GT72/GT72S and GT80/GT80S Owners GPU Upgrade Discussion

You could say that because there was a 2gen promise for the GT80 that the 83 has at least a pseudo promise of 1gen of upgradability...

Also I don't think MSI should upgrade 73/80's for free, but I think they should replace our mainboards/power supply with ones that CAN be upgraded for free....

So like... Send them a GT80, get back a GT80 with the same config... with just a new board/psu that can use 10/11 series MXM cards.

I would also like some clarity on if upgrading to win10 is a deal breaker... I can live with 8.1 for now... But I would really like to upgrade if possible.

 

Hello,

To do this so called trade in should NOT cost the customer ANYTHING. We paid the $$$PREMIUM$$$ to have an upgrade-able laptop. This laptop is worthless to me without the upgrade-ability. The promise of easy drop in Upgrades was THE ONLY SELLING POINT FOR ME. I paid a good $4500 So this laptop would LAST for YEARS to come.

I have a GT80S if is not upgrade-able GIVE ME!!!!!! THE GT83VR AT NO ADDITIONAL COST.

 

I believe that, given the company's conduct up to this point ... this hypothesis is pure science fiction.
it is more likely that we will see Han Solo again in star wars VIII

 

You missed it. He said that they would let us keep our laptops and change the motherboard and power supply for free to support future upgrades?

I don't think they can do this unless the chassis is identical in the GT72VR and everything lines up the same. Can anyone verify?

 

Hello,

Is my laptop UPGRADEABLE NOW? The answer is NO.

I BOUGHT A LAPTOP WITH "UPGRADEABILITY"

I DO NOT want to play Ring-Around-A-Rosie with MSI ANY LONGER

I have a GT80S if is not upgrade-able GIVE ME!!!!!! THE GT83VR AT NO ADDITIONAL COST.

IN FACT PROVIDE ME WITH 2 LAPTOP GENERATION UPGRADES AS PROMISED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The only missing variable in the equation is now a non-variable, the GT73VR/GT83VR haven't been advertised as upgradeable either, so after the trade-in we are still stuck with a non-upgradeable "upgradeable" laptop.

MSI should allow us to spend our trade-in on the 1st or 2nd generation GPU upgrade we are going to miss, trade-in our current laptop for the Pascal or Volta GPU'd version when it arrives.

 

I totally agree here. We paid 4400-4600 bucks for upgradeability; not an insanely thick laptop with the same upgradeability that the Razer Blade has! (Hint: NONE)

 

I'm saying, they should trade your GT80S non-upgrade-able, for a GT80s v2.0 that is upgrade-able for free (there is no 2.0... using that as an example)... so in effect you get more or less the same laptop back, again for free, just with a better power solution for 10series+ GPU... that is if you choose to pay the cost of upgrading.

The only way I see them giving us all GT83VR's is if they just blatantly settle. Like... "No more upgrade promises, you get a GT83VR and then you never bother us again for upgrades"

Like when they recall a car that cant be repaired... you get this year's model and go away. XD

 

I had a second talk with MSI. I didn't record this one... Because mostly I was calling about a missing backpack to see if I could order a replacement... None the less I decided to ask them about the upgrade stuff and got a different answer than the first time.

This time they told me... They don't sell upgrades, or manually upgrade laptops ever, only repair. They recommended that I buy a MSI branded upgrade card on ebay/amazon even though no official partners are selling MXM cards.

Anyway I did some of my own research after that and found that the MSI laptops are using MXM cards either made by or compatible with Eurocom MXM cards. You can see the pricing and availability here: (yes this may be old news for some, but new news to me!)

http://www.eurocom.com/ec/msi()ec

 

The problem is the new Clevo MXM cards aren't physically or electronically compatible with the previous generation, and I am assuming the MSI Pascal MXM cards aren't either, otherwise why wouldn't MSI make them available.

MSI are claiming that the power and cooling in our laptops isn't adequate to use with the new Pascal MXM cards, as well as our motherboards aren't compatible.

So even if you can find a MSI Pascal MXM card as a part, it's not gonna work as a plug and play upgrade in a laptop not designed to accept it.

 

Just using the Quote tool to generate a notice to get your attention... You should add my PDF link and the Eurocom Product links to the OP for easy access...

PDF
http://www.naveronasis.com/MSI/MSI GT Trade In Uppgrade program.pdf

Upgrade Parts Ordering
http://www.eurocom.com/ec/msi()ec

 

The parts ordering form only shows compatible parts + all cooling accessories. I'm just saying... If you wanna upgrade from a 965 or 970 to a 980 this is the most official place to go for parts.

 

Sorry, can't do that. It's not an MSI document server, or an MSI designated one. You can put it up for others to download, but I would recommend others download it or otherwise get it from MSI.

The Pascal MXM upgrade parts won't be compatible in the GT72/GT80's, that's MSI's point, they made them non-compatible.

 

Hello,

I do NOT want to play Ring-Around-A-Rosie with MSI.

I bought an "Upgrade able Laptop". If I have to ship my computer out to MSI for who know's how many months I loose my productivity and cannot use my laptop, and after doing all this I get the same laptop back with all the same components practically NOT OK.

My laptop should already be "upgrade-able". If it is not, they have screwed up. They need to give me my promised 2 Laptop Upgrade Generations. They can start off by giving me the GT83VR (since the GT80s is not upgrade able) and if the GT83VR is upgrade able to the 12 series cards, I will gladly buy those upgrade cards. If not, they send me the GT85VR or whatever.

WE all PAID THE $$$$$PREMIUM$$$$$ for an Upgrade Able laptop for 2 generations. They HAVE to follow suit.

 

All the upgrades require additional components, like heat plates, heat-pipes, all part of the appropriate cooling assemblage that goes with the MXM GPU they were designed to work with.

You can't plug in 970m/980m cards in a 965m SLI laptop, you need additional components to make it work right.

The same goes for 980m in a 970m laptop.

The 980 is a whole 'nuther kettle of fish, it's not going to work in any non-980 laptop.

There are no upgrade paths available without changes to your laptop other than just plugging in new MXM cards.

MSI needs to engineer the Pascal MXM cards such that they physically fit, and work within the abilities of the host laptop to provide power and cooling - maybe with additional components as well.

 

I know that... see previous post. If you DID want the parts you CAN use... that is where you get them from.

It seems like MSI isn't actually making any parts at all from what I was able to find in my research, that MSI is using the eurocom cards rather than making their own MSI ones, then branding the eurocom ones as MSI ones. My source isnt super reliable, but if its true, you should be able to take apart your own laptop and read the MXM card chips and see for yourself (because thats what the source said they did, was teardown the laptop and examine the MXM cards)

SO TL R
Pascal won't work, but if you bought a lower tier card you can still upgrade inside your generation for what its worth... Mail your PDF in and hope for the best for pascal.

FFS go to the link, its all there.

 

I suggest you start another thread, and support people wanting to do Maxwell to Maxwell GPU upgrades, that's not what this thread was made to support. GLWT

 

XD okay I can agree, its slightly off topic, I was just trying to provide extra info for anyone who wanted it

 

It's diluting the discussion, and I really don't think anyone wants another Maxwell GPU, we are all here to get Pascal

But, you could start that thread and see if anyone has any interest

 

After meditating on the situation, I really feel no anger toward MSI, as of this moment. It's not like it was MSI's idea to dump MXM 3.0, or that they maliciously and knowingly betrayed their customers. Nvidia made a decision and left MSI holding the bag. MSI clearly had no indication from Nvidia that they'd be changing things this generation. There's no evidence, as of this writing, that MSI knowingly lied.

MXM 3.0 is dead, due to the creator of the MXM standard. There seems to be a technical reason behind it, I can accept that. As far as I've seen, Nvidia doesn't profit more or less from the GPU slot configuration.

All I can ask MSI to do is find a solution. Do I expect said solution to make me content? Only if if it costs about what a GPU would. Do I expect the trade in to cost more than a GPU? Yes, which means I don't expect to be happy.

I'm just not sure what MSI can realistically do for us. Expecting it to be entirely free is unwise. Expecting them to hand out thousands of free laptops is bordering on the insane. I wish they would though. I'm expecting them to piss off pretty much everyone, by offering trade in value, scaled by exactly what version your laptop is, and what GPU you have. So, with my GT72 2QE w/ Haswell CPU and 980M, I'll be shocked if they offer me more than hmm... maybe $500 off the GT72VR? That'd be really messed up, right? I just don't see how they do it any other way.

I guess MSI could blow all of us away, and do something awesomely pro-consumer, but I'm too cynical to believe a modern business won't look out for its own pockets above anything else. It will come down to, which is a bigger hit to profits:

1. Good will (borderline free) upgrades that are good PR. The marketing team will be making the projections on this one.

or

2. Losing current owners as future customers. If its cheaper to give us a weak offer, and take the PR hit of us raising hell while asking for divorce, they will eat that bullet.

The wildcard is whether we are entitled to legitimate legal action. MSI will begrudgingly go with #1, if their lawyers foresee a judge finding in our favor, and screaming "FREE LAPTOPS FOR EVERYONE!" The evidence of them continually making the promise is really strong, that is good for us. But, they may also gamble that we can't raise enough awareness, unity, and most importantly money, to go against them.

tl;dr = This could go either way. Expect a drawn out battle.

 

Hello,

Sorry I am not able to have a feel bad attitude for MSI. They have tried to lie, cover up, and make some things "disappear". I am supposed to have an upgrade able laptop for 2 generations. Is my Laptop Upgrade Able? No. So send me the GT83VR that is generation upgrade 1. If the GT83VR is upgrade able and has part kits, I will buy the part kits for the 12 cards. If GT83VR is not upgrade able, well I still have one upgrade generation left. So send me the GT85VRSB or whatever.

 

I 100% agree My only hope, is by limiting this "upgrade option" to people who apply in only the next 2 months makes me feel like they are at least considering a low or no cost hardware swap... since only a small % of owners will find out in time... But like you, I expect they will simply offer either a board replacement (if that's even possible) or some kind of paid trade in, exceeding 1000 bucks in most cases.

I posted a similar statement a few pages ago that... They didnt design MXM in a vacuum, there was probably another contract broken somewhere like between board partners, or Nvidia and MSI. We may be waiting, because they need to settle terms before they even know what they can offer....

Imagine if there is some contract violated between them and Nvidia, it could possibly result in a recall and replacement of all GT80/72 and possibly even 70 series laptops.... Probably not. But all we can do right now is speculate.

 

The people that buy these types of laptop's generally do so on a somewhat regular basis. This is my second MSI laptop in under a year.
If I feel that MSI has lied to me I will vote the only way I know how...with my wallet.

Clevo will probably be my next purchase.

 

My thoughts exactly Kevin. I don't feel "lied to" because realistically, MSI is only in control for part of the whole scenario. It's perfectly understandable if people feel betrayed, I just don't feel that way.

The problem is, that since GPU upgrades are, or seem, difficult to make, there WILL be pissed off users regardless. And I also agree that the 2 month window might be cutting it way too short.

So I hope for a good outcome, but being realistic, I think at this point its going to be VERY difficult to please even half of the users. Specially since some of us are original 01 model owners, while others just got their machines, and we have all different expectations, timeframe for upgrading etc etc.

 

It's a valid suggestion to offer a discount on the GT83vr, or whatever laptop in that family you want, and let us keep our current laptops and sell them to recoup the difference. Everyone has different laptops, all with different market value. Some are worth 1k, others worth 3 still. Take a set amount off each laptop (i.e. 2k for an 83vr) and let us sell our current. Price people pay will then be completely dependent on what monetary value of their current machine.

also MSI wouldn't have to cop out tons of free laptops, it minimizes their loss while making the customer happy and promoting brand loyalty through display of integrity.

To pose an example from earlier, people with gt80 broadwell machines that are over a year old would be getting an upgrade on every part of their machine. Ddr4, m.2, skylake, pascal, etc. that's all fine and dandy, but for someone with a 5 week old gt80s that has all that already , I shouldn't have to pay the same amount. I haven't enjoyed my computer for a year plus yet. So.... Give me 2k off my gt83 (3k pay) and let me sell mine for what it's worth. 2500 probably. Comes out even. Meanwhile, dude who has already had his computer for over a year, will have to pay a bit for their upgrade. Which is fair. Otherwise I'm gonna ***** that I wanna use my computer for a year and take next year's model as well. It's still a win for everyone including msi.

Only other way is to allow trade-in for all, specifically by each case as it comes in, for the next two years. But the cost can not exceed in any case what upgrade of cards less selling the old ones would equal.

Unfortunately I have a feeling that they're going to make us send in our laptops, and offer an upgrade at a set price for everyone. Probably between 1500 - 2000. Which will make many, many people angry including myself.

 

most of the old schoolers here seem to get it as far as nvidia leaving msi (and all other manufacturers) holding the bag on upgrades..... and "free laptops for everyone" is not going to happened...
from a liability perspective i doubt there is much if any room for a EFFECTIVE class action due to all the legal wording such as: "*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."

last class action against nvidia (the real culprit here) in the 3.5gb versus 4gb advertised gtx 970 debacle, got 30 bux which is around 8% of the product cost, which in turn is essentially 80% of the raw cost of the 1/2gb of ram at the time...and it took 18 months.


for those thinking clevo is the answer, clevo users who bought last gen laptops are in the same boat - new nvidia cards wont work in those laptops and even though "clevo" are "upgradeable", there is no trade-in program there to take advantage of..so if you have a 980/980m clevo, and you want 1070/1080 yo have to buy a whole new clevo just like with msi/asus/aurus/etc...there is no broken contract..nvidia does not owe anyone hardware thats faster AND is backwards compatible...thats the root cause here.

this though:
MXM 3.0 is dead, due to the creator of the MXM standard. There seems to be a technical reason behind it, I can accept that. As far as I've seen, Nvidia doesn't profit more or less from the GPU slot configuration.

Except they DO profit from this tremendously over time. this is part of the purpose behind nvlink....if nvidia really wanted to play fair they would create mxm C (we were on mxm B up to this year) or PCIE-Z or whatever and would publish the open spec..except they did not....and having a custom interface/spec allows nvidia to push ati (competitors) further out, since they are not competing on an even playing field, nvidia can throw more money at custom design and beat out other competitors at the expense of compatibility. this is essentially how intel pushed out amd in cpu land, and is now on the way to embedded processors on most platforms, which allows them to keep amd out, and to make more money by selling integrated components all on a margin in a bundle.., and other vendors have no room to put in their components..no technical path to do so...the writing was on the wall when the msi whitebook business was killed off with gt70/gt60 being last real msi notebooks for upgraders/tweakers of cpu/gpu.


the calculation here is not "free PR or "bad pr" VS loosing current owners", its simply "cost of keeping market share, versus cost of regaining that same market share via marketing team." so a "strong" offer by your guys definition- say above 500$ as noted by Kevin, is already off the table. i doubt there will be a drawn out battle, i think you will get an offer quick, but it wont be what you want. that would satisfy legal team by providing "an upgrade path" "as promised" while minimizing cost to msi, and in reality it would still be better than what clevo/asus/aorus are willing to do for their customers who were also sold "upgradeable laptops".

those who bought a 980m/sli in the last 6 months-- while i feel your pain. "the devil takes the hindmost".

 

Still pretty sure you work for MSI

As far as legality, though I don't want to write a book, you are wrong. I'll just leave it at that. Time to wait and see.

 

The only thing I can tell you is that the upgrade to 1080 would have costed you a lotttt, if an actual upgrade kit ever appeared. Just look at how expensive 1080 is for brand new machines.

I believe they might be discounting based on the version of the machines. You have haswell, broadwell and skylake models. They might offer a variation of discount based on that. Then you have the only two possible outcomes to choose to upgrade: 1070 or 1080. I doubt 1060 will be even a choice considering you can't SLI them, and in the case of GT72 owners, that's hardly an upgrade. At any rate, 1070 should be considerably cheaper than 1080, and be a good upgrade all around.

 

It's just a suggestion. I know what's going to happen.

 

What?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Send in laptop + outrageous upgrade fee to detour people from upgrading. (Upgrade fee equaling price of what an upgrade kit would probably be)

It's still speculation. But for MSI this is in their best interest, and at this point I honestly don't expect anything less from them unfortunately.

 

Actually I think that there had to be MXM 3.0b when MSI said that they will support next gen cards. However everything has changed when they launched gtx 980 desktop in laptop. New connection, additional power. Nvidia realised that they can reduce gap between laptop and desktop and make us all happy. However they screwed MSI's plan with upgradable laptops. And now MSI is trying to fix what Nvidia done.

 

If nvidia make somehow incompatible new hw with the old one, msi will not fix. It was the way in the past to force you to change your desktop too. This is just the tech excuse to kill the upgradability... And screw up or chance to save a bit of money.
For me MSI laptop are dead and, when it will be needed i will also NOT buy their components for my next desktop pc....

 

Well, I'm not really sure that this exact sentence was present at the time I bought my GT72 2QE.
I guess I would have noticed this at the time I really dug into finding my perfect laptop. At least, the upgrade option was a big buying point for me. I watched the (now private) video on upgrading. I watched many 3rd party review video's mentioning this feature of the laptop. I read many articles indicating this as a major advantage over other "on the motherboard soldered GPU laptops".
So, for me the upgradability was a mere hard fact due to the exposure given to me by all those reviews and probably official statements from MSI. Could they all have overlooked it?

The only concern for me at that time was the cost of such an upgrade, which was also mentioned to be huge. But at least possible. And you never know in future if the cost would be less than buying a complete new laptop...

So this gives me yet another realization that we need to insure ourselves by creating a backup of the facts at the moment. Save the video's we relied on and keep it locally in our archive. Make the screenshots of the webpages we base our decisions on for future reference.

I could be wrong and overlooked the disclaimer or MSI has adapted it later...

But even then, if this remark was present from the start, it does not free MSI from the promise it claimed. With a simple question, you can check if MSI has kept it:

MSI: can you name just one country, one location, just one selected customer with special service who is able to upgrade a laptop to Pascal using MXM technology?

At this point, MSI has probably not one selected customer with special service in the world able to perform the promised upgrade. Even this fact alone makes MSI break the disclaimer.
As no one on Earth knows if it could have been serviced for upgrades (no country or special customer is mentioned and can be checked) EVERYONE can make the claim that they could have been serviced and comply with the disclaimer. This means, at least for me, that MSI HAS broken their own disclaimer and by not mentioning the specifics for country and customer breaks the upgrade promise for everyone who has bought their product based on this promise.

As a customer of MSI, there is a contract between me and MSI. The customer does not have such a contract with the companies of the components inside the MSI product. It is a MSI blackbox for the customer.
If MSI advertises (even with a disclaimer like that), it benefits from it. It has mentioned upgradability for a reason. A well thought reason. It attracts customers in need of this "extra" feature other products do not have. So by adding it to the feature set, they gain more customers which would/could not have bought the product when the feature was not present.

There is not an employee of MSI who "just" added this for fun. It was thought through by designers and by many people at MSI. And probably they added the upgradability feature to the advertising because they actually believed they could offer it.
But that is also a black box for us. MSI is designing their products long before they are in the shops. They must have direct links to the manufacturers of all components and use and know the benefits and disadvantages of those components. Based on that design and testing, they can make the featureset they want and advertise it as they want.

So, did MSI know at that time that upgrading was possible? Well, REALLY upgrade? Or only in theory? Did NVidia mention this to MSI that there could be a possibility that in future their new GPU's could not be fitted into their products? Did MSI ignore this and placed the upgradability anyway in the specs and think, we will see? Or did NVidia really indicate the upgrade possibility and MSI trusted this but this contract was broken by NVidia?

It does not matter to us customers in the end. We do not have a contract with NVidia. We have a contract with MSI. And on what basis they decided to add this feature to their product, they did. Their responsibility to keep the promise or not. Keep the disclaimer or not.

For now, without any real official MSI announcement, we can not say. They might just popup a nice solution which makes all this fuss irrelevant.

But if they do not, they have broken their disclaimer which is still on their official page and that makes them IMHO legally responsible to fix it. So, at least create one location on Earth, having one customer with special service to do the upgrade. If they succeed in that, they have made a solution which technically is possible for all laptops. Making this possible on more locations with more customers is then only an administrative and logistic task.

 

We will have an update for you soon! Thanks for your patience while we try to find the best solution

 

Please tell me that you are catering to the major EU markets at least. Such as the UK.


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MSILoki (meh not on these forums) is chasing the UK side. Also MSI NOTEBOOK UK on Facebook have said "An update on this will be coming soon". Kitguru staffer has said they will look into the whole thing and may run a story.

Oh and Hi @MSI Natalie

 

The more I think about this, the more I get peeved at the whole thing and I doubt there is a solution other than an upgrade via MXM.

1: I have no money that I can put out towards a trade in the near future, so time limited options aren't really options at all. MSI is in the wrong here and shouldn't be able to dictate a new shortened calendar for upgrades to occur in. I saved for over a year to buy my GT72, and most of that was year end bonuses.
2: I just spent the last year with Windows Update disabled because I don't want Windows 10. My ability to upgrade was for more than just getting the best of the new in terms of graphics hardware, it was to be able to keep the best of the old as well.
3: I like that manual GPU switching permits DSR because DSR is awesome. You can't tell me that DSR isn't a very valuable feature for gamers.
4: Other than the GPU, I don't consider the hardware to be an upgrade in anything but name only. My 4710HQ @ 3.7GHz turbo with slower DDR3 is as good as the 6700HQ, with 2133MHz DDR4 and I still have the option of moving to 2133 DDR3. The keyboard is more or less the same, the sound might be better ...I don't know, but I don't really care because to me it is all just levels of loud enough.

I made a comparison on OCN a little while back.

MSI can talk "upgrades" that really aren't, but W10 and no DSR are big downgrades.

I'd be mad if there wasn't an option for an equal trade [i7/16GB/128 SSD+1TB HDD/Bluray] going 980m->1060, but at the same time I'm not sure I'd even take that deal because of W10 and no DSR.


...also, this GT72 is my only PC and I don't have a smart phone, so MSI better work this in a way that doesn't send people back to the 80s for weeks.

 

I am honestly expecting no wait time without a computer. The minimum I would accept is a free trade in to a 1070 sli Titan, free shipping and a hold on a credit card for the funds till I ship mine back. Why should we have to wait for them to process everything for something they said wouldn't be necessary for two generations ? Even taking a 1070 sli model which costs 3500, im still paying the upgrade fee by losing 1100 bucks. (My model was 4600).

 

HaloGod - That is about the minimum I would be willing to accept, as well. I also figured an Advance replacement with a CC hold for those of us who need zero downtime. I am really curious to see what MSI comes up with. This is a great customer service opportunity to really demonstrate that this company truly cares and goes above and beyond for its customers.

 

This offer is basically going to make or break my relationship with Msi. This is maybe my 5th Msi gaming laptop; I want the relationship to continue. If not , that acer predator x21 curved gaming laptop is looking nice lol

 

You (as I) bought a notebook with the top of the range graphics at time of purchase, why would you accept a lower tier of cards?

 

BecAuse a free upgrade to 1070 sli is a huge performance jump from 980 sli keyword is FREE, otherwise no chance I would pay for it. I just don't see how they would ever give us a free upgrade to 1080sli, that would cost them big time . I hope they do, but won't ever count on it

 

Ah yeah, as a 'free' upgrade I get it. I'd pay a contribution to get GT73 with GTX1080 if it was as cheap as an MXM upgrade would be (taking into account selling my MXM 980m would net me a fair chunk).

 

Well... Clevo's GTX 1080 with a heatsink is currently 1325$ and the value of a used GTX 980m is around 600$.
So you'd still have to pay more than 700$ for the upgrade. Would that be acceptable for you?

 

Yeah, I'd consider that not too bad. UK market for used GTX 980m's is non existent I would hope to secure ~$750-900 for it. So that fits quite nicely. Upgrade cost to me £200-350 I could accept.

 

Dreamers?

 

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one......

Anyway, this is all speculation until MSI tell us what they are offering.

 

Aren't we all here?

 

Oh wow that acer looks very interesting. Though I am not fond of the similar/same cooling like our current GT80s with dual fans. Maybe they can squeeze a third in. Is it out yet? damm is it huge.