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    Advice for upgrading Alienware M18x

    Discussion in 'Alienware 18 and M18x' started by Steven Mal, Jun 3, 2015.

  1. Steven Mal

    Steven Mal Notebook Enthusiast

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    My old Alienware M18x R1 needs a power jack replacement and I'm thinking I could use this opportunity to upgrade because I love the palm rest, keys, and screen. Honestly, I'm just not ready to say goodbye to it yet so I'd like to try to breath some new life into it if possible at all. I've seen videos on Youtube of CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD and HDD upgrades for the M18x and I'm curious about upgrading but I have no experience at all with upgrading components myself.

    Right now my specs are as follows
    i7-2630QM
    4GB RAM
    750 GB HDD
    GTX 460M

    I'd definitely like to try upgrading the GPU but I'm afraid my CPU will bottleneck a newer GPU. If I have to, how difficult would it be to upgrade the CPU and what are my options? I want to upgrade the RAM and GPU at least. I'll probably give it to a laptop repair service for upgrading if I don't feel confident enough to try it myself.
     
    Steven Mal, Jun 3, 2015
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  2. AaronSV

    AaronSV Notebook Consultant

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    99 View and no comments come on community -.-

    The best CPU you could use would be a Core i7-2960XM I think, however upgrading the CPU isn't really that important or needed half the time.
    Upgrade your RAM to 16GB Corsair is a good brand to go for.
    Throw out that HDD and get an SSD depending on your use you may want to go for a 1TB Samsung EVO drive, not overly expensive.

    Now as for your graphics card I think with the R1 you can only use one GTX 9xx card, but two 880M in sli will do you well. Don't take my word regarding the graphics cards since I am not familiar with the R1 .
    If you had the money you could buy an R2 motherboard and put that into your laptop with an Ivy bridge cpu instead, plus it will let you use 970/80 GPU in sli.
     
    AaronSV, Jun 4, 2015
    #2
  3. Raidriar

    Raidriar ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)

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    Upgrades in this order:
    1. Get a SSD. Night and day difference. My personal recommendation is a crucial drive or sandisk extreme drive.
    2. Ram. Need to get to 16GB ASAP. Speed/timings are not nearly important as quantity. A set of 4x4 Crucials will do fine here for not a whole lot of money.
    3. GPU should be upgraded to a GTX 680M or 780M if budget affords.
    4. Upgrade your CPU to a 2920XM, or 2960XM. My pick is the 2920XM as it runs cheaper than the 2960XM by a good margin, with negligible performance difference.

    That should keep you set for another 3-4 years.

    The 900 series doesn't work in the R1, only the R2 since the R1 lacks any UEFI support.
    Don't overpay for the 880M, the 780M will work equally well for less money.
     
    Raidriar, Jun 5, 2015
    #3