GT72/GT72S and GT80/GT80S Owners GPU Upgrade Discussion

If there's a "no physical damage" clause, I'm screwed already.

I've dropped mine a couple times and it has some dents and dings.

I'll find that to be incredibly unfair, being that I have been expecting to upgrade the machine I own, not trading it in for a new one.

Oh well in that case I'll ride this one until 2018.

 

Come on you guys, kick those GT80's/GT72's into high throughput gaming!!

Make the most out of their fore-shortened lives, and game on!

 

You can only swap the drives if we get new licenses pre-activated on the new laptops and only if the chipsets remain the same. I.e. cm236 vs hm170.

 

Nah, MSI can't let that stop a trade-in, since that cosmetic damage wouldn't stop you from upgrading the GPU's.

Hopefully MSI won't match the damage on your new unit...

 

Windows has always been pretty cool about downloading missing drivers for chipsets when I have done this swap before with upgraded MB's, but I know what you mean, you can't count on it and may need to do a fresh install, so have a complete image backup of your drive before trying the swap.

Between the CM236 and HM170 I would think it would be ok, but then again, we will find out soon

The license should work itself out against the BIOS key in the new laptop too.

But, make sure you have an image backup just in case.

And, if Windows 10 is involved, then all bets are off!

 

Guys, I think I've seen this suggested awhile ago but anyhow, I think its time we informed several PC Gamer outlets so we can get this out into the public.
We are not the only GT72/S/GT80 owners, the more that are aware, the larger the reaction. Now that would put some real pressure on MSI.
Perhaps Linus or pc gamer magazine, this kind of stuff.

 

Regarding swapping drives, I've noticed that most of the new generation notebooks only have one m.2 slot. Goodbye GT72 4-SSD array.

 

Yeah, as far as the upgrade for the GT72 guys goes, that is a thing to be concerned about, but mostly if you were trading in to another GT72

Both the GT73 and GT83 support 3 x M.2 - I think it's 2 x M.2 PCIE x4, and 1 M.2 SATA, but double check to be sure.

And, you still get 1 x 2.5" SATA III, and another 2.5" for the Optical bay which I assume you can still pull and swap in another SSD instead.

If you had a GT72 4x M.2, then complain to MSI and ask them to upgrade your 3 x M.2's to 1TB drives to make up for the loss of the socket.

 

@hmscott however what about my problem. I have 1x NVME 2x SATA m.2 SSD's plus 2x 2.5" Drives one in the ODD bay total 4.2TB. People are already on MSI UK Facebook asking the same questions about their laptops pascal upgrades or shell i say lack of.

Also on the GT83VR its 2x NVME M.2 Sockets but with one as a Combo which does SATA and 1x SATA M.2 Native. so still the 3 M.2 Slots as you state.

 

The GT73VR and GT83 VR have 3 M.2 slots that can do SATA III, and 2 of those M.2 slots can also do PCIE. 2 combo M.2 sockets and one M.2 that is SATA III only:

From the GT73VR specifications product page:

1x M.2 SSD (SATA) 2x M.2 SSD Combo (NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 / SATA )

GT73VR 6RE TITAN
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GT73VR-6RE-Titan.html#hero-specification

From the GT83VR product specification page:

1x M.2 SSD (SATA) 2x M.2 SSD Combo (NVMe PCIe Gen3 x4 / SATA )

GT83VR 6RF TITAN SLI
https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GT83VR-6RF-Titan-SLI.html#hero-specification

And, I would find out the height of the ODD slot to make sure your ODD drive will migrate over ok.

 

Okay I'm new to this thread, didn't read EVERYTHING yet (getting to it). What exactly is the cost of trading in? I only recently bought mine, and I am tapped out. My original plan since they promised 2 gens was to Skip the 10 series, and go for the 11. But they are saying we have until the end of October.

I don't want to miss out on upgrading... but If its more than 100~200 bucks I just can't do it right now

They should offer anyone who wants to upgrade a larger window, a 2 generation window... if that's what they promised. So like.... Until the 12series gpu's come out GT80 900series owners should be allowed to trade in. That's how I feel about it.

--- Follow up, I bought the SLI 965 version on fire sale for half off, since it has the 5700HQ in it... Mostly because thats still okay today, and I had an upgrade path. This is very concerning now.... Worst case scenario I will be able to buy replacement cards in the same generation going forward but... I would rather be able to upgrade further.

 

We don't have any pricing or terms details on the trade-in offer, but you're not alone in wanting a cheap upgrade, as all of us were expecting to upgrade the GPU's only, and not right away either.

This rushed 2 month window for the trade-in is a fail, we should have 2-3 years window for upgrades, the same time we would have had for the promised "2 generations" of GPU upgrades.

If you can shorten your post, and frame it in the form of questions for the MSI Rep's, it would be a great post for that thread too:

[Official] Questions for the MSI Rep! #2
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-questions-for-the-msi-rep-2.795226/

 

@hmscott ODD Bay needs to be 9.5mm as thats what i installed on mine. Infact its this one ODD BAY.

 

I'd ask the MSI Rep's about that detail, for the GT73VR/GT83VR doesn't list the dimensions, just the feature.

 

@hmscott Thanks for that but not being funny i really don't dig the design of the GT73/83 chassis way too much bling and its a fatter laptop too. I perfer the GT72 Chassis. However what i find really funny is the GT72VR has the same chassis, the same mainboard layout, the same PSU power output with a GTX1070 in it and 2 of the M.2 slots removed so only 1 M.2 slot in it now.

Just look what i am talking about

GT72(s): http://img.hexus.net/v2/laptops/msi/GT72/GT72-06b.png
GT72VR: https://i.ytimg.com/vi/O4b-G-A6Mzk/maxresdefault.jpg


All i can see is the Fans have been swapped and the GPU has an extra heatpipe.

 

So MSI were overselling it when they said 'everything's different'? Shock horror, pick my jaw up off the floor

Sent from my Redmi Note 3 using Tapatalk

 

MSI cheaped out and took out the CM236 motherboard chipset from the GT72S using the HM170 instead in the GT72VR:
http://ark.intel.com/compare/90584,90593

MSI also removed the hardware MUX switch to switch between the dGPU and iGPU - the GT72VR is Optimus only now.

MSI downgraded the GT72VR series to mid-range status, replacing it with the GT73 series, which now has the CM236, hardware Mux display switch, more M.2 slots, and higher spec components.

So it's a lateral move from your GT72 to the GT73VR, feature wise.

Of course the Pascal GPU upgrade is a big upgrade, and a big increase in power and thermal resource requirements, making the GT73VR/GT83VR thicker, maybe heavier too - I haven't compared/checked.

 

@hmscott The GT72 i have is using the Intel Sunrise Point HM170 already though. However if you can't offer a direct path via the Laptops MXM slot then how about given us the path via the use of Thunderbolt 3. I will see what is said in my ticket any ways. However i am still not buying the fact that our GT72/80 (s) can't upgrade to pascal, i am starting to think the RnD team are just being lazy and the Marketing team is trying to force push sales of their new SKU's.

 

I agree, that's why I think we need to continue to push for the Pascal MXM GPU upgrades promised.

 

Interesting, thanks for the photos. It appears the main frame of the laptop remains the same and unchanged. unless the internal motherboards have changed (which i doubt have changed too much), the upgrade procedure should be simple as cake for a 1070. Basically just sending us a new heatpipe assembly thing and maybe fans and the mxm gpu. Most of which are generally inexpensive to manufacture. I would be extremely disappointed if we international customers (or even some american owners who do not know of this forum) get shafted like this by MSI. They need to publically make good on their promises and not pussyfoot around this issue with this pdf nonsense. Some of which even our own members cant send/open/whatnot.

Step up your game MSI.

If this situation does not improve any of my friends or close associates that think of buying MSI laptops or other peripherals i will show them this forum and their dishonesty. As we all know businesses dont listen to rants from customers, they listen to where the money goes.

 

Correct me if I am wrong but does a M series nVIDIA 1060,1070,1080 exist?
I read this article and I can't find an update on it so I am assuming this is the case with nVIDIA.
PCGamer:
According to our contacts, Nvidia is readying the release of its new 10-series chips for notebooks. The kick is, they won’t be M versions of desktop GPUs. They will be the same chips used on the desktops, just operating at a lower TDP—we’re told there will be the same number of shader units, etc.
http://videocardz.com/60853/nvidia-to-offer-desktop-graphics-in-notebooks

I am the well researched owner of a MSI GT72S 6QE -038 which I bought 7 months ago. I too am perplexed as to why MSI have made available the option to upgrade the MXM graphics and then dropped their promise. 'How the powerful fall so quickly'. I have been watching the MSI rise in excellence over the past 12 months (Another reason why I bought a GT72S).
The possibility of loosing a considerable amount of the market because of misrepresentation could be significant.
I am assuming with my model which has a GTX 980M I could upgrade to a say a GTX 1080M, yet the article above suggest the company supplying the 'MXM' have no intention of making such a product. Well not right now anyway.
I think both 'US and MSI' are dreaming if they can offer a reasonable upgrade.
For instance the nVIDIA 10 series uses the 120hz refresh rates which everyone has been screaming for for gaming, which obviously means a whole new IPS display.
Then there is the heat-sinks and heat pipping.
I had a look at the specs of the MSI GT73VR Titan pro and there was hardly any difference except they had removed the ODD and replaced the channel with more PCIE m.2 slots for raid.
Same CPU 6820HK, same power supplies, same motherboard chip-set
The most unusual thing was the price in my country (Australia), LOL the same price. sigh.
I will be contacting MSI here in Australia this week to see what might be offered in the future.

 

Hey buddy,
I'm from Italy too and had to deal with MSI once in the past. My BIOS froze up on the update process because of the jump from a factory BIOS to the latest. They changed the update procedure so it f.... up every BIOS update but, at least in my case, they acknowledged the problem at hand and offered free service and shipping both ways, even though my 1 year international warranty was over. I bought my GT60 in the USA and had it delivered to me in Italy when my cousin came over. And yes Poland is their main service center for the EU. Majster_msi gets the parts he sells from there

They'll write the same thing they replied me when I asked about the 980m for my GT60: sorry it can't be done..
However don't loose hope and keep trying. I don't have the GT72 otherwise I would have stormed them too!


Guys you could try PDFXChange. I use it everyday for my PDF needs and it has never given me problems about form fillings. And it saves them in an Acrobat compatible form (XML embedded in the file itself). I'll keep enjoying the GT60 until Volta/Kabbylake. And then I'll go desktop if the need calls

 

Hi everybody,

I'm from France with a GT80S 980m SLI and I don't know if the upgrade program will apply here.
I've just sent an email to the MSI France support but I have little hope.
For a marchine I bought 5 months ago, the loss will be heavy in money if the upgrade is not possible.
This will be my first and last MSI in that case.
Especially since I had big problems with this machine since the beginning and I had to arrange the problems myself because the service did nothing after keeping my machine three weeks in Poland.

What a desappointment...

 

We need to keep strong also in EU. I'm italian!
No upgrade and my msi gt80 will be the last msi product ever!

 

lol, Well I do not have a cousin in the US, lucky you, you could take advantage of this trade or for those in the future

The thing that came to my mind recently however is: many of you are justifying the msi with the issue of "selected countries", but it is smoke and mirrors, this issue of "selected countries" no longer exists, to me they seem bullshits: if in europe I can buy msi online anywhere, if their repair center is in Poland ... then why can not I have the upgrade service ? I'm Italian, I sent my pc in warranty ... they came to get him and they sent it in Germany, then in Poland...just as we said before.
Well then...for the warranty its ok, these "tours" are feasible...and for the upgrade they arent? What changes?

And again: in what way, before buying, I can know if my country is among the "chosen ones" or not? We do not know even now, msi does not specify! I believe that every country where there is at least 1 msi importer shop is entitled to be on the list for the upgrade.

To all Europeans who write here: go to your respective forum, as well as in the general EU-English forum, and supported this cause ... in the general EU it is already in a topic and we're trying to keep it up, because the moderators dont do.

Also write to your support centers, do tickets...rocking the boat

 

Not so lucky my friend. Especially when he comes to visit once in a lifetime ("ogni morte di papa" we use to say here). It was pure coincidence with the GT60
Don't plan on spending all that money and dealing with all the troubles of international orders...only if it's really worth it. As I said Volta/Kabbylake or desktop for me!

Marketing! They want you to buy a new unit. Pascal was hyped accordingly. Those getting a new notebook got lucky. We upgraders got shafted They thought riding the momentum will get them through..not so apparently

 

I sent my form in. I bought a gt80s recently and also am disappointed that my cards can't be upgraded. Hopefully it doesn't cost my other leg for a trade in.

 

Anyone speculate on upgrade pricing? I literally bought my gt80s just over a month ago. 3,300 for the SLI-002.

Now the pro-202 gt83vr is pretty much the same exact thing as the 002 I have, except the obvious 1080 upgrade, screen and more ram.

On Amazon it's 3,099. 200 bucks cheaper than the laptop I just bought. It would literally be robery for them to charge me a grand to upgrade. That's beyond the fact that I had not planned on upgrading my gpus for some time, and had I wanted to drop over 4K, I'd have got the anniversary edition. I planned on slowly upgrading ram, m.2s and then gfx when available, that's why I went for the cheaper model. Kinda irks me it's coming to this.

 

You could post this in the form of a question(s) over in the MSI Rep Questions area, it's a good example of how the trade-in won't cover many situations.

MSI needs to follow through providing the Pascal MXM GPU upgrades, and to provide them with long term availability over the life of our laptops.

We all planned on the long term upgradeability of our laptop over several years, not a short 2 month "catch us if you can" one time offer of a total system trade-in.

 

Honestly from what I read, I wouldn't want them to try to jimmy-rig a fix for this. It would be extensive and a heat nightmare. It's their fault they made false claims on something this big. They literally promoted the hell out of the MXM design as a major selling point - and it worked for me.

They'll take a hit, but the right thing to do is to upgrade those who want it to the equivalent current model. 970 for 1070, 980 for 1080 in their models ram and hard disc configuration. For free, or simply offer full refunds.

Unless MSI and NVIDIA really lay in bed, it seems really bold for MSI to make claims of multi generation GPU upgrades in such a small forum factor that's already barely accommodating current heat needs, when it's apparent they have no idea what next generation GPU technology may include.

I'd have rather opted for the dual non M 980s in the anniversary edition, knowing it wouldn't be upgradable. That would have kept me good for a coule years, rather than buying a lower model with false expectations of upgradability. I barely hit 60fps in 1440p in doom and battlefront. Don't get me wrong, still awesome, but this probably won't fare well in next gen games.


Sorry, just ranting at this point. Bottom line, hopefully MSI does the right thing without trying to screw their customers out of more of their money.

 

I am 100% with this. I would still be happy if they gave me a 1070 sli rig for free, but a 1080sli setup is welcome lol. I doubt we get anything for free. America is great, but nothing here is free.

 

MSI would do (or have already done) a well engineered solution for Pascal MXM upgrades. I wouldn't worry about that.

There isn't really any other way that will fairly serve all those that expected Pascal / Volta MXM GPU upgrades over the next several years as promised.

We are all already overburdened dealing with the ramifications of MSI / Clevo / Nvidia failing to delivery Pascal MXM GPU upgrades.

Sadly, MSI / Clevo / Nvidia's burden and loss will be greater than ours by many many times over.

 

nothing is free in the whole world, mate ... let alone in America.

 

That's the GT73, and it only has a single 1080.

 

Yeah, you're right. I saw that after I posted. Looks like the only SLI 1080 is 5K. Looks like we'll be getting 1070 SLI's unless were gonna fork over a bunch of cash.

 

yeah I know , just saying that this "US" offer for trade in doesn't mean we will get a free upgrade to the GT83.

 

I remember reading somewhere that the MXM slot is limited to 100W and the 1060 is 120w. Is this true? How does it run the 980 non M?

 

I could be wrong, but I though there was an extra power connector on the 980 versions

 

Hmm in other words they should be able to support Pascal at least on the gt72s

 

Picking this up here in the discussion thread...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-questions-for-the-msi-rep-2.795226/#post-10322795

I bought the Broadwell GT80, and the following Skylake GT80S also had the same promise, in video's and product pages, and in many many reviews.

 

MSI can take a tap off the internal power harness, or provided an updated internal power harness to supplement the PCIE and provide a Power cable to the current MXM location.

The other engineering problems are within MSI's grasp.

If there's a problem, it's not technical.

 

Ticket:
USA Trade Program

Content:

Hello Dan,
Welcome to MSI Online Notebook Customer Service Center, and we are very glad to serve you.
Please kindly be informed that different areas are not the same rule.
Thank you and sorry for any inconvenience.




Best Regards,
MSI Notebook Technical Application Department

-------------------------

To the European support they must have put a comedian.
Second attempt, second mockery. But msi knows that its european office does everything to lose customers?
Bah...

 

This is the same sort of brush off we all got initially from the US MSI Support, so please don't let it discourage you

Please post this in the MSI Rep Questions thread, and ask for help working with the European office management to give this problem the attention that will provide a trade-in program or better yet, Pascal MXM GPU upgrade kits for your region(s).

You could try reaching through again asking for direct connection to global Engineering or local and global Marketing, starting with local management to get the contact information.

If that doesn't work, dig up those department email and phone numbers elsewhere

 

Reply asking for a corporate answer, that covers all customers worldwide?

 

The SLI 980 model was 4.6K, but knowing MSI there's going to be forks of cash involved anyways.

There isn't. The MXM is only specced to 100W but very often cards will draw more. Overclocked 980Ms can easily pull 160W on the P870.

 

well tomorrow is a business day; I have a feeling they will check the forums and give us some sort of response!

 

My fault, obviously for not seeing this thread before I posted my own "Buyback Program" thread. Maybe a mod can just delete it.

Anyways, since this is the more appropriate place to ask, does anyone know if the GT80S is considered under this new buyback program? The link under hmscott's original post mentions "GT80" not the GT80S.

 

I don't think anyone reallllly knows until MSI says more, but considering it suffers from the same problem, I can't imagine why it wouldn't include the S.

 

I got a GT72S 29th Anniversary edition a month ago and my decision was based on the upgradeability advertised by MSI!! I'm in the UK and want a 1070/1080 laptop.

I have sent this to MSI Support:

Hi,

Please can you provide information on when the GPU Upgrade Kit will become available for my notebook?
MSI USA has announced an official trade in program for GT72/GT80 users.

Please see details here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ents-and-all-things-msi.795144/#post-10326272

Jest posting this in the right thread.

Will MSI UK offer similar solution to UK MSI GT72/GT72S/GT80 owners?
I have purchased MSI GT72S 29th Anniversary edition based on upgradeability claim.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Wondering what they reply will be...


Sent from my LG-H950

 

The MSI announcement covers it nicely, they say:

"MSI will be offering a trade-in program for those who currently have GT72/GT80 models with GTX 800 and 900 series graphics inside to new GT72/GT83 with GTX 10-series packed with our latest gaming features. "

So that covers all GT72/GT80 variants with GTX8xx and GTX9xx GPU's, "S"'s too.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ents-and-all-things-msi.795144/#post-10326272

MSI could have added the "S"'s - GT72S/GT80S, but mentioning that wide range of GPU's covers it nicely.

If you still aren't sure, you can ask the MSI rep's here (questions only):

[Official] Questions for the MSI Rep! #2
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/official-questions-for-the-msi-rep-2.795226/