The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Not to mention, the power used. Pascal Desktop MxMs may require More power and the M18X may not support it. Only Clevo (Eurocom, Aftershock, Sager) supports since they use their own power wires to feed in more power. Not sure about other brands who don't use BGA motherboard (all soldered which is bad)
But yes, as Mr Fox said and I have also confirmed with one of my friend who works as an engineer in Nvidia who was also involved in the architecture of Pascal, the screens used on the 18 are Legacy a.k.a LVDS. Pascal only supports eDP type of screens.
So even if you somehow managed to fit the card and cool it well, or even feed enough power, it won't work. Either the 18 would reject the card or nothing would appear on the screen, thereby making this upgrade useless or a waste
It just struck me - you can use the HDMI-In. It would require quite some soldering, would consume more power and finally might have more input lag, but chances are that it is possible. Whether it's feasible is another story.
apparently, if I read correctly, woodzstack managed to get a 1060 working in the Alienware 17 over LVDS, though he was forced to use optimus. I don't see why M18x and Alienware 18 users cannot do the same, though we will be limited to one card and have to deal with optimus.
Weighing things, I think that the HDMI-In would be far superior way to make it happen than crOptimus - the input lag should be the same or better, you wont heat-up the CPU unnecessarily, it still requires a lot of modding, but once done it should be the real deal.
You would end up spending too much money and ultimately have something that probably won't be as good as a new machine. A P870DM2 (single 1080) or P870DM3 (1080 SLI) with 6700K would run circles around it. Another option if you want something smaller would be a Tornado F5 (since 1080 and 7700K are coming to that model in December). All great options with nice build quality, sockets and slots. No worthless BGA feces.
@woodzstack might be able to help with selling you one of those instead of a GPU upgrade.
Seeing as the Alienware 17 R1 "Ranger" is capable of being upgraded with the MSI MXM version of the Pascal 10-series chip gives hope for the Alienware 18 being upgradeable (the Maxwell version). However, Alienware has gimped their systems so much since 2012, I would be hesitant experimenting, unless you have a very fluid income. You are bound to run into issues... And may even brick a card or motherboard. It's uncharted territory.
What's the point of slots and sockets if you have to buy a new machine after all? Isn't this machine (M18x) slots and sockets as well? You are asking why upgrading when newer machine can run circles? Isn't that always the case? Why slots and sockets then? Also is these desktop chips and non-binned-nGREEDIA feces really a laptop? Can you cool them? If people happen to "upgrade" to these "slots and sockets", then what? Do you have a written agreement/contract/promise from grIntel that they wont pull an Ivy (they could've made Sandy bridge machines compatible if they wanted to) again, so you would be able to get 7xxx? Do you have a written agreement/contract/promise from clevo that they wont change design once again when HBM comes? Don't even mention msi (Tornado F5), I think we all saw what they do with their promised "upgradeable" machines. Mark my words, unlike clevo (there's a chance to fit HBM chip on these new modules), msi would DEFINITELY redesign again. So again, what's the point of slots and sockets? Oh and 39x0m can blow the doors out of any new
laptop (i.e. ones with HQ and HK CPUs).
Oh and no, I'm not defending BGA, I'm defending these last
proper laptops, where we had binned and well performing
MOBILE chips!
The point of sockets and slots is your stuff isn't disposable garbage with a $1200+ motherboard. Upgrades, when they are possible, are icing on the cake. Another point is the garbage they solder in place is low quality filth that you can't replace with something better. Even if BGA processor replacement was simple, anything you could solder in place to replace the original part is second-rate trash.
No, it is not always the case that a new machine can run circles around the old one, unless the old one is a cheap configuration that was not the best that was available. The M18xR1 and M18xR2 with an Extreme CPU are just now being displaced by more powerful unlocked desktop quad cores and look how many years that took. I agree that 3920XM is better that any BGA feces CPU. Even when it eventually won't be as powerful, it still gives you the ability to service your machine in a reasonable manner as long as replacement parts are still available. That's worth nearly as much as performance in my book. Sandy, Ivy and Haswell (4930MX only) mobile Extreme CPUs still kick the teeth out of all but maybe one BGA garbage CPU. If you get crippled consumer CPUs that cannot be overclocked, you get nowhere near the same bang for the buck.
I also agree that the M18xR2 was the best laptop I have ever owned. In build quality alone it trumps everything else. Unfortunately, it can no longer meet my needs because its performance lags too far behind and replacement parts are becoming scarce. It served me very well, and I wish there was something made as well today using the current CPU and GPU technology. The issues that began to surface with Maxwell is when my passion for it began to fade. With no reasonable upgrade path it's simply too obsolete to be relevant, in spite of how utterly amazing it is.
I refuse to buy expensive BGA garbage. I seldom say never about things because I've been between a rock and a hard spot and don't want to paint myself into a corner, but this is a matter of ethics to me and I will say that I have no intention of ever accepting or having anything nice to say about BGA excrement. It's totally unacceptable and represents the choice between right and wrong. The argument against BGA is that everything it stands for it immoral and it is driven by people with evil intentions. The poor quality BGA components compromised with performance limitations simply adds insult to injury.
I'd always defend slots and sockets for reasons stated by you. The thing is that with recent machines (all of them, no exceptions) we are put between rock and A REALLY HARD place. You have to choose between complete abortion, what BGA notebooks are* and essentially desktop parts, forced into constrained space. That's not really fun. Again, I want laptops back the way they used to be - LAPTOPS with parts SPECIFICALLY designed for them. Then and only then I'll justify the price premium that is asked these days (for desktop chipped machine and non-binned GPU(s)). I mean, the prices (specifically of the GPUs) were LOWER back when we had binned chips, than they are now. So even if you fry a sloted $1300~$1500 GPU, would you really replace it, or you'll start to save for a new machine? I think the answer would be even clearer if two of these go poof. Then again what are you getting for these amounts of money? What's special about these GPUs? I could've justify the price premium of MXM modules, since we had binned chips and standard shapes. Now what? What costs TWICE and MORE than corresponding desktop model, and it comes WITHOUT cooling (or costs another $100), unlike the desktop! And don't get me started on the CPUs, the only good thing about desktop CPUs is that if you have the money, you can pay the Silicon Lottery premium for a better chip. Then again these were mostly given back in the day and most mobile CPUs performed pretty tight to each other. Paying this SL premium more or less gets you to the price range of where mobile Xtremes used to be, only with better efficiency (for the mobiles). So, the evil intentions are not only in the BGA machines if you ask me.
To get back on-topic, I suggested a way to get a machine one last round of upgrade. It is definitely not for everyone and it's not even guaranteed to work (when upgrades were guaranteed to work anyway), but there's literary NO substitute with recent machines. The ones who dare to try - I salute you and tons of good luck, the ones that decide to upgrade - I feel sorry that you have literary no choice.
*To not be completely black and white - I'll just say that they can be WAY better than they are now, it's just that manufacturers and parts suppliers (grintel and nGREEDIA) don't want to, they would still remain costly repairs though, because it's BGA after all and there's no easy or cheap (actually both) way to repair BGA.
Yeah, we agree on most things. The good old days are gone and I was on the verge of abandoning laptops completely. I had my shopping list and cash ready to go and a couple of good friends like
@Prema convinced me to go one more round. I am almost positive the P870DM3 will be my last high performance notebook purchase. Now that I am not traveling 70% for business I no longer need a portable beast (as much as I love them) and building a desktop makes more sense financially. I still wrestle with hate for that idea, but I hate what has become of laptops. I am unwilling to compromise performance for the idiotic visions they have for the future of PC mobility. It sucks, and I'm not playing the game by the bogus rules they want us to, using crippled BGA filth and castrated firmware on top of pathetic parts. They can kiss my gluteus maximus.
Why not? Get e-GPU powered and use mPCIE, then connect it using HDMI-IN. It should work. HDMI-IN is hardware feature, it works even in linux (without sound)
That's such an absurd score. What do you do with this computer other than bench lol. A single 980M is still capable of maxing games at 1080P, I hope you have a 4K panel to take advantage of the SLI 1080s
Its just a real sad state of affairs. I went from the last REAL Alienware the Area 51 M17X with dual 9800M GTs to the beats the M18x with 2 7970s. The build quality is amazing, the performance is stellar with the new AMD drivers. I wanted another, and then I did research. No more dual card machines, soldered everything, all they are now is stickers on a Dell. I to am going the desk top route. Starting the build after the new year.
I agree that laptops are not what they used to be! maybe you remember me from this forum when 3 years ago i was amongst the few that managed to insert 2 7970m in crossfire in an alienware m17x R2. the performance was great but the 920x cpu was strugling to feed the two 7970s.
So i sold it when it could still be sold. and stayed with my desktop
There are no more laptops with the build quality and upgradability of the old m17x r2 and m18x r2s
But alienware is dead for me, the new lineup of laptops i dont even like as designs.
So the only solution i see is a eurocom laptop. their top tier models use desktop i7s so one can easily upgrade to whatever i7 he likes and eurocom still uses an mxm slot for the gpu even with new pascal 10xx gpus. for me eurocom is the only company that still gets in the trouble to try and keep mxm slot upgradeability.
And in the end let us all remember that actually its mainly nvidias fault for ditching the mxm slot with their new gpus. i understand that they are actually desktop gpus in their tdw and speed and they needed to change some things but ditching the mxm slot is not a solution.
anyway. lately by luck i got for free an hp 8570w laptop with an i7 cpu and a slow quadro k1000 mxm a card. i managed to fit in it a new gtx 965m mxm a card . it plays everything i throw at it no prob. but my pionner spirit wants to try and insert in it a full mxm B card. i am curently trying to build an extra heatsink in the place of the dvd drive .
Thats what i loved about previous generation laptops with their mxm slots. you could try and fit everything in them. that whole proccess is a satisfaction in its own.
Anyways i am sad that the mxm slot technology just got a major hit . but i still see light in the tunnel, with solutions like the ones from eurocom (and maybe clevo)
I presume that's only because of the Internal LVDS to eDP converter, Same as in GT83VR which uses a much older 2013 Samsung LCD. The other thing to make point is, the M18x R2 can be upgraded with Pascal with LVDS only (no eDP port on the MoBo) because of the Ivy Bridge PCH which allows the Internal conversion, Granted that System is running off an Unlocked sBIOS.
So what is the way of upgrade?
I'm really confused at moment, the m18x R2 can convert lvds to edp by chipset? And route to notebook's built-in monitor?
So from
@woodzstack I can arrange a super powerful and freshly new 1060m in my old alien friend?
No, the 18" series has no eDP screens It's still using LVDS. You can not use Pascal in dedicated mode. The HD Intel also doesn't work very good if ever properly so I never supported it or even bothered, It only pretends to be allowing your dedicated cards to work, when you select them, but if they were not supported by DELL, they don't work that way at all.
If someone knows better, correct me if I am wrong.
Yes ok, already discussed here on forum, but neither msi gt70 (ms-1762) has edp because I've just look at its service manual and the display is stated and connected as LVDS here
@aaronne thats confusing, so you have eDP or not ?
LVDS is NOT eDP. If you want one of my services just send me a private conversation and we can work things out.
He might have the HD intle working properly. Theres a update for it in Novemember, but it refuses to install because in the software it black lists Alienware (Dell's fault, for sure) and instead it only goes to the August update. If this has been fixed, then Pascal should work with HD intel.
Thanks. I was pretty concerned It wouldn't work, but I jumped in head first and got lucky more than anything. I'm just glad it didn't require a full custom heatsink.
So I just posted my 18x R2 for sale but if this works that my change!!!! So we can put in a 1060/1070 and we are gtg? Is the performance of one 1060/1070 really that much better than a 680 SLI/7970 Crossfire?
A 1060 is already up and running in someone's R2 here and a 1070 is theoretically possible as well but so far no-one has done that yet. You should be the first!
A single 980M is about as fast as 680M SLI (what I upgraded to and from) without the SLI nonsense and a 1060 is about 20% faster than a 980M (about as fast as the desktop GTX 980 but in MXM form factor) and a 1070 is basically as fast as 980M SLI without the SLI nonsense.
Yeah it pretty much beats the usual SLI options it's send with by a fair amount and with 1 card, leaving all that extra power from the PSU for the CPU overclock.
This was because the HD intel drivers from November would not install, only the earlier versions from like August would, and they had no Pascal support, thus very poor performance in optimus mode on Switchable Graphics mode.
If the supported HD intel drivers install and come with the pascal support they in theory should work. Months and months of waiting and I never heard any reports of them working, and after trying to get it to install the newer HD intel drivers for 6 months I gave up testing it every week.
Yes, no issues getting the HD Intel drivers with the Pascal support to install on MSI laptops, never been the issue there. The issue is, they would not install for Alienware's - if I had to guess, it was because DELL refused to pay INTEL or asked them not to support it or it was simply some oversight or just missing hardware ID's in some inf file somewhere similar to the modded drivers we do on a daily basis here for our aftermarket upgrades.
So I mentioned most of why this didn't work on Alienware and yet worked on other laptops a few times in this thread. just have to go to device manager and see which version of HD Intel graphics is installed, then see if that is a supported version on an MSI and works with Pascal, if anyone wants to run the back and forth and see if certain driver versions work on thier MSI with a pascal card, it would technically tell us the same for Alienware, if those same driver versions would install on the Alienware, even if before you have the pascal card installed, i.e know in advance thanks to some help if possible from others helping you out by checking thier MSI hardware ID's.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
