The Official MSI GT60/70 970m/980m Upgrade Thread

It's because it seem's your 3dmark benchmark is low as what you've said.

My vbios is not on stock though

 

I heard today. There is voltage difference between 980m and 680m. My motherboard is ms 1762. Computer manufacturer told me that 980m can burn in the future even though it works. He told problem isn't only heatsink. Anybody have idea ? Thanks.

 

Ok, so 16100 in skydiver is bad??

 

Yes I'm sure we would all love 980M GPUs over 970M GPUs, but apart from the price difference, it's not necessarily just a straight swap as noted above. I'm probably one of the few brave/stupid enough to upgrade an even older 1761/GT780 to a 970M, and before I bought the GPU I was considering going whole hog on a 980M before Kevin brought to my attention the fact about the motherboard's power threshold. It might have worked, but it was a considerably riskier play given the history of my model not playing so nicely with the top end model cards.

In the end, I'm glad I didn't go 980M. It would have cost me half of a new laptop. My 970M is already somewhat bottlenecked by my low-end i7 2630qm. And there was even less of a guarantee that it would have worked (x80-series cards are generally less compatible than the x70-series cards). $800 is a lot to spend to potentially have a $3000 paperweight.

 

what's your firestrike score? firestrike is the gauge for benchmark for me though

 

Dear Talon , do you have any idea about the voltage ?

 

I think you need to upgrade to an extreme mobile proc. that will make a difference.

 

How much of a difference is there really?

Cheapest I can find the 3920XM is for $299 on Ebay. I'm debating if it's worth it. I could see this laptop eventually being a server in my basement when it's replaced down the road.

OT a little bit, can the older GT60s handle 32GB of RAM? I'm currently at 16GB at the moment.

 

Which CPU do you currently have? the extreme processors generally are excellent by virtue of being unlocked and overclockable, but this particular capability was more relevant in the first gens, with 920xm. Going from 2ghz to 3+ghz really increased performance.

3rd gen and 4rth gen CPUs already run at 3ghz+ so extreme processors are for the enthusiasts that want over 4ghz clockspeeds, which usually involves modding cooling, tweaking voltage settings and TDP among other things.

For first and second gen core i7 CPUs, I would totally recommend extreme edition cpus, but for third gen onwards, depends on your uses. that 300dlrs investment won't necessarily translate to that much performance, I think.

 

Which laptop do you currently have? If you're coming from a 680m to a 980m, then I really see no rational reason why a 980m would burn up on the laptop provided you make sure you have proper heatsink/thermal pad placement.

 

I have a 3630QM. I'm thinking I'll get more bang for the buck out of the 970M mod (currently at a 675M). I thought about just buying a new laptop, but with Skylake coming out later this year, I can't really justify 2 G's on a new notebook right now - especially when I'm generally happy with my GT60 and the additions I've made to it.

 

NVIDIA GTX 980M 8GB Upgrade Kit for MSI GT72 | eBay

Seriously can someone please tell me if this is the best card to buy for my MSI GT60 16F4 Barebones. I know it's a bit more expensive but would it be more compatible with my laptop compared to the one from NEXOC?

 

RJ Tech has the 980M Clevo kit for $720.

http://rjtech.com/shop/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=30303

 

No that is not the best card to buy. Why would you pay more for pretty much (PCB color, possibly a different manufacturer) the same card. Also in the past actually some MSI laptops refused to run on MSI cards/vBios when users were upgrading their laptops. The Clevo 970m that I have runs any vBIOS I throw at it with full compatibility with the laptop. I can run MSI vBIOS, Clevo vBIOS, and the unlocked vBIOS. There is no guarantee that card will be able to be cross flashed or even work in your laptop.

 

Hi all! This a great thread! Thanks a lot! i have read all the pages and i feel confident to try it. I'll be upgrading my gt60 2qd 1066us 970m 3gb for a 980m 8gb .I know it's new and runs great.No complaints at all about the performance, i run everything on high settings with low temps ( Arma 3 , 60 fps at 65c turbofan off, for example.) the only thing that bothers me is the low vram. I think in the future it's going to be kinda of a pain, even msi posted a video saying that gpus with less than 4gb is going to be
not so efficient, i just hope the industry takes it's time and don't leave people with less resources behind. I paid $1,519 for my nb plus $780 for the clevo card, the cheapest 980m system aropund here goes for $2,449. I saved $200 and i'm hoping to sell the 970m for a decent price.I intend to die with this nb. I'll keep everyone posted as i go with the work,especially that i don't think any one has done this upgrade with the latest gt60, i might be wrong.Thanks all

 

Your upgrade should be very easy. You will NOT have to modify the heatsink as your MSI 970m heatsink is also fully compatible with the 980m. It will be plug and play, followed by official nvidia driver install.

All you will need to do if make sure the thermal pads are all placed properly, and you reapply new thermal paste. Its really that easy in your case.

Also @ 1080p your 3gb card should be sufficient in many games. Possibly in the future you would see some sort of bottleneck, but in most cases I think you would have been ok.

I also recommend since you have a full 2 year warranty with MSI, maybe holding onto the 970m in case you need to send it back for warranty service. Unless you plan on self insuring? If you really want to sell that card, I wouldn't accept anything less than $400. I got $375 out of my 780m if I remember correctly.

Also welcome to NBR and the MSI club! Hang around here and you will seriously learn a lot of information! This forum is filled with great and knowledgeable people.

 

Thanks. Glad to be here. mm now that you say i think i'll hold on to the card for a while. Is it true that thermal paste applied to the heat sink bridge yields better performance than a thermal pad? and no flashing with msi vbios then?

 

I've heard this as well, but have not tried it for myself. Thermal paste does have better thermal transfer properties than the thick pads though. Can't hurt to try it for yourself. Make sure you use a non-electrically conductive paste though. Any spillage would otherwise would probably end badly for you.

 

As promised, here you have my first FireStrike benchmark:


And with a +135Mhz to the core and +50MHz in memory bus clock:


This is with MSI stock vBIOS and with a GT70 2PE (stock i7 4710MQ). 0 issues and MSI changed my fan with a newer one that is significantlly quieter. Very happy with this. Tomorrow I'll format everything and make various partitions to have a dual boot with Linux. I'll keep you informed if Linux works good with the new super video card!

 

MSI upgraded your card to a 980m?

 

RJ Tech has literally the worst policy I have ever seen for returns and warranty. It basically overrides its own warranty by saying the item is non refundable. It's super sketchy so I'd rather buy it from literally anywhere else. I'm looking at NEXOC but they only accept wire transfers and I'm in the U.S. so I want to buy it somewhere besides RJ Tech preferably with a credit card and not a wire transfer.

 

I purchased my card there, and so did many others without issue. They are not at all a sketchy company IMO. I paid with credit card, I'm in the US, and had zero issues. The card shipped within 3 days as the sales rep told me it would, and shipped via my method of choice USPS, and was delivered a perfectly packaged box.

If you pay with a reputable credit card, you will be covered most likely by your credit card for any broken item. They will most likely side with you and do a charge back on RJ Tech if the item were to arrive faulty or damaged.

I also use AmEx for many of my own purchases, and they offer up to $300 cash back if I try to return an item within 90 days and the retailer refuses return. Of course I would have to send them the item in exchange, but just using this as an example of what some credit card companies offer as customer protections.

 

I could easily be totally wrong, but usually no returns would mean for a refund if you change your mind or it is not compatible, a replacement on a broken item would be different.

 

I've got a 3610qm.. Although at some point, no matter how high you set the frequency of your 9xxm gpu, the scores will be stuck to that margine. Because Physics score for CPU doesn't increase anymore, only the GPU score. In order to increase the physics score, we need an unlock mobile proc

I've purchased my 970m with RJtech. At first I was skeptical if I will do a wire transfer with them because it is a risky one on my side. I live in Asia (not like you people who lives in the US) but I did transact with them and it turned out to be a good one. In the near future I don't mind purchasing again with them. Although I don't know if they handle their customers good when it comes to after sales.

 

I have this one

COMPUTER ACPI x64 MSI MS-1762
PROCESSOR Microsoft Windows 8.1 Professional
DirectX DirectX 11.2
CPU Mobile QuadCore Intel Core i7-3630QM, 3300 MHz (33 x 100)
MOTHERBOARD MSI MegaBook GT70 (MS-1762)
MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET Intel Panther Point HM77, Intel Ivy Bridge
RAM 16276 MB (DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM)
VGA ( ONBOARD) Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (2112 MB)
VGA ( MXM 3.0 SLOT ) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M (4 GB)
MONITOR Chi Mei N173HGE-L11 [17.3" LCD] 1920*1080 ( FULLHD)
HDMI VOICE Intel Panther Point HDMI @ Intel Panther Point PCH - High Definition Audio Controller [C-1]
VOICE Realtek ALC892 @ Intel Panther Point PCH - High Definition Audio Controller [C-1]
CHIPSET Intel(R) 7 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller
CARDREADER Realtek PCIE CardReader
SSD KINGSTON SH103S3120G (120 GB, SATA-III)
HDD1 ST640LM001 HN-M640MBB (640 GB, 5400 RPM, SATA-II)
HDD2 ST9750420AS (750 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
WIRELESS Intel(R) Centrino(R) Wireless-N 2230 (10.5.50.46)
ETHERNET Killer e2200 Gigabit Ethernet Controller (NDIS 6.30)

I don't know technical issue about gpu. But he told me motherboard output voltage is different. Therefore 980m may burn in your pc.

 

If you have a 680m i doubt 980m will cause any damage. I think 980 m even consumes less power than 680m.

 

Sorry. I did mistake. I write this answer to Talon.

 

Worst is the 880m which some GT series have this gpu. Oh and did I mention that it heats a lot (like hell) compared to a 680m.

 

Hi omega, my scores:

Firestrike is 6070 (gpu score is 7383)
cloudgate is 16312 (gpu score is 38422)
skydiver 16140 (gpu score is 24046)

What do you think?

and is there a way for me to chance the vbios wit other stock settings?

Edit:
Other question, would it help a lot if I upgrade my processor from a 3630qm to a 3840qm??

 

guys can anybody tell me how you flash the f@#$ing bios before i throw my BAREBONE 1763 MSI GT70 20D OUT from the window.they are mising files from the bios folder and i cant flash it on UEFI mode or any other way!!!!!!!good job msi!!!!!!!

 

You are missing the executable...If i were you, i would download the bios file of the site for windows 7 and than there is AFUDOS.exe try to use this exe to flash the bios file..

 

for win 7 there is not any executables files in the bios folder too........any help!!!!!!

 

This is the link of my laptop....it does contain a afudos.exe file..
MSI Global - Computer, Laptop, Notebook, Desktop, Motherboard, Graphics and more 64

p.s. don't use the included bios files, just the afudos.exe and your bios file...

 

RJTech's been around for years. I bought barebones components from them back in 2004 I even messed up a bit in the build, sent it back for his inspection and a quick repair, and he still warrantied it.

I wrote an article on the build way back when: Kris And His DIY Laptop - Overclockers

As others here have said, their experiences have been good. They have a good resellerrating too, if you believe that. I have no qualms about buying my card from them.

 

Gotcha. I'm not looking for extreme gaming at this point. I have my PS4 for most of my serious stuff, but there are still some games I prefer on a PC (and having something to do on business trips is always a bonus ). As long as it can play most modern games at decent quality, I'm happy. This is more of a life extension for a decent laptop that will hold me over until the Skylake stuff gets sorted out.

An Ivy is still better than anything I have on a desktop. Those procs are 1st gen i7 systems (9xx and 8xx).

 

Hey superguy, i had a 670m wich i gamed with (ok for farcry 3 but too slow for new 2014 games) and the update to an 870m and now the 970m is perfect for faster en nicer gaming than a PS4.

 

Good to hear!

PS4's just easier for me for the most part - I can sit in bed and game on a big screen, plus game with the kids too.

 

My next upgrade will be a mobile extreme

 

Is that a big win? from a 3630 to a 3920xm?

 

For starters you can set 4 cores @ 3 gigahertz vs max speed of 3630 of 3.3ghz in single core only. And so from that point you can increase the frequency of the cpu more than 3 ghz for four cores if you want

 

I am pretty sure Core i7 3630qm already does 4 cores at 3.1ghz or something like that. With 3920xm you can probably tweak it to reach like 3.7ghz on 4 cores without that much hassle though.

Still, I am not sure it will be that huge performance gain in gaming, but it will be for other things.

 

For the 3630QM, it's 3.2 GHz for 4 cores, 3.3 GHz for 2 cores, and 3.4 GHz for 1 core. 3920XM is 3.6 GHz for 4 cores, 3.7 GHz for 2 cores, and 3.8 GHz for 1 core. Base speeds are 2.4 GHz and 2.9 GHz, respectively. So you're looking at around 10% or so depending on use.

Intel Core i7 3630QM Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech
Intel Core i7 3920XM Notebook Processor - NotebookCheck.net Tech

Anyone know if Svet's bios can force it to always-on turbo?

 

For 3rd gen CPUs, I remember I used throttlestop and that enabled full turbo all the time without issues.

 

Any issues with battery life or heat?

 

Heat nope, battery life maybe slightly because I ran at full speed all the time, but I rarely used it on battery with throttlestop, only for gaming and when connected to AC. You can turn it on and off easily with a button.

 

Good info. Thanks!

 

can post here what cpu setting's you use for throttlestop? tnx

 

New gpu arrived. Still waiting on heatsink. What a tease!

Sent from my LGUS990 using Tapatalk

 

Nice! Which GPU did you decide to go with? 980m or 970m?