Gtx 580m alienware m15x?

Hi

I have an m15x and can get a 580m pretty cheap, I see only one post with a person having some success I have modded my own gpu bios's before and well used to flashing them both nvidia and ati. I was checking voltages and it seems 580m is using less voltage.

Also I have scanned a few dell/alienware vbios's and some have 3 clocks states and some have 4. The 460m currently in it has 3.

Any advice will be appreciated. I am kinda hoping the 3 clock state one will work.

NOTE: I can get a dell 6970m for 2/3 of the price also.

 

6970M would be much more hassle free! However I wouldn:t go for that gen of gpu`s at all if I were you.

The current gen is FAR better and with maxwell around the corner literally you will kick yourself going for the HOT slow 580M

To put things in perspective the 2 year old 7970M is 4x as powerful as your current 460M !

 

^^ I agree to this. It's not an official upgrade but I've seen plenty of success stories with it. There is even a full guide here on NBR.

 

I've upgraded to the GTX 780m in my m15x in the past... It had some pretty bad Throttling issues, not becasue of temps believe it or not but because the motherboard was unable to provide the voltage to the card. Some people say that a larger power supply could help fix that, but who knows i was already using a 220w. I would either go with a 7970m or a 680m. The 580m is basically a 485m thats power optimized so you should be fine.

 

580m will work just make sure its a actual dell card and that it has a old vbios on it. latest 580m vbios doesn't work with the m17x r2 at all so i would assume the same with the m15x.

 

I've seen a M15x running a 780M at 1000Mhz and 920XM overclocked both with no problems giving 3DMark11 benchmarks more than 8000...

 

I went with the dell 6970m for E108 as imo was a bargain the dude has loads of cards for good prices. He also had a 660m for E96 & a 580 for E144.

Eventually I'll look at 680m or 7970, the 7970 seems more problematic still uncertain was it drivers or hardware (sounds like bad vram to me in most cases).
I could have got a 7970 that booted to windows installed drivers but when launching 3d application would black screen and reboot.