M6600 GPU upgrade for gaming

Hello folks,

I have a m6600 laptop with i7-2760qm, 8gb ram and a firepro m8900 gfx. I'm looking for a good gfx upgrade for better gaming performance (especially fallout 4). I've locked down on two candidates: FIrepro M6100 and Quadro k4000m. Here's the ebay links for both. The seller assured me that the cards will be compatible with my laptop.

M6100: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Dell-Precisi...252699?hash=item4d46335b9b:g:-VoAAOSw3YNXbT6X

K4000M: http://www.ebay.ca/itm/HP-Dell-M660...512594?hash=item25c38bdad2:g:uzYAAOSwi0RX0AnA


I would like to hear some great advices from all you pros, especially if you have hands on experience on either cards in your m6600 lappy:

1. I wonder if m6100 would be an easier option for my lappy since it's AMD product like my m8900

2. I wonder if I go k4000m do I need to change my x-bracket, rearrange thermal pads or even need to change the heatsink (sorry I haven't changed a laptop gfx before)

I'm in favor of k4000m since it has twice the video memory, more ROPs and TMUs which is great for gaming. M6100 may run a bit cooler and has more OC potential (it has 1050mhz gpu base clock vs 600 for K4000M). All in all, I'm choosing between an underclocked GTX 660 and a HD 7790, though I could bring the K4000M clock up a bit. But Nvidia cards are more optimized for gaming. What's your thought folks?

Thanks for your inputs!

 

hi. i made that upgrade already (my m6600 was with m8900 and now i have m6100).
if you will upgrade your m6600 with m6100 - you will need only little piece of silicon thermal pad for small power transistors (you can use your own but you will need some more, 10x20mm will be enough).
if you will upgrade your m6600 with nvidia card - you will need all another cooling construction (radiator-tube-heatsink) AND silicon thermal pads.

if you will buy M6100 vga card - try not to buy card from HP (you will get some troubles with bios reflashing and drivers setup). try to use m6100 from Dell

 

Hi Blacksmoke,

Thanks for quick reply. Did you upgrade your GPU for gaming or for 3D Design. I wanna know how good is M6100 in terms of gaming, since I've owned a desktop with GTX 960 and I hope the lappy M6100 won't be too far below my expectation.

Dunno it's a big work for K4000M though its spec looks significantly better for 30 bucks more, looks like I have to give up on that,

Speaking of little piece of silicon thermal pads...does it come with your replacement card when you purchased it or you have to buy them from ebay?

 

i upgraded for gaming, and it's def. better then M8900..

 

When my m8900 died, i upgraded to a k4000m in my m6600. Did not need another heatsink assembly, only new thermal pads for the upgrade, and had to rearrange em just a bit to fit on the card properly. I have fallout 4 and i game just fine on med settings with high textures at 1080p (take note i only have an i5-2540m) .

 

Thanks that's really impressive. Have to admit that FO4 is a horribly unoptimized for PC but I'm still addicted to it. I have i7-2760qm though and my settings are medium to low except ultra for texture. (On 2gb GPU texture settings doesn't really matter imo) Outdoors are great at 40+ fps but indoors are often horrible at 20-30 and stutters as hell even after modifying some lines in ini file to tweak it up. The CPU never goes above 50% so it wasn't too much of a factor. The m8900 has been OC to 800 core and 1050 Mem but that's what I have. Drivers outdated too so I miss out some perks of the latest drivers. I've heard the game favors heavily on Nvidia GPUs that's why I prefer k4000m.

Do you overclock the card though? K4000m is essentially an underclocked GTX 660 (GTX 770m) while the m8900 is a rebranded 6970m aka underclocked HD 6850. Have you tried the tweakforce driver for your card, heard it's great for gaming though, but I have no chance for my m8900 since it's outdated.

Btw does the BIOS recognize the card correctly and do you need to modify the Nvidia inf driver?

 

2760qm and Sandy Bridge i7 mobile variant sells for about $100-$150 USD. A great upgrade to pair the k4000m/GTX 770m imo.

 

Never overclocked the card, then again i bought it used from ebay so I dont know its past life. I had to do absolutely nothing to drivers or the bios since its a dell part. Machine booted up on the 1st try, even went into the bios and it showed me the option for optimus (which was never there before since like you i had a m8900). Havent tried tweakforce, I just run the latest quadro drivers from nvidia.

games i have played or are currently playing on this machine with this card

War Thunder (runs well, nothing to report)
Metal gear solid 5 (very well optimized, can run high settings no problem, takes alot of action on screen to drop my fps)
Dragon Age Inquisition (game auto set to high settings, runs fine)
Gta 5 (I run this on medium with high textures cause 4gb vram, then again with the m8900 i also ran it on medium with medium textures, my cpu is holding me back and i dont plan on buying an i7)
etc...

 

Thanks man this is vital information as I initially thought there may be some potential compatibility issues from a firepro card to a Nvidia Quadro card. Well at least I know the upgrade is as hassle free as I can be. Cheers!

 

@UnknownCode Do you still remember the thickness of the thermal pads you used on the modules eg VRM, memory chips and other electronic regulators?

I found this on the web but I only know the areas.