P170HM / NP8170 lappy looking to spiff it up

Hey all,

As it says, im running a 170hm with a 6990m thats got 2 years of solid gaming and other work on its ticker (and from what ive come across of these cards apparently dying left and right, i guess im lucky to have gotten that) and running a i7-2720QM for its cpu. Im looking to see what options I have for upgrading on both of them.

On the gpu, I been reading a lil bit and i been seen a lot of "issues" with amd and enduro (which im really not up to speed on) when I was reading in relation to I think it was the 7970... can anyone just give me a brief synopsis, or is that a can of worms there? Ive run both colors of the flag in my systems before, so im not so much looking for a name vs something i know is gonna work right and perform high end. (for a laptop anyway)

Cpu side, Im just looking to see what I can bump it up to. Ive got 16gb of ram in 4 sodimms so im good and maxed there. Ive 2x 750gb Hdds, and likely will replace one with a hi-cap SSD for more performance.

Thoughts, suggestions?
Thanks.

 

You won't have any enduro issues in the P170HM if you upgrade to the 7970m, being that enduro has to be disabled to work in the HM anyways. However, you'll lose the ability to use your hdmi port. If that's a deal breaker for you, I'd suggest a 680m. The best cpu's available for the HM are either the 2920xm or 2960xm.

 

Hmmm, I do actually use the hdmi port a lot, I could probably go dvi -> hdmi for some cases, but I know I've run into "handshake" problems with BR and other HD content for some reason doing that. Hence I usually just use the hdmi. Performance wise, is the much of a gap b/n the 680 and 7970? Usually they wind up being pretty close, but sometimes cards can be a good bit off from one another.

Thanks for the Cpu info as well. Ill likely look into seeing if I cant source out a good deal on a 2960xm.

 

Im in the same situation. I have a P150HM with 6990m and 2670qm and just upgraded to a 2960XM. Im holding out on the gpu though, waiting to see if the 780m or the new AMD gpu will ever work in our HMs.
Otherwise Ill take either 7970m or 680m, which I dont really like since theyre getting a bit old but watcha gonna do..

 

I have a spare 2920XM ES chip if you're interested. Runs just as good as my OEM, I just went OCD and wanted the OEM one day. Performance wise, I've had the same experience with both.

The 680m overclocks like a beast. Honestly, the 780m isn't that much better. The reason I have a 7970m is because of the amazing deal I got on it, was too good to pass up. However, I've had a great experience with my 7970m, runs like a champ.

 

Thanks for the info and offer PuNkMaN. It's probably gonna be a little bit more before I cane get the work done as the company i used to work for is dragging their heels on monies they owed me, and im probably going to top out the cpu with the best I can put in it ( my own lil quirk ;P )

I may start looking into the 680m tho. I sat thinking about it, and even if its a "small" thing to some peeps, I use my hdmi out a lot. Ill do some more reading as i put my money aside for upgrades in either direction. + rep for ya. ( ^_^)b