MSI GT680r & GT60 0NE-220US "motherboard the SAME yes or no"

After Some research I can't tell the difference between the mother boards for the GT680r and the GT60 ONE-220 US. Unless there is some small thing I'm not seeing "anybody". I also called MSI to see if they will do a upgrade to the graphics card the funny thing is the people who make it won't upgrade it. I got a hold of a couple of techs and a couple of the assemblers with what I thought was some very simple question about compatibility of cards and so on, not anyone there had the slightest clue about what i was talking about. I just don't get it MSI referred me to the store I bought the machine from. So I called F^Y'S and spoke with the "LEAD LAPTOP TECH" and this person must be living in the 90's because she still believes that all laptop video is still integrated to the mother board frustrating to say the least. All she could suggest is to buy a newer one. I then called the main tech office of NVIDIA in CA where I talked to the most knowledgeable tech they had and he could not even tell me the power consumption of the GTX 460M in WATTS. I checked out there website and not all cards give the power consumption in watts for laptop gpu's. Is it so hard to ask that after you spend around $2500 of your hard earned money after upgrades ect... that you would be able to upgrade a simple graphics card without the entire so called expert world jerking you around "AM I THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD THAT THINKS THIS IS A SCAM"

 

The motherboards are different. One is Sandy Bridge and the other is Ivy Bridge; but I don't think that should affect the GPU's you can upgrade to too much.

I'll be swapping GPU's between a 16F2 and a 16F3 laptop later on today; which should give some confirmation.

 

Yes, that is correct. The 680 was the older version HM67 chip set and the GT60 is the 3rd Generation Intel® Ivy Bridge Core™ i7-3610QM (Upgradeable)
Intel® HM77 Chipset.

Typically these GPU's are soldered on and cannot be removed without some masterful work.

I would not suggest this if you are not savvy to do so.

 

Update. I just installed a 670M (from a 16F3) into a 16F2 without issue. I was also able to download and install the drivers from MSI's website with no problems.

 

Can you please stop spreading these lies? They are clearly NOT soldered as they use the MXM 3.0b standard. It's really amazing that you've said this in multiple threads yet you sell these machines. They are not supported by the manufacturer, but they are TRULY supported by the notebooks themselves. What's next, you going to tell us Sager's have soldered GPUs?

Edit: Just to let you know, the 16F2/680(3) have been confirmed to work with:

nVidia: 460/560/570/580/670/675M
AMD: 5870/6970/6990/7970M

Oh, and the 680M is about to be tested. It'll almost certainly work with a MSI vBIOS.

I'd say that's quite an extensive list.

 

Xonar you are my night in shinning armor i would truly like to know about the gtx680m and it working because that was my original choice i wanted to go with but i thought i would start with baby steps. and thanks for the list.

My next question would be what is the difference between bios versions i hear you guy's talk about BIOS then i hear you guys talk about vBIOS is there a difference between the two?. or are we talking about the same thing, and if i install the gtx 680m in my gt680r 16F2 am i going to have to upgrade my bios?

PS: I was reading that the socket for the INTEL i3 i5 i7 series would support both sandy and ivy bridge am i wrong?

 

I would keep a close eye on this thread for 680M compatibility. Pau1ow might try it this weekend: http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/677420-gtx680m-upgrade-msi-gt70-barebone-16f2.html

BIOS = system(motherboard) BIOS. You don't have to update it for video card compatibility.

vBIOS = video BIOS (video card BIOS). Each video card has a different vBIOS, most often associated with the manufacturer. Some systems don't play nice with mismatching vendors (I.E.: A Clevo 680M with Clevo vBIOS in a MSI 16F2, but a Clevo 680M with MSI vBIOS in a MSI 16F2 should work). What's nice about MSI laptops is that they are mostly vendor agnostic, I.E. a Dell 7970M is plug-and-play in this notebook. No need to flash the vBIOS to something else to get it to function properly. To change a vBIOS, you requires flashing the vBIOS in DOS with NVFlash utility or ATIFlash for AMD cards.

Every video card is completely different in terms of compatibility and you MUST do a lot of research to ensure properly functioning of the card. You can browse through the MSI subforum to see if you can find some threads, otherwise asking questions never hurts. Also, you will most likely require a new heatsink if you are upgrading your GPU from a 460M or 560M, which will require some more research. If you are upgrading to an AMD card, you'll need to use a dremel to saw off some bits of the heatsink that might be obtrusive to having good core contact.

You are wrong, that is only desktop motherboards. Laptops are strictly stuck with the generation of CPUs they came out with.

TLDR; upgrading the GPU takes LOTS of research and browsing, convincing yourself that anything you do can brick your laptop or GPU but you accept that possibility and some $$$ for the upgrade.

Note: When researching, make sure you are looking for your specific generation of notebooks, i.e. MS-16F2 / 680 / 683 / MS-1761 / 780 /783. The newest Ivy Bridge laptops have Optimus which has different compatibility issues than our generation.

 

The answer is no!