¿Best upgrades for M18X-R2? [CPU - GPU - RAM - Cooling] Best for the buck.

Hello folks,
I've reading for a while through all the upgrade questions I recently found over here,

I'm very confused with which upgrades are the best for my laptop right now.

I'm talking about the GPU's. With all the crap everyone put over NVIDIA regarding their 980M in conjunction with the Alienware. I'm not quite sure which option I should buy to get the best.

I would like to do Overclock but what I do most is to play games such as Assetto Corsa or the new ones to come like GTA V & PCARS.

Also I'm using Oculus Rift so the games must constantly run at 75 FPS.

Right now I'm using a SLI GTX 680M @ slv mod vbios which can offer me something like 10K points @ Fire Strike.

What do you think is it best for my rig?

Buy SLI 780M and overclock it like hell or buy SLI GTX 980M?
Third option, wait till AMD show its new GPUS a.k.a M390X?

Which e-shops do you know for buying GPUS? (PowerNotebooks, Eurocom, RJTech, eBay... any others?)

I do have a DUAL PSU (660W) so the watts are no longer a problem to worry about

Also I was thinking to get a 3940XM instead of my 3920XM which is capable of doing 4.5Ghz with no problem. Do you think I can get better frequencies with the 3940XM?


Talking about cooling as you may know I'm a big fan of CLU so no discussion about it the problems comes when talking about thermal pads for GPU's memory.

Which one is the best?
What do you think about this one in particular?

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...onductivity_170_WmK.html?tl=g8c487s1290#blank

Which size is enough?

Which thickness? 1mm is ok?

I'm not quite sure if it's ok to change the default ones for new and better thermal pads.

Thaaaaank you sooooooooo much Have a nice day!

PS: My current rig is right here on my signature ^^!

 

I don't think the upgrade to 3940xm would be worth it if you already have a 3920xm. There isn't any evidence to suggest they are better binned or capable of attaining higher clocks.
However, with your dual PSU mod and lust for higher CPU performance I'd perhaps advice against 980m SLI unless you already use Windows 8. Windows 8 affects CPU performance by a measurable degree. About 10-15% in my experience. Couple that with 980m SLI not letting you go past 320 watt system draw (even with a dual PSU), it's a bad proposition for an overclocker / pure performance nut.
If you already have a dual PSU and use Windows 7 you might as well get the cheaper 780m's and overclock the snot out of them to be in the neighborhood of stock 980 SLI performance.
If your happy to let overclocking play second fiddle (both CPU and GPU) to gaming then 980m SLI and a conservative OC of 4.3ghz will give you whisper cool and quite gaming and still awesome performance.
I play assetto corsa and was netting 130-150fps even in Spa with almost max settings (x4 AA, medium reflections) and 24 cars on track.

 

I have been gathering data from benchmarks and I found that 980M outperforms 780M by 6K points on average.
If I compare my best results to 780M I realize that I am not going to feel a very huge leap in performance so I guess the best for the buck this time is the 980M since is not so overpriced compared with 780M which I do not why is still so high (780M).
SLI 680M

SLI 780M


SLI 980M

Other question came to my mind, Eurocom claims that I need bios A11 which I can not find it unlocked. The last BIOS I managed to find was A10 @ techinferno
I do not want to have to use a default BIOS if possible.
Eurocom advice:

PS: I've been a user of windows 8.1 a long time and I do not care continue on it.

 

I am currently using unlocked A10 bios no worries with the 980M

 

I'm currently using A09 which also supports UEFI and W8.1 is it enough?

Thanks

 

I'd say that you shouldn't upgrade the processor because the performance increase will not be noticeable between those 2. You could try the 980m's, however it's not an official upgrade. This does not mean that it won't work, it means that we won't support it under warranty.

 

I cant see why it wont work, even if it doesn't you can just flash A10

 

Exactly, if you have issues, put your old one in and update.

 

SLI 980M on the way.
Any tips before doing the assembling? Some VBIOS in particular?
The package comes with this:
1/ Nvidia GTX 980M VGA Cards x 2 cards
2/ X-Bracket with matching screws x 2 sets
3/ Thermal Pads (for VRAM chips)x 2 sets
4/ Thermal Paste (ICD 7)
5/ SLI Cable included
Anything else I might need?
I appreciate your help. Thanks.

 

No not really, your good to go so long as you get the right drivers

 

Which are the best driver so far for 980M?
Thanks

 

For me it was 344.91

 

@j95 was saying that the 347.90 driver had no throttling problems in AW.. it seems our NVIDIA overlords are responsible for this throttling to a large extent in other drivers... 347.90 was pulled quite quickly but J95 has modded inf over at techinferno for it and driver is downloadable from laptopvideo2go..

 

Fantasctic info thank you so much

 

Well good luck with it, I hope you get some decent gaming out of it

 

Thank you

Are these cards hot? It's better to go directly with CLU instead of what the package contains (Thermal Paste (ICD 7))?

 

They are cooler than the kepler chips.

 

ICD7 is about as good as it gets as well as gelid extreme which is my personal favorite. Unless you go with liquid ultra. But if you end up having to take your system apart a lot it wouldnt be a good choice. Stick with icd or gelid.

 

Good advice. The 980m's run so cool in gaming it's not worth bothering with the Metal.

 

Today I have received the cards,
I will do a system backup before starting the upgrade process and later this weekend I am going to spend some time tuning the laptop.

Is there any guide to follow to do the upgrade with all the details needed?

I mean the procedure to make them work for good.

PS: I'm so f**** nervous
PS2: Excuse my bad words, Did I say that I'm a little bit nervous?

 

If you haven't seen this already.. It's Brother Fox's teardown video. It helped my a ton when I was once a bundle of nerves like yourself.



Here is a supplementary video by Hidevolution which helped me too



Goodluck. Just take your time and you'll be fine. See you on the other side

 

PS: Thanks for the videos!!!!

 

Just follow Peter's instructions at the start of the M18x R2 Dual 980M SLI thread and you should be fine

 

I'm doing a backup of everything but before doing the upgrade I would like to have the latest GTA V NVIDIA drivers modded to install them as soon as I format the laptop.
I would like to know how to make the mod of if I need to mod anything before trying to install the drivers with the 980M in my M18XR2?

Thanks

 

In my experience the gtv V drivers (350.12) were rubbish but,
I modded the drivers by looking at the nv_dispi.inf file from Mr.Fox's modded drivers and comparing it with the default nv_dispi.inf (after extracting the driver with 7Zip), essentially you need to add a similar to this in the device lists:
%NVIDIA_DEV.13D7% = Section034, PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_13D7

(I think that there are 4 list's total in the inf, the lists are a bit harder to find in Mr.Fox's drivers because he deleted all the other devices making the lists very short)
And you need to add this line in the strings sections (right at the bottom):
NVIDIA_DEV.13D7 = "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M"

 

Im thinking about doing the same upgrade to my m18x r2 with 7970m cf. One thing that stop me from doing that is im afraid to dissemble the machine and mis treat the cpu or the gpu. I watched couple professional video on youtube and slowly building up my confident toward this. But i want to know what kind of specific tools that i need to complete this task? And if im going to buy the 980ms from rjtech, do i also have to get a new set of x bracket? And do i also need to change my heatsink?And one last thing i want to know, how bad is the throttle if i dont overclock for gaming? And is the stock performance is not as good as GT80 Titan? I apologize my poor english.

 

Wrong section "Section034"/Win8.1 (Kepler), use "Section146" instead.

GTA 5, v350.12 @1202/2907 http://forum.techinferno.com/alienw...ware-m17x-r4-m18x-r2-aw17-150.html#post130037

 

Guys something went wrong during the change. Know I'm getting error beeps. I went to the other thread and I realize that honestly I forgot to do the step 1

1. Before replacing card, go to system Bios (keep your old graphics card inside system or not any graphics card installed). Then click on Boot tab, UEFI = Enabled, Legacy ROM = Disabled. F10 to save bios and Exit. After then turn off system.


I can't even see the BIOS. This is the first time I'm having this kind of error. Any idea?

 

Thanks J95, might try that later on, I just copied what Mr.Fox did, is that maybe why they didnt work so well?

If you forgot step 1 you will have to remove both cards, then you can go into your bios and change the settings then put them back in and start again.
That is probably one of most annoying things about this upgrade any time you reset the bios or need to the flash the cards you need to remove cards etc etc

 

How many beeps are you getting?

 

Fixed! Thank all of you! Installing Windows 8 + Drivers. I will come back asap with benchs.

I was so scared :S

 

Do I need to change any option in the BIOS? 150 pages thread :S too much right now, I have the driver ready to go as soon as anyone tells me if I need to change something, I do not want to mess all again.

It's amazing the support you are giving me with this, thank you so much to all of you.

 

I'm having so much throttling with 344.75.
Fire Strike:

4.0GHz default clocks, 9100 Points.

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6696918

What should I do to mitigate the throttling?

 

Installed 350.12 @j95 and....

12500 Points!!!!
Outstanding your drivers!!!!

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6697244

 

Are these temps normal? The right card is like 20º higher than the left one :S Maybe I set the thermal pads badly. The CPU is working right now (decompression job).

 

Try swapping the cards, if the temperature remains at the same difference you may want to replace the heatsink.

 

Nice score, that's exactly on par with what I am getting
Yep throttling is mostly from the drivers, even different installations of the same driver can behave differently in my experience.
If your paste job is no good it should be obvious by the lack of coverage and the unevenness of the paste, if it is something you have noticed since putting the new cards in its probably the thermal paste.

 

Thanks for your support,
I have other question.
I'm using @j95 modded driver (350.12). I do have good performance (AFIK) but in some games (Assetto Corsa maxed out) the memory's clock throttle down to 709 MHz (I'm using HWiNFO64 + EVGA Precision X + RTSS to control everything while gaming) the core stays still.

Is that normal? Can I fix this behavior (without ocing the cards) ? Modded vbios will control this?

Also, Can anyone max out GTA V with a rig like mine? I'm having FPS drops if I turn everthing to the highest settings.

As always thank you for your time

 

Modding a vbios tends to exacerbate the throttle problem. J95 is really the only one that knows his way around that.
I play assetto corsa alot. The drivers I always went back to were 344.91. They never throttled and worked well in all games.

 

MY FIRST 14K SCORE @ FireStrike

3920 XM @ 4.6GHz
SLI GTX 980M @ +135/+200 [nvInspector matched Pstates P1-P0]
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6719319

 

14320

3920 XM @ 4.6GHz
SLI GTX 980M @ +135/+300 [nvInspector matched Pstates P1-P0]
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm/6719419

 

Congrats.. coming along nicely.
This was my best ever with 980m SLI on 344.91 drivers

 

Yes memory throttling is normal for me, I dont really mind seeing as it never seems to affect performance.
Nice scores, might have to go back to stock vbios and try J95's drivers again
Have you tried 3DMark 11 yet?

 

There you go:

P16889

 

I do not understand how is possible that with same vbios Mr.Fox did this result:
P18538
Check GPU score. It outperform mines by 3k points with less OC. :S I would like to squeeze this two little monster to their limits

 

@Mr. Fox , We invoke you (thank you in advance ), we need your universal wisdom to enlighten our human minds.

EDIT:
Also I have a new question for M18X-R2's upgrade.
What do you think about buying more memory? 16GB worth it?
2133 MHz worth it over my 8GB @ 1866Mhz?

 

I got rid of memory throttling down by setting both P States to the same frequency with nvinspector, give it a try.

 

Yeh I know Mr. Fox has the magic touch, I agree your gpu score is a bit average though I have gotten 24k gpu score with no overclock at all...
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/9640457
ok good to know that memory throttling is "fixable with nvinspector" has it improved performance though?

 

Stock run:
3920XM @ 4.6 - 55Flex - 960PriPlane
350.12 J95
P16150
Stock run:
3920XM @ 4.0GHz [Physics score + Combined Score 3920XM @ 4.6 - 55Flex - 960PriPlane]
350.12 J95
P16213
Stock run:
3920XM @ 4.3GHz - 12 Flex - 960PriPlane [Physics score + Combined Score 3920XM @ 4.6 - 55Flex - 960PriPlane]
350.12 J95
P16226
Oc test 1:
SLI 980M @ Core +135MHz - Mem - Stock 2505MHz
3920XM @ 4.6 - 55Flex - 960PriPlane
350.12 J95
P16318


The gap is 2K or higher so, I guess something is not working as good as yours or @Mr.Fox . Because those numbers were done with overclock (I mean my benchmark) and yours are stock clocks AFAIK. I think the results are better with no memory throttling but anyway I like seeing the correct numbers all day long.

Is there any way to access Intel RAID menu using UEFI?
Ctrl+I?
Can't see the RAID information anywhere, I'm thinking about buying another SSD to make 3xRAID 0 and I will have to make a new RAID to do so.

Thanks

 

The Pure UEFI won't allow to use Legacy option ROM, but you must have known that Intel RST would allow RAID configs and cache accleration from the OS.
And the R2 has only 2 SATA III ports, how can you RAID a SATA II port with a SATA III & also the reverse SATA II and SATA III HDD / SSD RAID mixing can they be allowed ??

Edit : Maybe the latter can't be feasable as the RAID needs a perfect identical models.