Best/most current GPU upgrade options

Hi guys, thrilled with my M15x that has outlasted any other PC I've ever owned - a while back I swapped my processor for a 920xm and have been running it with no issues with throttlestop, and loving it. My OE GPU is an ATI 5850M and obviously it's showing its age majorly these days. I've been thinking about upgrading but was wondering if some of the guys more "in the know" would share what some of the best options are currently and some pros and cons of the choices. Anything coming in the near future that I should wait for? Price is a factor but if it's cheaper than a new PC WTH I guess I could scrimp and save for something really awesome.

 

Iv not been able to find 8 series gpu's on asian sites but the 770m seems like a decent choice, in terms of power draw and performance.

 

Its just a rebranded GTX 670MX I think. Decent performance and a good overclocker but you'll need to overclock it to keep up with today's games.
Not sure about custom vBIOS support, maybe check out Tech Inferno forum for svl7's collection of tweaked vBIOSes. One reason for 7970m is the amazing vBIOS patcher made by svl7.
Its also plug and play, no messing around with driver inf files or switching to onboard audio in BIOS.

 

770M is a upper mid range gpu IMHO. Unless in SLI not particularly great unless you OC it to the limit which isn't a great thing to do 24/7.

Go for the 7970M or 680M cards. The 680M has the higher potential and higher price but can reach 780M levels and beyond with overclocking. Due to thermal and power restrictions in the M15x you wouldn't be able to push a 780M very far so not really worth the money over the 680M.

Even better would be the 970M and 980M GTX. They will blow away everything. Still waiting on what AMD will have to offer. Money of course here might be an issue..

 

King, I think the 920XM might start being a pretty big bottleneck at clock speeds under 3.8Ghz to the GTX 970M and 980M. Read a review recently of the new FX-8370e or something like that and imo the Nehalem architecture is pretty similar in IPC to piledriver. The review basically stated anything over a R9-270X would be pointless due to CPU bottleneck even at 4Ghz+. Basically say it might be a waste of money if you can't use all the performance. Be interesting to see what GTX 960M is like (on GM206?)

 

The video card you have is the latest supported one for that platform, however we've seen a lot of users with 7970m or 760m on their machines.

 

Not is the gpu has to work harder than the CPU if CPU bottlenecks 1080p down sampling will be a standard new feature to balance workload more

 

I have a 940xm using the 150w pin trick will a 680m work or 870m work as the both need 100w? I am looking for a kepler card to gamestream as well.

 

You would not be able to OC the 940xm or any gfx card comfortably (or at all) with the stock 150w psu. You may exceed PSU output and cause it to trip, instantly turning your laptop off and potentially damaging components. Not worth the risk, get a 210W or 240W PSU and breathe easy.

King I'd be interested to do a comparison between a 920xm/940xm overclocked to 3.6Ghz vs the Pentium Anniversary G3258 overclocked to 4Ghz+ for gaming. Two super super fast threads or 8 slow threads? I really hope the rumours are true and GTA V will support mantle.

 

I guess it depends on what you test. If the program/test favours multi cored/threaded cpu's then the 920xm would be ahead. If only 1 or 2 threads are used then the PA G3258 would be ahead. I think most modern games utilize more than 2 cores.

 

I upgraded earlier this year from the AMD 5850m to the Nvida 770m. My 5850m was getting a little long in the tooth, and I was struggling to get decent frame rates in games such as Battlefield 4. The 770m is a huge step up from the 5850m, a definate performance jump.

In terms of raw power then starting with least powerfull to most powerfull ... Nvidia 770m -> AMD 7970m -> Nvidia 680m

I was initially looking for an AMD 7970m, as these are plug and play (though I think as long as you buy the right card). I bidded on a few of these, didnt win any, then a Nvidia 770m came up and was the right price (that I was willing to pay).

I expect my card to last me until the middle of next year, so it will give me 18 months extra life on my M15x (so five in total!). I have the slv7 bios on my card, I don't overclock (standard 770m clocks) and apart from a temperature issue (which I believe is my own issue, down to my own heatsink) I have no problems with it at all.

As fatboyslimer and King of Interns have mentioned above the AMD cards do not require moddified drivers to get working, or the case with the Nvidia 7* cards need to mess about with the audiosettings (they work, just an issue with the default audio drivers).

I'll be interested to see if what the 970m's are like when they are available. I'll be buying a complete new laptop next time (as long as I get wife approval!).

 

Thanks for the ongoing discussion guys - I have read that some guys have trouble with HDMI audio out using cards that aren't "officially supported" so I was wondering what they are doing to use the HDMI - are they getting audio from the headphone jack then? Are some cases better than others for this? As I use my HDMI for audio when I watch movies and play games on my TV - I never use the laptop screen.

P.S. the new 970/980 look amazing. Is there any chance they will possibly work in the M15x?

 

I use the Display Port out (to HDMI) and use the audio from that. It works fine, just once you sort out the initial IRQ / driver conflict.

 

Very high chance!