Should I upgrade or not? M15X 940XM

Hey guys,

I'm just wondering what do you guys really think about my 1 and half year old m15x.

Specs:
i7 940XM
GTX 460M
8GB RAM 1333MHz
128GB SSD
750GB HDD
external bluray drive

Do you guys reckon I should upgrade to ivy bridge laptop or mine is still fine?
And how does the 940XM compare with the likes 2720QM? (overclocked 940xm)
I havent compared them myself, just wanted to know if theres a huge difference between 940XM overclock with 2720QM up.

Thanks!!

 

6970M or 7970M. Unleash the true power out of your M15x.

 

I live in Australia, anyone know where I can source one without paying ridiculous shipping fee with no DoA or returns accepted?

You reckon it will hold its own againts newer laptop sandy/ivy bridge? WIth 940xm + 6970M or 7970M.

 

It depends imho. If you're a gamer then just change your GPU is fine, CPU is not as important as some may think and your 940mx is fine. If you're not and have the money then why not? Buying a new Alienware is better but I would wait until Windows 8 is released so that I won't have to upgrade my OS.

 

As Kazalor mentioned, I would keep what you have on the CPU front, and watch for good deals on the GPU end of things. Not sure where to buy without paying "ridiculous" shipping. Perhaps in For Sale sections of various forums? Otherwise, I would say eBay.

 

Thanks for the respond guys. Appreciate it.

Any idea whats the equivalent to 940xm overclocked on the sandy/ivy bridge like?
Just want a rough idea on what my 940xm standing on.

Reckon 6970 is good enough or it produce too much heat for the m15x to handle? Cos i know people usually put them on m17x..

 

I'd say it would keep pace with a 2820, possibly even a 3610.

 

The 920XM and 940XM both the same chip once unlocked with throttlestop can actually outperform the 2820 by a small margin when fully OCed. Fully OCed it will match a stock clocked 2920xm or 3610qm.

If you have the money don't bother with the 6000 series. Get the 7970M. It runs cooler than both 6990M and 6970M due to much more efficient architecture as well as bags more power.

So yeah with your current spec I personally would sell the nvidia chip and invest in a 7000x series card. Perhaps the 7950M will be out soon. 5850M power comsumption while still comfortably outperforming the old 6990M!

 

Should I get the 7970M now or wait for the 7950M??

Because I know having both 7970M and 940XM might be asking too much from the m15x..
Any news regarding when the 7950M is going to be out??

 

If you always want to keep your XM overclock, personally im not sure the 7970m is the best bet. The performance is GREAT but im having a lot of throttle issues with power consumption! I'm literally having to run my games without a OC on my XM -- so far its awesome. Maybe this is more exasperrated on my system since I have a Clevo 7970m with dell vbios. And im currently UV'ed to 0.95v

It may be good to wait for the 7950M or a equal 75w card for its benches and by then all prices will have dropped. The 7970m is great and I believe due for a price drop soon!

Again, others who's had their cards more than 2 days would be better to listen to. I'm still learning how my m15x is with a 920xm and 7970m! Overall the systems beasty

 

Hmm..

Yeah I usually keep my XM overclocked, but I think most games doesnt require me to do so.
What game have you played with 920xm + 7970M? And whats the temp like after like 2 hours of gaming or so..?

Thanks for your help bud!

 

UV at 0.95V and running stock clocks you can run an OC of about 3ghz across all 8 threads without throttling. Work out if your game needs more CPU power or less and compensate. If need only a small CPU OC to get max performance then you have more OC headroom on your GPU if the game is graphically intensive. However if the game is more cpu intensive eg RTS then the GPU doesn't need an OC at all. Here you can take the CPU up and use its full potential.

 

King, I think your system handles power much better than mine possibly.

Have you done any benchmarks without throttling gpu with cpu near 3ghz? Or this based on gaming which varies title to title.

Sent from my SCH-I815 using Tapatalk 2

 

Not much with the 7970M. However with the 6990M which consumes at least as much power at 1V and stock clocks I ran BF3 with the cpu at 3ghz across all 8 threads. The cpu load even hit over 80% once! No throttling ever.

 

My fans run 100% or I have to use hwinfo64 to control. Its a CLEVO card I have.

79c @ 100% FAN Furmark after 10minutes. Between 77-79c playing Secret World on Ultra with SAAO, FXAA, and all the fun jazz. And 40-45fps in TSW too. May be firing up dayz this weekend

 

I did forget to mention that I did try 25x multi across all cores which is the highest stable value I can run if I set throttlestop to 25/25/25/25 and running 3dmark11 I had severe throttling in the combined cpu and gpu test at the end of the test. This was with the gpu running at stock clocks and 0.95V. I haven't tested further and won't until a better whql driver is released.