Desolder GPU? (650m)

Thinking about the 650m DDR5 which might replace the DDR3 version? Or am I just day-dreaming? Assuming Dell 14x r2 has it, so I assume it's not a MXM 3.0?

 

Its completely possible, you don't have to replace the GPU, just the vRAM BGAs. Nope the m14x is not MXM. You also need to make sure the voltages are correct for gddr5 and probably modify the vBIOS after extracting it from the system vBIOS, then you'll have to reassemble the vBIOS into the sBIOS and test. Do all that and it might work.

 

I don't think that they share the same BGA package

 

Yeah GDDR5 and DDR3 have different pinouts, voltages, routing requirements and bios requirements...... Good luck.

Also the M14X will have GDDR5 already.

 

Right. Dell M14x R2 is NOT MXM. 650m is NOT MXM. vRAM is soldered on the mainboard. Just not possible and not worth the effort to be honest even if you could do it.

 

I looked in to this a while ago, it can't be done. While the two versions of the 650m have the same GPU, tt seems the video memory bus is decided at the motherboard PCB design stage since the VRAM signalling requirements are different between gDDR3 and GDDR5. GDDR5 needs a different array of pins which are linked to traces on the motherboard plus the GDDR5 traces are much more precise in length and layout to prevent back-chatter around corners etc.
If you are keen on extreme modding which I might try in future, you may be able to upgrade the gDDR3 chip. It seems that Samsung has a higher bin class of our gDDR3 933mhz chip, the 1066mhz chip seems to carry the same ball grid array layout and outputs so in theory you can desolder all the existing gDDR3 chips.
You then have to apply solder to the BGA of the 1066mhz chips, I think you can use smaller densities enough so 4 channels are used instead of ganging 2 chips per channel, you'll end up with 1gb instead of 2gb but they will theoretically OC better. You then have to mod the BIOS to reprogram the SPD chip. According to the samgung datasheet, you have to raise the latencies slightly for the 1066mhz chips but you may even raise the timings higher to get more OC headroom.
Assuming nothing went wrong, you might end up with 2.6-2.8ghz VRAM which amounts to a 40%-50% ish improvement in memory bandwidth, since bandwidth and performance is a diminishing returns scale you might get 25%-30% in performance improvement. I.e. its a good academic exercise but not a practical thing to do for the benifits.

Also gDDR3=/=GDDR3, Lol Samsung actually has a datasheet explaining the differences. GDDR3 can scale to much higher clockspeeds unlike gDDR3 and has a ton of features at the expense of not being bi-directional access capable and higher energy requirement. i.e. GDDR3 is a blessing since it can clock higher and take more abuse overall, gDDR3 is more fragile.

FYI this research demonstrates how much the gDDR3 ram annoyed me

HF

 

I think you're "day-dreaming" ....

was a nice dream though

 

Thing is/was that I wanted to place a much much looking better laptop that had DDR3. But I guess I'll just continue hunting... 14" is rare with DDR5 these days.

 

you'd be hard pressed to find such a machine, unless the screen was HD or the machine is specifically made for gaming, you simply won't find GDDR5, manufacturers hate to spend extra for something they don't feel is "neccessary" and by neccessary its when the gDDR3 is actually visibly bottlenecking the FPS of the GPU. However, they don't seem to care that stuff like AA, external screen output or pretty much anything that uses the ROPS on the GPU will be bottlenecked as well.

A couple of machines were close, the new Dell XPS is pretty close with a GT 640m + GDDR5, its got cooling issues tough so no OC.
Theres of course the MBP however, they also have cooling issues and while they're not strictly 14", their thinness compensates for the larger footprint.

 

Really? Damn, I thought they were. Thanks for the correction.

In light of this the best you could possibly do is put a maybe higher binned gtx 660m core on it, definitely not worth it. Unless gk104 has the same pinout....

Wrong. The 650m is mostly a BGA. You can put it on an MXM board if you want to, and I assure you, there will be some MXM 650m or at least quadro equivalents floating around at some point.

Obviously, that wont make the m14x into an MXM machine.

 

The K2000m in the precision M4700 is a MXM type A, the K3000m and above are on MXM type B boards too, so yeah it's already been done.

 

^ I'm sayin.


Also GFSI came up with some gt 540m MXM 3.0 A. From what laptop? I think they get OEM Nvidia cards sometimes.

Point being, GPUs are not "MXM or non-MXM", if you have the skills and materials you could make a GTX 680m MXM 2.1 and whatnot.

 

The newest MBP doesn't have a extra slot for a SATA drive does it? As for cooling... I assume all SB/IV laptops suffer the same issues apart from maybe Alienware or anything above 15,6" which usually sport dual fans. ThrottleStop seems to do it's thing, being a high-end CPU or not. I am still not sure if the GPU is the main issue or the useless fan on my current laptop. Both Hwmonitor and gpu-z states that it's the CPU but I hear that a hot GPU will transfer it's heat to the CPU and then out, so I'm pretty much lost here.

 

Isn't the Geforce GT 650m a BGA chip? How would you re-solder it afterwards without a computer-controlled soldering machine?

 

Point being they don't make MXM 650m. You could technically make anything, but the point being is that it doesn't exist. K2000m and K3000m are "equivalent" I guess but they're also meant for workstation type laptops. In any case from OP's description, no it's not an option.

 

If you don't have a need for the optical drive, you can swap it out for a caddy to place an extra hard drive for two internal hard drives total

 

Lol, nice assumptions and generalizations, good luck with that.

With a heatgun. Its possible.

 

Guys! You also have 700Z3C-S01 - OVERVIEW | SAMSUNG which sports 630m DDR5 in some versions (at least here) so wouldn't that make the switch even easier? If nothing works then I'm forced to get a non-retina MBP 15 that comes with DDR5.

 

I'm not sure why so bent on GDDR5? My DDR3 version can perform as well as M14x when overclocked, even competing with M14x overclock. The performance difference isn't that significant. Soldering a GPU is an easy way to a $1000 brick. Not to mention that the BIOS would have to recognize and support the 650m instead of the 630m or 650m or whatever it supported. Usually the vBIOS of these machines is embedded in the system BIOS so you'd need that updated and repackaged as well.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...w110er-first-look-review-102.html#post8732274

 

Checking benchmarks, DDR5 is far more superior not to mention it won't bottleneck the system like my current one. It also matches the 660m if OC'd which is a huge bonus not to mention it'll last longer than this one did.

My 9650m GT lasted far longer than this 550m which is just a OC'd 540m, and yes, they were all DDR3. They can't just compete with todays games which are mostly aimed towards desktop users.

edit: I don't see how 2GB DDR3 (i.e Asus N46VZ) is gonna help either. That laptop won't handle 3 screens, and I doubt editing software would use the vRAM when the SO-DIMMs are so much faster. Both PS apps or stuff like Aegisub uses it which makes it even less useful for me.

edit2: if you mean the 1st gen 14x then it came with DDR3 as well which makes your assumption even less useful.

edit3: Playing on 1080p makes the difference even more were DDR3/5 stands.

 

They seem to also be betting that we won't use MSAA with the DDR3 version of the 650m, performance tanks so hard it goes from playable to slideshow instead of the theoretical 1/3rd FPS hit. Check out the desktop GT 640 vs the GTX650, the difference is absolutely massive, to the point of double at times simply because the GT640 throughput can't scale well with clockspeed. However, I thought its pretty attractive to have the GPU on the GDDR5 running at a lower clockspeed to achieve the same performance (possibly lower voltage), I'm very curious as to the temperature and power draw differences.

 

I mean M14x R2 with GT 650m GDDR5. 128-bit whether DDR3 or GDDR5 pretty much limits any gaming at 1080p or with AA. You're not going to be playing at 50 fps when the DDR3 version runs at 30fps. It's more like 30 vs 33-35. The performance is just not there with the 650m. People seem to think that GDDR5 will magically add 50% FPS over same GPU with DDR3. It's more like 10-15%, 20% at best.

Of course if we had a choice between DDR3 or GDDR5 I'd choose GDDR5 because performance is better. But I wouldn't risk resoldering a GPU for a 10-15% performance increase, not to mention the cost associated with getting a motherboard with a GT 650m to desolder and resolder to the GDDR5 board.

 

In have decided for a MBP 15 so this case is closed. Thanks for all help even if it ended in vain.