Upgrading gpu (or gpu's) - how far has it come?

I've been the very happy owner of an MSI gt70 with a gtx 780m for the last 3 odd years. I've had almost no problems and added a ssd with no issues and can still run modern games in high or mostly high settings. However, the time is fast approaching for an upgrade I think since I like to stay reasonably on top of gaming technology, and this time around I'm considering this: Sager NP9870 with dual gtx 970m. I know this should give me a high level of performance for the next 3-4 years, but have mobile gpu's advanced to the point where upgrading them is a reasonable expectation, or is it still very specialized by brand? Is there one brand that does this better than another? Thanks for any input!

 

Notebooks with upgradable GPUs always have been and always will be a niche market.

If your GT70 is from 2013 or newer, you can actually install a GTX 970M or 980M yourself. There is a seller in the marketplace offering compatible GPU upgrades. At $500-700 a piece, depending on what model you want, they're not cheap but certainly more cost effective than buying a whole new machine, especially if it has a good CPU in it already.

 

It is, and right before I read your reply I read about a Canadian company called Eurocom that looks like they sell essentially the same thing for $1000.

I'd just as soon order from the marketplace here to save the money but I'd be curious to know how things like drivers are supported, since once you upgrade using the Eurocom system you have to get all your driver's from them going forward.

Thank you for the suggestion and I will Def be looking into this solution.

 

The MSI kit is a rip off.. You can get a GTX970M for like $400-450 and a heatsink for $50-100 seperately.. Look around.. I personally would get the NP9870 with 980M SLI.. 970M is becoming a bit weak in 2016 especially with SLI support being derp.. a desktop GTX980 might be the best choice overall when thinking about it

 

I get what you're saying about finding the componemts individually, but my concern would primarily be the original source, and then the support as well since I will probably need custom bios and drivers. If it costs an additional $100-150 I think I can be ok with that. I would be interested to read some others experiences with replacing the gpu using parts purchased individually to see if it's something I'd be interested in (also if I'm just upgrading a single gpu it's going to be the 980, not sure what the pricing is on those individually)

Regarding completely new setup, I had considered the gtx 980 but my concern is its still a fairly new concept and the long term stability for a full sized card, namely cooling it, is still unknown. Maybe I'm being paranoid - but it's also $500 more than the 970m sli, and most of the gaming and graphical benchmarks I've looked at puts the sli setup either equal or around 5% above the desktop 980. But anyway, thanks for the input, it's food for thought.

 

We just posted an article on this very topic: http://www.notebookreview.com/howto/how-to-upgrade-nvidia-mxm-notebook-graphics-cards/

Soon we'll have a follow-up article around external graphics/eGPUs.

Charles

 

Thank you so much - this makes me happy that it's actually a reasonable option (as far as gaming notebooks go) to replace the gpu and not have to replace the entire computer

 

Well, it's not all sunshine in that regard. I still wouldn't buy a notebook and expect to be able to upgrade the notebook's internal graphics, for all the reasons mentioned in the article.

Now with Thunderbolt 3 ports, however, it's looking like external graphics might be the answer notebook owners are looking for, since it allows you to connect an external graphics card. See this article: http://www.notebookreview.com/feature/razer-blade-stealth-and-razer-core-steal-the-show/

Charles