Upgrade Clevo P170em

Hi,

I am planning to upgrade my Clevo P170em (over the next year or so) and I need some advice.

RAM:
- what is the best RAM I could upgrade to? I currently have 2x4GB Crucial Vengeance 1600MHz and was thinking to go for 4x8GB..

CPU:
- best CPU? I have a i7-3610 2.3GHz

GPU:
- I have a NVIDIA GTX 675M 2GB GDDR5, what's the best I can get?

By best, I don't mean the most powerfull, but the one with the best quality/price ratio. I currently have the latest stock BIOS, planning on flashing latest prema bios if I can find it...

Main purpose would be gaming, but would also use it occasionally to compute computational heavy simulations.

Thanks!

 

- 4x8 GB DDR 3 2133mhz RAM
- I7 - 3940xm
- Clevo GTX 1070 MXM from Eurocom.

is the best you can get.

Other than that nobody can give you proper advice without knowing how much money u're willing to spend and what games / applications u're using.

 

Hi @Danishblunt

Thanks for the info, you are right, I should have been more specific.

Games (what I intend to play in the next few months):
- Starcraft 2 - the whole series
- Civilization V (or VI if I can get a good promotion)
- Witcher 3

Relatively to the RAM, a few more questions (probably the first thing to upgrade):
- what brand do you suggest? Corsair ? Crucial?
- Is the upgrade to 2133 MHz RAM noticeable?

in terms of budget, I was thinking about ~250€/USD$300 for the GPU, the CPU can wait until I get a good deal on ebay.

Thanks!
Jorge

 

I think you might look for a GTX 780M / 870M.

Honestly just keep the 1600mhz ram, you probably won't need more.

Starcraft and Civ are both very CPU intensive (witcher also requires somewhat a decent CPU), so a 3920xm / 3940xm would not be a bad purchase.

 

-p170em with Eurocom Gtx1070 https://twitter.com/EurocomTech/status/921464048516034560

 

Not all 2133 ram will work in 4 sticks on EMs. 1866 is usually ok. 1-2% difference max over 1600.

Also keep a ram usage bar open while you do stuff to see if you ever go above 16gb, if not, don't bother with 32Gb. (For example, I've got 40 chrome tabs open, 5 in firefox, outlook, 4 explorer windows, and a x265 handbrake encode running in the background, and right now it's sitting on only 11.7Gb used)

Only the eurocom 1070 will fit in the P170EM.

As for CPU, 3720QM through 3840QM are bang for buck, with prema bios you can unlock to +400mhz over top turbo and remove turbo power limits keeping them turboing forever. e.g. 3720qm = permanent 3.8ghz-4.0ghz (up from 3.2-3.3 multicore turbo when at stock). Without investing time into modding cooling or the risk of liquid metal, the XMs don't go that far beyond 4ghz if at all.

Actually, until I figured out the cTDP based 65W turbo long power limit that kept setting itself on each boot/resume, when I swapped out a 3.9GHz 3740QM in my P370EM for a 3940XM, regardless of overclock turbo multipliers, its performance was lower on long benches as it settled at 3.6-3.7ghz.

 

Hi all,

Thanks for the nice feedback, it gave me an idea on the path to follow:
1) add RAM to 2x8GB 1600/1866Mhz (whatever is cheapest) and maybe later replace my current 2x4Gb with 2x8GB. upgrade CPU to 3820-3840QM at first and then I'll see if it's enough. Unless I find a good deal on the 3940XM

2) (much later) upgrade to the eurocom 1070 whenever I find a good deal

My main issue at this moment is to find the Prema Bios ( @Prema ), will attempt to send his a PM .

Cheers!
Jorge