a CPU with no iGPU on it, it might be an ES or QS, or you maybe meant to say your dedicated graphics card, like your 770M/780M you got with your AW17 is faulty.

If your unsure what graphics card you have, give us your service tag on the back of your laptop, we can look it up on Dell's site.

 

Honestly, that doesn't seem worth the risk, and an extra 600mhz isn't that necessarily needed

 

Not at the 980M/1060 level of GPU performance being discussed and what I'm guessing is a 1080p 60hz display.

 

980M > 1060 if you have a LVDS laptop. Don’t bother with Optimus. 980M gives more vRAM and no stupid Optimus to deal with and they’re approximately in the same ballpark in performance. Pascal cards only make sense if you have edp display or go with a proper 1070 MXM

 

Guys, thanks for all the wonder replies, but I've decided to try and save up for a custom X4C from @woodzstack 's friend, so the laptop in question will be parted out (you can check me out on Offerup, I ship across the U.S if thats helpful and anyone wants buy the parts of this, or whole)