Upgrade Msi gx640 looking for tips and suggestions

Hi all, i have read alot of threads regarding the Msi gx640 and also posted some questions, and finally decided to upgrade my laptop. I have the Msi gx640 (Ne) and im planning to buy either an i7 720qm or i7820 qm, wich leads me to my first question; IS the 820 compatible with the gx640, i read about alot of ppl who managed to get it working, and some who didnt. IS the difference between them that big to take the risk with the 820?

Second, im planning on inserting 8gb ram, wich type should it be?

Third im planning on installing this card, DELL Alienware M17x R4 M18x R2 graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660M M3XJV | eBay , recommended by Niffcreature here on the forums. I suspect i need new "x-type bracket" or will the one from my 5850 work? I suspect i need to do the thermal-pad-copper-shim-mod on my new card, but what other coolmods do you think ill have to do?

I am no novice in buildning my own computer, built several desktop pcs but never upgraded a laptop, so im a bit nervous about the compability of the gfu and cpu, so i would really love some feedback before i make the final decision on upgrading.

Yours sincerely

Robert

 

Also i´d like to know some other compatible gpu:s that dont require extensive coolmodding, if anyone got any tips at all? ;-)

/Robert

 

Hi everyone,


I would like to post my results from upgrading the MSI gx640, CPU now is i7 920xm average temperatures on full load about 75-81 for each core, the only mods are memory heat sinks which are on the top of heat sink about 6 of them, I also have them on the copper heat sink pipe, and using artic silver 4.


The GPU has been upgraded from AMD Radeon 5850m to the 6970m the big difference between these two cards are the power consumption the 5850 uses 35w power but the 6970 is 100w.


The issue I had was the power I upgraded the PSU to 180w from the original 120w, the 180w was getting hot so I had to place a fan on it too cool it down this lasted about two weeks and the PSU packed in, I then purchased a delta 240w which seems to suit this setup no more power issues or shutdowns.


The other issue was the GPU and how to cool it down the original chip on the 5850 card sits straight on the card so the original heat sink was ok for this however the 6970 chips sits at an angle so it does not fit neat, I was getting temps of 95+, not good, so what I done was used a copper shim and put the artix silver on the chip then placed the copper shim on top, I then put more artic silver on top of the shim and then fitted the heat sink down my temps now are about 80-85 which is a fair drop, I also used thinner heat pads for the memory modules 0.2mm so that the heat sink would fit more neat on the card and also used more memory heat sinks on top about 8, I had also purchased a laptop cool pad.

I do know these cards do run hot so this is a big decrease, if playing more demanding games like bf4 the card will peek at 85-89 most games is sits at 80-85 sometimes lower.


Stock temps 50-52 CPU, GPU 55-57.