GT72/GT72S and GT80/GT80S Owners GPU Upgrade Discussion

That's the motivation behind my asking MSI to let us keep our laptops, it's a self-leveling balance - each laptop is worth more or less on the open market depending on if it's a couple of years old, or days / weeks / months old.

Thanks for mentioning that, I should have included that spelled out - updating my post

 

lol @hmscott
yeah dude i get the joke, but i also think some nuubs around here have a ridiculous sense of entitlement and their lack of research caused them to time a purchase very very badly. now they are whining about it expecting something for nothing.

its not msi thats not making mxm available, its nvidia left mxm spec, so nvidia is not making mxm spec'd cards in the 10x series. msi simply stuck their neck out in 2014, depending on nvidia and are now left hanging along with their customers. the upgrade program is msi obviously being honorable and trying to smooth things over on their own, since their vendor bailed on them. I actually respect them more for doing this, (and working thru the issues), rather than not doing anything and just blaming it on nvidia as many other vendors would do in their place (cough clevo, cough).

@Jermzz the numbers are not situational- i suspect it will be same price regardless of trade in, largely based on price of the gpus. twin gpus top of line new gen is 1500-2k. thats how much new gpus cost every new cycle for a while now (for 4 or 6 years in a row now?). doesnt matter if i am trading in 980's or 980m's or even 880's. its 1500-2k either way. thats how much a pair of 980m's cost by themselves. run a search on the net or amazon for "980m upgrade kit" and thats what market cost is for a pair of 980m's. also a pair of desktop 1080's is 1500 btw. so if they did have a 10080 upgrade kits, regardless if i have a skywell/broadwell or whatever the cost would be 2k for the cards alone. so pricing here should Not be situational if they are really trying to stick to the "upgrade commitment" and price should be 2k flat- cost of gpu alone.

the real problem is the system not designed for 2x330 watts, which is why they cant just sell sli 1080 upgrade kits..they would not work in our old rigs, so they need another solution. so regardless if you think your newer cpu/ram is worth something, mechanically they have to swap your entire machine -shell/mobo/power supplies so you trading-in has pretty much most of the same cost to them as someone with older generation trading in. its still a whole machine swap and they end up with a used machine-- cpus are soldered on, so not like they can resell the cpu alone and reuse mobo with new machine

this is why i suggested simply providing coupon discount for 2 generations ( 2 years) notebooks subsequent to purchase . this avoids many problems of the trade-in- it gets around the time limits to having to upgrade within a few months, gets around issues of having to deal with used machines, allows people to resell their old machine, etc etc etc it also offers them a means to keep customers loyal every new generation or two....if they keep the program running..and if nvidia or intel change spec again, they dont get screwed.

 

Not a noob, did my research, am entitled to get "2 generations" of MXM GPU upgrades.

Rethink it. We aren't looking for a trade-in, we are thinking about accepting a trade-in in lieu of not getting our promised "2 generations" of MXM GPU upgrades, that we are entitled to as registered owners of the GT72/GT80.

No simple value exchange trade-in is enough to satisfy the loss.

We aren't asking for too much, we are asking for value + loss consideration.

4 losses. 1 loss each for each upgrade opportunity we lost, and 2 loses for the time of our choosing upgraded. That's a lot of losses.

I think it's called punitive damages in another form...

 

yes agreed. was not pointing to you as nuub, was implying the nuub is the guy who wants a pair of 1070's for free cause new cards came out sooner than he thought.
yes agree on trade in is not the best thing, which is why i suggested discount program rather than trade-in. i think discount program fits "punitive damage" model better than trade in.

 

If the owner bought the laptop near the end of the life cycle of Maxwell to get a great discount, and planned on upgrading the GPU's in 12-18 months, then find's he has 2 months to decide whether to get a whole new laptop, that's not cool.

Not at all, a simple discount is a bad idea in fact, sorry. It's waaaaay too little consideration.

10% off a new laptop, is like what the retailer offers on Presidents Day Sales - "we pay the taxes"!! BFD.

Bump up the price 10% on Monday, drop it down 10% on Friday for the big weekend sale.... noooope.

 

i dont see your point-- new laptop models are sold for msrp these days so 10% off msrp on a 5k laptop is 500 bux discount. 15% off 5k is 750$ discount. since tax is after coupon you actually save more in this model.
2k for upgrade+ tax on 2k is 2200 so you pay taxes either way...don't see your point

 

You aren't playing the right game, not even the right ballpark. Let's not discuss a discount option any further, it's ludicrous.

Wait a minute, do you even have a GT80/GT72??

What owner in his right mind would be suggesting a 10-15% discount on a future laptop purchase as satisfaction for losing out on "2 generations" of MXM GPU upgrades? That's insane.

Do you work for MSI??

 

This. My buy wasn't noob or uneducated. I didn't know that these laptops were going to debut a couple weeks after the 1080 official release, I expected them to start trickling out slowly next year. But I wasn't worried cause I had all the new tech. M.2, ddr4 etc. and with the July rebate, I got a great deal and planned on upgrading. Dual 980m are relevant right now in gaming. I can play all my games at 1440p on ultra. It's great. But I won't be able to do that for long, which is where the upgrade was supposed to come in

Not looking for anything for free. I just want my 2 generations of upgrades. That's it. Else give me my damn money back so I can buy something else.

 

@hmscott yes i do own a gt72 dominator pro 211. my hd modding of that model is listed in the first 80 pages of the gt72 thread started by striker. my older commenst are in the 16f3 thread, and the 16f2 thread and the gx640 thread before that.

i am not sure what game you are talking about.
no i dont work for msi or any other manufacturer.
i realize thata technical upgrade is not possible, and the discount option would serve me better than a trade in option, so i am going to "vote my interest" and advocate what is best for ME, and what may be a better solution for others than the trade-in. trade in is fine for some people, but i am going to advocate what i think is best for me, just like you have the right to advocate whats best for you. i respect your opinion but dont have to agree for it and dont have to want the same solution.

@Jermzz - since you are not the guy wanting a free upgrade to 1070's then you are obviously not the nuub i am talking about.

EDIT- i never implied the discount program had 2 months to run. i suggested you can upgrade for 2 generations with a discount. very different

 

The reason I ask is you were giving away value like you don't own it.

That laptop is over 2 years old now, it's gone through is complete depreciation cycle, and isn't worth much.

Owners that bought in the last 6 months, 3 months, and even just over 1 month ago are in a much different position than you are.

Their value loss is many times higher, all the way up to and including a complete free replacement.

While you might be happy with $500, after enjoying the 2 years of beneficial use of your laptop, many others are going to be out 10x that - their recently purchased laptops leaving their hands for another in a months usage - barely time to get it set up to *start* enjoying it.

Let them ask for what they want, unaccosted and unridiculed for what they believe they are owed.

Calling them noobs, and saying that they have a "ridiculous sense of entitlement and their lack of research caused them to time a purchase very very badly. now they are whining about it expecting something for nothing." is going way too far, and is dead wrong.

You said your piece on what you feel comfortable taking from MSI for your loss, now let everyone else say what they want to replace their loss.

 

But you did say noob bad timing for buying now because of pascal, I fit into that categoty. Either way, irrelevant.

If a 10% discount on a new notebook is all you need to be happy, it's pretty easy to get that discount from some of the big retailers if you take the right approach, as they're usually allowed to give 10% without any approval. I've done this myself, however I won't name the retailer here. No special MSI club needed. And even if there was, although it may help in the future, it really has no baring on the present problem, unless they want to give me a refund and then give me 10% off on top of that on a 83vr. We should focus on the problem as it is now in this thread, and preventative measure in another. I can sorta see your logic though. I think a 15% discount and selling your own laptop is pretty close to giving your laptop up in trade and paying a premium for the upgrade. Just seems like more of a pain that way.

 

vendor discount is separate topic and you can usually pyramid vendor discount on top of any manufacturer coupon or rebate...




for context - remember the 970 ram fiasco? people asked for all sorts of things initially, but after all was said and done in court they got 30 bux which was awarded as 8.6% of the product price...thats why i suggested 10-15%...be careful what you ask for. g/l

 

Hello All,

I apologize if I am late to this party.

I think we may have become soft, (MSI's Master plan) so they released this "Upgrade Form". Kind of like adding Febreze to a dirty room, they try to cover up how far they are going from their original marketing promise. For example; our marketed home upgrade program (DYI) has turned into a "trade in program", and also pay a $200 more for "Labor, processing and shipping" and an additional $1200 for parts - something, had we done ourselves would have been free and much less expensive.

Either we file a Class Action Law Suit or they make this so called Trade in Program as simple as, -customer sends in GT80, receives GT83-

 

I have to disagree here. A used laptop is a used laptop. And it's worth what it's worth.
You can keep your laptop in a perfect condition for 2 years and you can mess it up in less than a week.
So it depends.
That's why I wouldn't say that "owners that bought in the last 6 months, 3 months, and even just over 1 month ago are in a much different position". We're all in the same boat and the MSI's promise of upgrade-ability was equal.
But I don't think that 10-15% discount is right in this situation either. I mean, MSI can surely implement something like this for their future laptops but now they have to deal with all the people that they let down. And that should be a reasonable solution. So if it's a trade-in programm - it should be worldwide and the price shouldn't exceed a price of upgarade kit minus value of the gpu's that are installed in your current laptop. Or they can let us keep our current cards for further resale.
That's what I think.

 

IDK if this is a prediction... or a hope... But one path could be that they either referb or swap your mainboard, for a new mainboard that can handle the future upgrades.... So you dont get a actual free upgrade... or paid upgrade... like... you send them 970's you get 970's back, but you get a mainboard that can handle pascal+

I would be okay with that.

 

Also I hope this incident does not scare them away from making MXM upgrade systems. I hope that somewhere on the Nvidia side a contract has been broken by Nvidia since MSI probably didn't design these in a dark isolated room without some assurance from Nvidia.

My recommendation with MSI is either, secure better gurantee's from Nvidia, or work maybe work some kind of independent power management system so a smaller cheaper board in the laptop can be replaced rather than integrating it entirely into the main board. DISCLAIMER: I have no clue how plausible that is... at all... obviously it would be silly to put all the CPU and ram power anywhere but the main board... but maybe the components that manage PCIE power could have their own mini board? idk im not an engineer.. Im just saying rather than closing the door on modular laptops instead design around this obstacle so your not swapping out tons of mainboards.

Besides... Most mainboards for desktop's can run pascal, and very likely well beyond... so there has to be some solution.

 

Except 970 was ~400$ and you can change it to whatever card you want because all cards use same pcie connection. Meanwhile we're stuck with gpu which we can't change to 10x series or upgrade to radeon.

 

I agree that in the beginning, from what I saw MSI was making this sound like a tinker-er's anyone with an A+ will be able to buy MXM cards easily and put them in if they have at least some hardware experience... So like for example in my call earlier where they are back pedaling, saying they dont make MXM boards for resale, that ordering parts on their end till take a long time, and that we should send our entire computer in rather than doing it our self is the way... seems wrong. But before you get out the pitchforks remember, I talked to 1 guy in the RMA department... not like the CEO of MSI. Sooo he may not be 100% up to speed on the very specific titan line up.

 

maybe it's a bit 'off topic but to make you realize: I did a build up on the Eurocom site...if I had known her before, I never bought msi. For 6000 euro I can have the most powerful laptop in the world, much better than GT83VR that here in Europe will cost about 5500, with obvious technological choices such as 2.0 HDMI, 3000 MHz ram, GSync and 120 hz...ah, and with a lga cpu!!..Things that i dont understand why the msi has not adopted yet. Furthermore, although very expensive, they already sell mxm expansion kits for the various brands, up to the desktop gtx980 and probably soon will integrate the 10 series. In short, they seem far more professional and commendable that msi.

 

Yeah. A BGA i7 even an HK can never replace lga cpu... At least if you use your computer to other tasks than gaming.

 

OK, I have started emailing tech site to see if they will run a story about this mess.

I've contacted kitguru.net and nexus.nets, if anyone wants to email as well to see if that persuades them to run the story that would be great or contact any other sites/press and post here?

 

I said this before but wth.....

Trade in, upgrade CANNOT cost more than buying an MXM upgrade kit minus the cost of selling your existing MXM card.

Also to be considered by MSI would be moving of data from one notebook to the other.

The upgrade models sent to customers may have DDR4/PCIE SSD vs the traded in models with DDR3/SATA SSD but MSI will need to accept that as it they promised an MXM upgrade kit they cannot deliver.

I would pay $1,000 for a MXM 1080 kit for my GT72, I could sell my existing MXM GTX980m for $6-800 therefore my upgrade to GT73 GTX1080 should cost no more than $400 and I should get the GT73 prior to returning the GT72 so I can transfer my data.

Simple.

 

You know, on the other thread a guy was going off about how some people were trying to get away with free stuff but the truth is MSI didn't deliver on their product and promise. I'm not a lawyer but I'm pretty sure it's MSI's legal liability, not ours. Therefore, they should eat the cost for our upgrades. You as a consumer should not be sacrificing anything and at the end of the day you should have a laptop that's upgradable because that's what you paid for. it's MSI's job to figure out how to make that happen, not ours.

 

Agreed. False advertising and empty promises should never fall back on a consumers wallet. Upgrade or not.

 

Do any of the US based people on here that submitted the pdf have an ETA on when MSI US will make the actual upgrade offer?

 

I don't think anyone heard anything back at all other than your form is blank if it's not filled out.

 

UK GT owners. Loki (Neil) MSI UK rep on the OcUK forums has made a post saying he is looking into it.

Fingers crossed.

 

if I can sell this carcass that I have on the table...I'm going with Eurocom. Enough with msi.

 

It might be a good idea to do it now vs later, value will continue to drop, and then MSI will unload all those traded-in laptops...

 

I wonder if any vendors will take them to court over this. They're going to have to have a fire sale at a loss.

 

the problem is that selling a used GT80S is almost impossible, especially in my country.
What came to my mind 7 months ago to trust them ... damn me.

however, I saw the GT83VR power supplies... are 2 identical to what I am, but I do have one only. An upgrade its impossible. the lies of the msi are afloat

 

Wrong thread, please delete

 

Yeah, but it's not going to get better.

Is there an ebay or ebay-like service your country-men use? Maybe that's the best idea for finding a buyer, someplace outside the country.

Is there a University town nearby, that might be a good population with which to list the laptop for sale - in the school newspaper, bulletin board, or website?

 

thanks, I'll try, i have nothing left
unfortunately Italy is not a rich country like the USA, I myself struggle to stay here on this forum to see what you write, sometimes ... many of these times are things that here we consider equal "to the moon" or something like that, impossible to implement or to have. Here I am considered a fool by people for having made a similar purchase. And they were probably right.

 

Nah, never let the naysayers get a foothold on your dreams

You still have an awesome laptop, and it will work great for years to come if you keep it.

It's beyond conscionable for MSI, Clevo, and Nvidia to have quit MXM upgrades just because the going got tough.

They really need to kick things up a notch and open their minds to the possibility of providing a backward compatible MXM GPU just like they all envisioned.

Of course it can't use the same power and put out the same heat as the "Desktop GPU's", that should have been clear going in - and I think it was - they just didn't have a complete handle on what that meant - maintaining two lines of mobile GPU's, full on desktop, and "M" class matching upgrade GPU's.

Making a single line of new Pascal MXM GPU's, both for new laptops and compatible for fitting it into a previous generation laptop, wouldn't give the best performance for either laptop.

The high performance desktop meeting close to the power/heat range of the laptop allowed them to stretch the laptop design to meet the needs of the new GPU's, well, close enough - those things run like hotplates - or "mini-Chernobyl's"

Now they need to work to pull up the old laptops the same with parts / components upgrades, or scale down the desktop mobile GPU's to the mobile specs of the previous generation.

Are the upgrade GPU's going to be slower than the full on GPU's, probably, but I think they will be close enough to continue to give life to our upgradeable laptops.

And, if MSI, Clevo, Nvidia can hold this together through this generation, by Volta - on 10nm - the power/heat gap should be smaller, we might even get full on Volta MXM GPU upgrades then.

It's too early for MSI, Clevo, Nvidia to give up on us, their faithful customers, just when we could catch the wave forward with our upgradeable MXM laptops.

 

So check this out. MSI has a $100 mail in rebate program for Nvidia 900 series laptops. this campaign was going from 8/1 to 8/30.

https://msi.4myrebate.com/?oc=MSI-16575

Why are they promoting something you can't upgrade? Are we still in denial?

 

I think nobody should do anything drastic until we hear from MSI directly. We should have some faith in them to do the right thing, even as angry about this as we are. Appropriate steps can be taken from there. Until then, it's just our imaginations making wild speculations. I really like MSI and I really love my laptop. We paid a premium for a false claim. I'm sure MSI will do all in their power to right this wrong.

 

I don't think what he's doing is drastic. We're all taking a risk (or a leap of faith) here by waiting on MSI to right this wrong as you say. But by waiting, the resale value of our laptops will continue to drop and we're already at a disadvantage because our laptops are no longer upgradable.

 

to add more detail to the original post, this is still up, find-able via google (not hidden)
http://event.msicomputer.com/GT72MXMupgrade/

the above page has instructions for self-service upgrade:
http://event.msicomputer.com/GT72MXMupgrade/Born-to-Upgrade-how-to.pdf


this page https://www.msi.com/Laptop/GT72-MXM-Graphics-Upgrade-kit.html#hero-overview does have the following written on it:

Thanks to its replaceable MXM graphics module, the GT72 comes with more possibilities for future upgrades than other notebooks. The original configuration of the GT72, with GTX870M/GTX880M is upgradable to the new, more powerful GTX970M or even GTX980M, depending on your territory. Newer GT72 models featuring the GTX970M/GTX980M in their turn will be upgradable to future graphics generations in 2015.
*MXM upgrade program is only available in selected countries and selected customers with special service, not for end-users to make upgrade by their own

so the entitlement here is clear as mud--they provide instructions for self service by end users, while at the same time in other places state , that the upgrade is not to be performed by end users.

out of curiosity is there any record of anyone at all getting any upgrade option after 980m? was the 980 ever released as an upgrade kit for 980m owners? was at least 1 generation upgrade provided to go from 980m to 980? i see plenty 980m kits around for sale but no 980's....

 

@Heidern

It might be prudent to wait until MSI releases the terms. If you can't afford to do it right now, and MSI doesn't have a long enough effective term for use, then it's time to sell to get the most value from it.

Or keep it.

 

I guess that all depends on what notebook you had, and how long you've had it. Personally, just have bought my gt80s a few weeks ago... if MSI royally screws us, or puts a price tag out there in a time frame I cant meet, I wouldn't sell my laptop. MSI would get this one last sale from me, because I would be stuck with this notebook, but never see another dollar from me ever again.

The loss I would take, coupled with the hassle of selling it, and then having to purchase something else just isn't worth it to me when the tech in this laptop is still current enough to last at least a couple more years. But again, that's just my situation. There's many who are ready to upgrade now.

I wouldn't just let it go though. We can reign a world of hell from our keyboards alone, let alone lawsuits and other things. But I still think / hope MSI will suck it up and take care of its customers.

 

I've not seen a single 980 upgrade option that wasn't an M. I wouldn't even really consider 980m to 980 a generation jump anyway. Not in numbering terms or performance.

 

So personally I'm not going to sell it for two reasons:
1. I wouldn't be able to live with myself knowing I sold a non-upgradable laptop to someone else. Let's face it, if you present the fact that it's not upgradable from the get go, it's not even worth selling anyway because you won't get much for it.

2. Like I said earlier, I just bought my laptop this year, so I don't think I should sacrifice anything. One way or another, I'm going to fight this until we get what we deserve. If all else fails, then I'll keep it and never touch another MSI in my life, and make sure the whole world knows why.

However, that doesn't mean selling it is the wrong thing to do either. At least this way you may get most of your money back. Waiting on MSI is a gamble that may or may not pay off. We'll see.

 

you want to laugh? on the msi Italy site there is no more GT80S 6QF between the products, I can not even link it in the announcement that I'm putting. Totally removed, lol.
However there is still on the US site yet. I feel as if I had bought something that in my country was absolutely not to be bought. And maybe it is so, it seems to me that the Italian market is for msi just a little puddle of unimportant fish to whom sell products without future guarantees.

 

There's nothing on the GT73, 83 pages regarding it being able to be upgraded. Maybe this marks the short life span (which was 0) of MXM upgrades for the near future because of problems like this. Which sucks, even though it may be for the best. Hard for me to stomach dropping 4 or 5k on a laptop I couldn't upgrade the GPUs... May as well just go back to a desktop at that point, or stay in the 2k range gaming laptop lineup.

Want to hear something sad? I'm probably going to return my Acer Predator to help take the brunt of this upgrade, which makes me super sad. I've only a week left, so I hope MSI posts something soon.

 

We know for sure that it uses MXM. There has to be a reason or we would all go back to thin laptops with embedded GPUs.

 

MXM will have to change at some point, or even die off. Not sure if nVidia will force nvlink in the next gen GPUs, considering they are supposed to finally launch with HBM2 or so.

We are all dependent on nvidia for the high performing GPUs, as AMD is unable to deliver the same performance per watt for laptop users. So in a way, we are at the mercy of nVidia for future releases. Let's hope they don't get the same intel bug to simply decide to have only soldered GPUs.

At any rate, my current Titan, be it via the trade in offer or whatever ends up being the program, will most likely be my last laptop. And it has nothing to do with MSI themselves, but the whole market in general.

 

there is no guarantee that the new GT73 / 83 are upgradeable ... maybe next year they will come out with the MXM 4.0 and they will tell you "oops, you still have to buy yourself a new PC, other $ 5000, thanks"
I doubt that here, apart from striker that I realized works for them, there are people happy about this.

 

I know what you're saying but I'm quite sure it's cheaper for them to manufacture it embedded so there has to be a reason. Don't get me wrong though, after what happened this may be my last MXM laptop too. It all depends what happens from now.

 

I just realized I contradicted myself with my previous eurocom comment. I guess it's better to stay away all together from future MXM laptops if we get burned from this.