980m in p170em questions

I'm looking to replace my 7970m in my p170em with a 980m and need a few things clarified.

Rjtech seems to have the best price at $720.
http://rjtech.com/shop/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=30303

Eurocom also sells it, but for $891. That's a huge price difference.
http://www.eurocom.com/ec/vgas(1)ec

Thing is, rjtech doesn't list a p170em option, but I think the "p170sm-a" option will be compatible, right?
I've read that mythlogic and maybe power notebooks also sell the 980m, but not sure of price.

I've also read that units purchased from eurocom or mythlogic come with the correct vBIOS preloaded. Can't I just flash the Prema vBIOS and it will be identical? My understanding is that I can only use one specific driver with no overclocking unless I flash Prema's vBIOS.

Please let me know if there's anything else I'm missing.

 

Ok, Eurocom are just charging absurd amounts more for some thermal paste and pads/screws..

Now if you get it from RJTech, you get the P170SM-A option.. vBIOS wise, everything will be fine.. You'll need to flash Prema BIOS to your P170EM before installing the 980M.. The main thing you'll need to do when ordering from them is to ask them to provide some thermal pads (you can get your own tbh, Phobya XT are quite good) and the other thing is that you'll need them to provide the correct screws to connect your heatsink to the motherboard (the screws are different for AMD/NVIDIA GPU's even though they use the same heatsink).. In my M17x R4, you didn't need to mod the heatsink.. Not too sure about P170EM..

 

Thanks for the reply Tom. Yes that price from Eurocom does seem high.

I do already have the latest Prema bios for my p170em.

What I'm still confused about is the vBIOS for the 980. Will I be able to just plug in the 980 and go? Or will I have to flash Prema's vBIOS?

Also need more clarification on this. Based on what I've read over on the techinferno forums, if I flash Prema's vBIOS that he has made publicly available on his website, I'll only be able to run one specific old driver and won't be able to overclock. Or, if I spend the extra money and buy the 980 from one of the companies Prema has teamed up with (eurocom, mythlogic), they will send me a specific bios/vBIOS (not sure which one), that will allow me to install any 980 driver and overclock. Can anyone verify this? I wouldn't want to buy the card from rjtech and then be limited to just one driver forever and no overclocking.

Edit: link to techinferno post I mentioned:
http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/8361-980m-seems-compatible-em-series-13.html
If I'm reading correctly, looks like I can run any driver, so long as I modify the inf file?

 

Well, I think I found my answer. Just needed to keep reading more. Looks like so long as I have both the bios and vBIOS updated with Prema's mods, there shouldn't be any issues:
http://forum.techinferno.com/clevo/8663-[gpu-upgrades]-gtx7-8-9-p-em-series.html

I think you were right Tom. For some reason I thought only a certain driver would work and I wouldn't be able to overclock. But please, let me know if I'm incorrect before I drop $750 on a new 980 from rjtech.

 

That looks about right, and good find.

 

With the right bios (as listed above) and the latest drivers it should plug and play with overclocking there.

If you want to go above the 135mhz then a custom vbios is needed too.