Buying a GE60...which graphics card? How difficult is a graphics card upgrade? Help please :]

A little background on me...I'm a motion graphics designer that's going to upgrade to Adobe CS6 and I've been looking around for a new laptop that I want to last for at least a good 2-3 years. I heavily use After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier Pro, InDesign and 3D work in Cinema 4D. I'm also planning to learn Maya. My current laptop is slowly dying and decided to get a new one for work and leisure. I move around quite a bit and sometimes I'll get work while I'm away from home so I wanted to invest in the mobility of a laptop and save the desktop setup for the future.

After looking I've determined that I'm going to purchase the MSI GE60. I like that it's thinner and lighter than a lot of the other gaming laptops and has the features I needed.

Which graphics card would be better? The GT 650m or GTX660m?

Now, I realize that this question has been asked a lot...I've definitely looked in a lot of forums. But obviously the questions are based on gaming experience and I wanted to know which would suit me better for my specific purposes? I'm mainly using it for motion graphics, visual effects, and video editing but I might venture into pc gaming a lot more with this laptop (probably some elder scrolls, battlefield, borderlands 2, anything interesting really...open to suggestions :]). I think my main concern is how well they would handle the work I do and if one runs cooler than the other.

In other threads they're essentially the same (clearly not exactly the same). So would it be worth it to pay the extra $150 for the 660m version of the GE60?

Also, how easy would a graphics card upgrade be? I'm familiar with swapping out HDD/SSDs and upgrading RAM (going to buy a more ram and a samsung 840 pro ssd separately to put in this) in laptops but not very much with graphics cards upgrades. I was looking into quadro cards since they're kind of aimed towards 3d rendering but I can't really shell out the extra $600+ right now. If in the future I wanted to to upgrade the card, how difficult would it be to do it and are there any extra things to do afterwards (as in, will the laptop just start running fine on the new card)?
I don't think I'm in a desperate need to upgrade anytime soon anyway but I thought I'd ask just in case.

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

The 660M is just a higher-clocked 650M. They have the same specs. If gaming is only secondary concern, I would say the 650M should be plenty. There's always a chance you'll get a decent card that can overclock to 660M levels. Just don't expect it to clock that high though. Anything higher than stock is bonus.

For the GE60 and GE70, changing your graphics card is impossible. The GPU and VRAM are attached to the motherboard.

MSI models like the GT60 are ostensibly upgradeable since they use MXM cards.

 

Thank you for your help, I'm probably just going to get the 650m. By the time I would even decide to upgrade the graphics card my laptop will probably be outdated and it might be a little pointless to upgrade it.

 

If it's something you could do, not really.

GX660 users went from the mobility HD5870 to the HD7970M and their systems are more than relevant

Maybe the 16F3 barebone prices would be a bit closer to target?

 

Yeah that's true though, I was thinking about the possibility to upgrade and that's why I asked. I might end up wanting to change it instead of buying a whole new computer. The 16F3 is physically kind of larger and heavier for my preference. Like I mentioned before I move around a lot and I'm kind of a small girl so i was trying to find something that was a bit thinner and lighter, trying to keep it under 6lbs. I understand that you can't have your cake and eat it too so there would have to be a compromise somewhere. The GE60 was pretty much what I was looking for but it is kind of a bummer that I can't upgrade graphics cards in the future.

I looked at Sager laptops and from my understanding they're relatively easy to swap out parts, kind of a big selling point for the brand. The NP3265 is a good size and very cheap but only has a GT 635m stock which is kind of lame. The NP6350 has the GTX660m stock which would be fine, it's a bit thicker but still just under 6lbs (my current laptop is 1.61" and 6.3lbs).

So either I just go with my first choice of the GE60 and save up for a desktop. Or maybe go with one of these other choices.

I'm terribly indecisive, I'm sorry :/. Can't all laptops just let you upgrade anytime if desired?!?

 

Slots and modular heatsinks all take up extra weight and size

If portability is a must then the GE60 is ok, but you will be stuck with your graphics choice. Everything else in the machine is upgradable however.

Be aware that all notebooks are locked into their current CPU generation, you wont be able to put the latest I7 4 series in when in launches (just like a desktop motherboard) but you may pick up a higher end chip in your series for less when it does as there will be more floating around.

Only the "pure" p series from clevo have changeable graphics (P150EM, P151EM, P170EM etc) the same goes for MSI, their GT series and their barebones.

Any other machine will have soldered in graphics.

We used to have acer that had MXM-A slots and lighter machines, if that were still the case today you would have had machines taking GT650M cards in a slot and be upgradable later.

 

Thanks for the information, I think I'll just stick with the GE60. I'm pretty sure it'll be good for a couple of years for what I need it for.

 

So long as you are fully aware of what you are buying and are sure it's right for you then my job is done. =) enjoy it!