Upgrade 860m sli GPUs

Hi everybody , I want to upgrade alienware 18's gpus from 860m slI to 880m slI , I just want to ask does the 880m GPUs worth the money I mean that would I feel the difference between the the 860m sli and the 880m slI , and if not what do you advice me to do?

 

Best thing you can do is look up reviews and benchmarks between the two in SLI. however looking at pricing on Ebay the 880M goes between £300 - £500 (unsure about other currencies) While on the other hand I also found a 980M costing close to £500.
So really you want to save your money and go for a 970 - 980 if you can find them, since staying within the 8xx series isn't going to net you much of an increase for the price you pay.

980M Ebay item number - 141563043053
880M Ebay item number - 321727683361

Now I personally do not know if there is a difference since one care is from Clevo, if there is help would be welcome.
What model laptop do you have by the way, is it M18 R1 / R2 or the new 18 ?
As far as I know people with the M18X R1-R2 have problems getting the 9xx series cards to work but there are plenty of posts on here about how to solve it.

 

Don't forget that you'll also need to purchase new heat sinks as well. The stock 860M heat sinks are not the same if memory serves me correctly. The 880M runs hot even when it has the correct heat sink.

 

completely forgot about that, trust Mr Fox to come in with his vast knowledge. What heat sinks are needed for the 9xx series ? I'm still rocking the 675M SLI so im trying to find part numbers best I can, Ebay is not to helpful since all parts seam to be in the US while I am in the UK and most people won't **** to me

 

For M18xR2 the 680M heat sinks work fine.

 

If you can run a single 980m in there ok it's a better option than dual 880m.

 

I second that. A single 980M will work fine and for playing games it is plenty of GPU power in most scenarios. With a single 980M you can enable Optimus mode with the M18xR2 (set the BIOS to "SG" mode in Video Configuration menu with unlocked BIOS). I don't like Optimus, but it does allow you to successfully boot from the Intel iGPU and run with BIOS Legacy support with Windows 7. You cannot do that with dual GPU, but it would allow you some flexibility if you wanted to spend less now and save for a second 980M later on. Your 860M SLI bridge cable will work with any NVIDIA GPU. You also will not have to worry about exhausting the capacity of the 330W AC adapter when overclocking (which you will do with 680M, 780M, 880M or 980M SLI if you push the overclock far enough).

 

thanks , I have 18 the new one , but I heard that the 9xx GPUs have problems too with the new 18

 

thanks for reminding me about the heatsinks I found them in eurocom the primary and the secondary

I didn't know that I can run a single GPU , thanks for that too

 

is the single 980m that strong ? But I heard that the 980m will not work full power with my alienware 18.

 

Only thing I know is that the 980 suffers from throttling issues due to some power saving rubbish. Here is a link to an Nvidia forum discussion about it featuring ..again...Mr.Fox ... how are you in every website I go to ?
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/804638/geforce-mobile-gpus/severe-gtx-980m-throttling/2/

 

I do get around... I'm not omnipresent, just a militant aggressor with a low tolerance for nonsense.

Recent developments (last day or two) are promising. The throttling problems might be fixed through firmware mods. See information posted here.

 

Thanks guys for your advice, but what should I do now? Should I wait till this issue with 9xx get fixed or buy 880m?

 

Even with the issues a 980M is still better than an 880M, the issue will probably get fixed eventually and since the prices are the same depending where you look it is better in the long run to go for the better card.

 

Exactly, on the long run it's a better way to go. Adding a second card would be a lot easier and the change in performance will be a lot more noticeable.

 

I vote for a single 980M... it will troll the 880M even the SLI 880ms

 

Thanks guys I will go for 980m