[MSI GT683/MS-16F2] Any GFX upgrade ?

Guys,

In addition of changing my i5 to an i7-2820QM, I was thinking perhaps of replacing my beast GTX460M.

My question is what options do I have ? 570/485/580M or can I even go for the AMD mobile (6970/6990M)? Is it really worthy at the end (performance/price compared to my super 460M) ?

I currently have a 150W power supply so I would need a bigger one obviously.

The last thing in my mind is where could I find/buy this kind of GPUs ? I was looking on eBay but couldn't find any seller...

Thanks for your help!

 

i think you can get to a 560M or 570M without much hassle (if you can find one). The rest none of us have tried yet but other than a larger power supply needed, the heatsink seems to fit nicely. But you cant know for sure until you try. From GTX 460M to 570M or better is quite a nice boost.

 

Will need the right heatsink for the 570m.

 

I wont get that much additional performance with the 570M I think and it is really expensive so If I go for a new one, I will buy either a 6970M+ or GTX485+

Do you think an AMD GPU will fit in ? I know some AW users with GTX460m have upgraded to 6970M, I assume as it is MXM 3.0 it should work but would like to know if someone has already done that with any MSI laptop (with NVIDIA GPU initially)

 

though not exactly what you guys want to know, i've successfully swapped out a 5870m to a 460m, then to a 6970m in my GX660. (just had to file a few corners in the aluminum part of the heatsink. )

No problems at all.

 

Well the GTX 570M is a tiny bit weaker than a 6970M, equal in some games/tests.

@GFY: other than the hardware mod, did you have to modify the bios or change anything softwarewise for the card to work properly? Is the fan control works normally? And do you need a larger PSU for it? I read from the AW forum that some have problems with the fan not working or something.

You make me thinking of upgrading to a 6990M

 

Well i just installed a 580M in the 16F2 barebone no problems using the old 560m Heat sink just for testing purposes.
Yes totally didnt fit, but the 16f2 booted up fine screen was showing standard vga card came up.
When i tried to install the nvidia drivers for it, a message came up Error no GPU found therefore the drivers could not be installed.

I'm guessing there is no bios support for this GPU.

In all, at least i know it fitted and booted up fine even tho i couldnt test it properly.

We need the GT683DX or GT780DX gpu heatsinks, does anyone know where we/I can get one of these heatsinks from.

Also will the GTX485M just fit in with no new heatsink and be supported in the bios.

tnx

 

The only softwarewise thing I did would be removal of ati drivers, then installation of nvidia drivers. Though I could have sworn the original ones didn't work, I had to get the ones from laptopvideo2go. (?) I didn't have brightness controls, but that's it. Everything worked plain dandy

Well, for the 6970m/6990m you definitely need a 180w psu. The fan? well, I have mine on turbo boost the whole time, so I don't really worry about that.

 

Yep! thought as much for the drivers as i was trying to install the normal nvidia released one.

Did you do any modifications to your heatsink for the 6970m/6990m fitment?

Or was it just as you mentioned above a slight file back on corners. Can i also ask what do you have in your original gt660 gpu wise

 

Oh, I just did the simple file on the corners of the aluminum blocks.

Had the 5870m originaly

 

@GFY: you did it! that pushed me over the edge and I have pulled the trigger on a 6990M, lets wait for it to arrive and see if it works :-s

@bar-code: man I wish you have used a modified inf from laptopvideo2go, they have supported the 580M for awhile now (just recently added the 570M). I dont know but from what you've said i think the bios support the card alright since you can boot into windows and run the exe for the driver, just a little bit more and bam! oh well.

Mine already came with a 180W PSU and the heatsink is for 570M so lets hope it will fit and play nice with each other.

 

oh lol! Congrats and GOODLUCK bro

If and when it works, welcome to a whole new world of "**** , it's too smooth D:<"

 

The GTX580M and GTX485M fit the GTX570M heatsink perfectly.

The 6990M will need a modified HD5870 heatsink.

 

LOL, i actually still have the 2x 580m cards with me still and will try again on the weekend.
Link please to the laptopvideo2go inf file please!!
I also have 2 spare dell m18x gpu heatsinks which i might modify to fit the 16f2 chassis.

If i do the project, i'll take full pictures as i go and post my results.

 

Keep us in touch then !

@Meaker Do you have 2 or 3 heatpipes for your GPU ? Do 570, 485, 580M and 6970+ need 3 heatpipes then ?

@G.F.Y @dragon290513 Where guys are you buying your GPU ? I couldn't find any seller on the web...

cheers

 

The heatsink fully covers the card with specific posts for each part of the VRM circuitry.

Put a card with a different layout in there and the posts will hit into parts of the card preventing it from laying flat.

The 460/560 heatsink will only fit those cards. The 570M heatsink will fit the 485 and 580 as they all are very similar in layout. The 5870M heatsink only requires a little modding for the 6970/6990 as shown in the 6970M upgrade at mxm-upgrade.com.

 

Hi Meaker, thanks for all your feedback here. +rep

I'll be cutting the Dell gpu heatsink just after the whole flat bit which sits flat on the the gpu. So this bit will be flat and fit perfect on the card.

Then im going to take the 460m original msi heatsink and cut that after the flat bit as well and weld it to the dell heatsink so the msi one fits around the fan bit area perfect. (the dell gpu cooler pipes are too long and designed different)

Why doesn't MSI sell spare parts to make life easier.

Anyway that's my theory. lol

 

Then I will wait to buy a card with the right heatsinks supplied
No idea where I can buy those anyway?

 

cant wait
v285.38 Windows 7/Vista 64bit | NVIDIA OEM Mobile - LaptopVideo2Go Forums
click on download driver and inf modifieded, put the inf file into display.driver and then run setup

there are 2 overpriced 6990M on ebay atm and I bought mine via NBR marketplace.

maybe I should look around for a 5870M heatsink then, thanks for your info

nah unless MSI officially support it, you have to mod it yourself (or ask someone to do it for you)

 

I thought the 570m heatsink was the same as the 560m, with only 6 VRM posts. I know the 580m has 8 VRM chips on the card itself. It's a really bad thing to not have the heatsink in contact with the VRM circuitry, right? Granted, I haven't taken out my GPU heatsink to check the 570m layout, but I could have sworn that it was like the 560m. This is basically what's been keeping me from pulling the trigger on a 580m.

 

Just look at a picture of each card.

The 560M has one chip at the corner the L the memory makes that will hit straight into the inductor on the 570M like cards.

570M = 580M missing two memory chips. The 570M and 560M have a different core.

The VRMs can run hotter than the core.

For the 570M heatsink try the MSI suppliers, they might be willing to order it for you.

 

I actually already have the 570m with heatsink in my dxr version. I was just confused when you said the 570m heatsink will fit the 580m perfectly. Since the 580m has 2 more memory chips, I didn't think the 570m heatsink would fit the extra memory chips on the 580m. Also, the 580m has a wider surface area on the GPU, but I'll take your word for it that it fits.

 

this saturday my 6990M will arrive and then I can investigate further, hopefully I dont have to do much.

The seller sent me shots of the 6990M heatsink for M17x R3, can you guys make out anything from it?




Bonus my new raid set up:

 

It looks like there's thermal tape and pads on the heatsink...is that typical? Can't really see the text on it, but you may be able to find a better pic somewhere. Nice SSD scores, I score slightly less with my M4. Damn, 2x512gb SSDs! That's gotta run like close to $1400 for both . I'm sure you don't want to take out your 570m heatsink until you get the 6990m, but it might help to compare the heatsinks.

 

Your read speed is a bit off.

I see anywhere between 1050 and 1150MB/sec seq out of my raid 0 64GB M4 set.

I also get around 550MB 512k read.

 

Just thought I would share this. Today I decided for the heck of it to take the 485m out of my Sager 8170 and put it into my GT683DXR. As has been discussed previously, the heatsink does in fact line up just as it should.

Upon starting the laptop, I was greeted with a black screen. No boot logo, no display of any kind. I immediately chalked it up to the vbios of the 485m not being "compatible", or the bios of the laptop itself, and just pulled it back out and put the 570m back in.

I've seen around here when people have done swaps like this, they've suggested trying a different manufacturer vbios. I debated for about 1/2 a second if I should flash the 485m with a vbios from one of the Alienware cards, but decided not to. I didn't want to go that far. I just wanted to see if it would work "out of the box", so to speak.

For me, that answer would be no.

 

Thanks for the 485m update - well this throws the 485m out the window.

The 580m that i tried and worked fine was from an alienware m18x so it had the dell vbios on it. booted fine in win 7 but it came up as a standard vga. I'll try again in the comming days with the modded inf file and see if i can get it too be detected.

 

I will take picture when pulling out the 570M along with its heatsink for reference. When the card arrive which is this saturday.

Yeah im abit confused about that too. Its funny i got half your read speed while double in write??? I used the default raid controller on bios and do most stuff on the SSD optimization guide.
Could it be because theres tons of tiny file in the partition right now? As i have like 4-5 RPG games and the steam folder also. Maybe after i settled with the gpu, i will try to move things over to seagate and test again.

Also as i remember you got a 5870M but didnt imply it. Do you still have the GX660 heatsink for it? If yes maybe you can sell it to me or something. Its just me thinking of back up plan in case the 570M heatsink need heavy modding.

That is troubling . Hope things go well with mine.

It seems like this weekend you and i have lots to do.

 

Cant wait to see the results, then might pull the trigger too :$ (or you can sell me your 570M )

 

hmm my replacement dell gpu coolers didnt arrive today so i'll leave my little project till nextweek.

They want their 2x580m cards back, but not the coolers. If im successfull with the 580m i might just have to tell dell i lost one jk

But by all means dragon290513 good luck and post your results

 

I do indeed have a 5870 heatsink, just I might want to go that route myself

To me it looks like the 570M heatsink is likely the most universal, just be aware that it wont cool all the VRMs, which would worry me.

As for the SSDs, the higher capacity drives should have identical read speads and higher write speeds (more chips).

However I know the highest capacity can sometimes be a touch slower than the one below (same chips, but slightly slower double density ones). Should not be that much, maybe check you are in SATA III mode?

 

now that you mention it i checked intel RST and it said that out of the pair, one use SATA III 6Gbps while the other one is in SATA II 3Gbps. Do you have any idea on how to get it back to 6Gbps? (i put them in the 2 HDD slots available, the seagate drive I used an optical caddy)

 

Now that I've seen the underside of the 6990m AW heatsink...I wonder if using thermal tape would help on the VRMs that aren't getting contact with the heatsink...

 

Would put them in contact with the PCB which should be able to get rid of it. I don't think there is anything around there, obviously make sure there is nothing on or right next to it.

 

hmm when i got the card I will take shot and upload them here for you guys to compare and share expert opinions first. Havent done any actual modding before just pull out and repaste and modify vbios a bit

 

Well my project has come to an end with the 580m in gt683r.

Since MSI has bricked my 683r barebone with there stupid currupted bios they are now sending me a replacement MSI GT780DXR i7 Barebone with a 570m, i will settle with this.

thanks anyway all for your replys

 

well that sucks man but im glad they replaced it with a GT780DXR. Do you have to pay any extra for it?

 

Nope! trust me, i freaked out badly!! They want the old one back tho!! Which is fair enough

 

That definitely sucks man =/. Maybe sometime in the future you will consider trying the 580m in the gt780! Assuming you weren't put off by this bad BIOS occurance. I'm interested to see if a 580m would work without any BIOS modifications.

 

If i still have the cards when this gt780 arrives, i will try it for sure!! since it should be a straight out replace and fit cooler should work too.

 

Anyone who is thinking about switching up different parts of heatsinks, or whatever... you can't cut heatpipes. Even if you weld them back together. They will become completely useless after the vacuum & fluid is released.

You can desolder them from the mounting plates with something very hot like a heatgun or blowtorch. And you can solder them back on, just a little more difficult.
It looks like this would be possible with the m17x r3 heatsink, since the heatpipes are roughly in the same place.
But the performance could end up worse. Heatsinks work with complex principles of physics and their manufacturing varies more than we can tell.

 

This is a triumph!



Baby steps but yeah, more detail coming soon!

 

Looking good Dragon and congrats on the working card .

Open up Hwinfo and lets see some temps after a Crysis 2/Vantage run.

 

some modifications still needed for it to work perfectly. Please hold on while I upload some pics of the card and heatsink.

 

Looking good Dragon that MSI now sounds interesting

 

WOW! I'm actually a bit surprised to see the 6990m working. I would have expected the 580m to have better compatibility. Does the 570m heatsink line up at least fairly well with the 6990m? If some of the surface memory chips aren't getting contact, it could be bad...but like I said before, try using some good thermal pads.

 

AMD cards tend to be less picky.

 

yeah I just ordered some with Quadzilla's recommendation

 

This is great and expected news that the card works. I believe the gx640 would support this card too, if it doesn't explode.

Why, because Alienware or Clevos have a better chance of being upgradeable beyond specification?
Not so.
Look at how many different types of cards go into the same motherboards of MSI laptops.

In case anyone was wondering, Clevos now have BIOS lockouts against ANY unrecognized MXM cards. Wont work with gt 240m or anything like that. The only reason Clevos can be upgraded to the 6990m is because they were made for that card specifically.

MSIs are upgradeable and designed to be so, more than Clevos.

Who knows about Alienware tho. When someone tries the Dell firepro in an MSI we will know (the only card that has failed to work in Alienwares I think).

 

Niff he only came to comment in this thread because i told him to and i certainly dont think he was looking to challenge anyone or start an argument about MSIs lack of upgradeability .. He simply said it jokingly .

Him and i both have looked at many MSI models over the years and just about every other gaming laptop manufacture .