video card recommendation for m18xr1

So my system specs is in my sig. I'm contemplating upgrading just my video card and was wondering what the best route is. Coming from two 580m's, one of these cards(non-sli mode) will probably suffice, until I can have the funds to get another one. What would you recommend for my system?

680m
780m
880m
980m

To be honest, I don't even know if the later video cards are an option, like the 880m and 980m on my system. It's been a while since I've been on here, so will probably need a refresher. Thanks guys!

 

780M is most excellent. So is 680M, but there is no point in going with 680M since 780M exists and it is much better.

Avoid 880M... just don't do it... period.

980M is a great GPU, but throttling sucks and it WILL NOT work in the M18xR1... won't even boot. See the 980M upgrade thread for more info on this.

 

Thanks Fox! Yeah I've been eyeing that 780M and your confirmation has sealed it for me.

Will I be able to use the same heatsink, etc that is on my 580m currently? Oh, and is there a product number or something that I need to keep a look out for to make sure it is the sli compatible 780m when I buy it? I see there is a clevo/msi one out there that does not have an sli option..don't want to get the wrong one!

 

You're welcome.

You can use 580M heat sinks, but I would really encourage you to find 680M heat sinks. There are few components on the edge of the PCB that should be cooled and the 580M heat sinks don't reach them. The 680M heats sinks are also a little more heavy duty and will do a better job of cooling them. If you cannot find 680M heat sinks anywhere, 7970M heat sinks will also work fine, but you have to peel off the black plastic shroud on the copper heat plate before installing them.

I have Clevo 780M cards in the M18xR2, Dell 780M cards in the M18xR1, and I have swapped them back and forth between both machines with no issues. And, as far as I know all Clevo 780M cards support SLI and work identical to Dell 780M cards.

All bets are off on MSI GPUs, as some of them don't even have an SLI connector on the PCB. I would not recommend using anything except Dell of Clevo GPUs in an Alienware SLI beast.

 

One last question: which heatsink do I need to get..the left or the right? Also, when running in a 1 card setup..which side gets installed, or does it matter? (left or right facing head on at the laptop)

 

Left is primary, right is secondary. I have 680m secondary sink if you need, secondary is nearly brand new from my recently passed on m18xr2. Got 680s if you want that route but 780m is better agreed.

 

Correct... if you are going to run just one GPU, it needs to be installed in the left PCIe slot (nearest the VGA port, to the left of the CPU). One GPU will not work installed in the right side PCIe slot.

You may find that graphics switching does not work with one GPU installed. Pressing FN+F7 may appear to work, but when you reboot you are still using discrete graphics. If that is the case, you can change it manually in the BIOS if you need to run Intel HD Graphics for some reason. Simply change it from PEG to IGFX, save and exit the BIOS. You need an unlocked BIOS to do this, but I think the vast majority of M18xR1/R2 owners are running an unlocked BIOS anyway. If not, it's simple enough to flash the improved BIOS with open menu access... there is no excuse to not have that available even if you don't use it.

 

Out of curiosity, as I've been out of the loop for ages but having had one of my current 780's just killed itself, why are they preferred to the 880's?

Dell is not wanting to send me another pair of 780's due to stock reasons (???) and is instead offering me the newer cards which I initially thought was a good thing but after seeing this sentiment echoed a few times I'm thinking might not be a great idea...

 

One word: Throttling. The "T" is capitalized on purpose. They also tend to run hotter and not overclock as well. Very few 880M owners are thrilled with them, but once in a while we do see a content 880M owner.

If they don't any 780M cards in stock, you may have to decide whether to take them or go find your own replacement 780M GPU.

What kind of issue are you having? 780M cards don't just up and die very often. I had an issue with one of mine from the AW18 the other day... yesterday, in fact. The drivers were uninstalling themselves and I was getting code 43 in Device Manager on the seconary GPU. Looking at the secondary card in GPU-Z I was seeing revision FF instead of A2. I also noticed the vBIOS version looked weird in GPU-Z, so I dumped the vBIOS from GPU #1 and flashed it to GPU #2 and viola... no more problem. I still don't know why it did that, but NVIDIA is doing some really idiotic stuff with their drivers, so who knows.

 

I was having excessive artifacting suddenly whenever the GPU's were under load at work, and depot'd the machine twice where they only replaced the mobo - this despite the diagnosing revealing it only occurred when the second GPU was active and/or kicking in. Then had an on-site tech come out and do a 'repair' which ended up with a variety of things not working (really basic stuff like screws not being where they were supposed to be ) along with not fixing the original problem (because again, only a mobo replacement). Normally at this point I'd be saying "it's been 4+ months and 3 repairs, at this point just replace the damned machine" but obviously they don't make them anymore so I'm not wanting to do that.

I've finally gotten a hold of someone who is willing to just send me all the necessary parts and let me do my own installation, but they were offering 770m's or 880m's.

 

OMG, neither of those are good options. 770M is a downgrade to like 580M/675M performance. Just take the 880M cards, sell them and use the money to buy some 780M or 980M replacements. If they send you the parts, that would be ideal. You could leave them in their original packaging and sell them as unopened Dell service parts and probably get top dollar for them on eBay. You might even be able to get a Clevo reseller to work a deal and give you a nice fat credit on trade-in on a pair of 980M cards.

980M SLI has some throttling issues as well if you try to overclock them in the Alienware 18, but they would be much better than 880M SLI. Stock 980M SLI performance is about equal to the maximum stable overclock that is possible with 780M SLI.

Edit: with all of the work they have done, have they already replaced the SLI bridge cable? If not, get them to send you one. Depending on what kind of artifacts you are seeing, two things typically cause this. One is a bad SLI bridnge cable. The other is potentially the GPU heat sink support plate (some folks call it an "X" bracket) grounding out on the bottom of the GPU PCB as explained in this thread. There is a possibility there is nothing wrong with either of your 780M cards.

 

They are just sending parts, and I twisted their arm on the phone enough to get them to send out a set of 780's. I also made sure they're sending the cable as I thought that might also be a problem, but seeing as how they've done 3 repairs on the machine and still haven't replaced it I'm at the "if you want it done right, do it yourself" stage.

Parts should be arriving within a few days and hopefully that fixes things, otherwise I'll start looking into the 980m options - I've never thrown an overclock on my cards just because I use them for work and absolutely try to avoid downtime like the plague, but honestly after this fiasco if I stick with the 780's I might just start because that hasn't paid off in spades so far.

 

Is the sli cable for the 580m's the same for the 780m?

 

Yes