I need help related to a GT780R

A friend of mine has this laptop, and he is willing to upgrade the graphics card. I think that model features a MXM slot for the gpu (his current gpu is a gtx 560m).
My doubt is which is the best card he can use in this laptop? Any help would be great, since im not familiar with MSI laptos.

 

The best Card is the GTX970M/GTX980M, here is the Upgradethread: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-official-msi-gt60-70-970m-980m-upgrade-thread.765058/

Price for Card + Heatpipe ca. 550-600Euro or you modify the GTX560M Heatpipe, this is possible.

btw: The MSI GT780R is a MS-1761 Barebone. Here is the GT780 Owner Thread with many GTX970M Users: http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/the-official-msi-gt780-gt783-owners-lounge.584869/page-493

 

I have a gtx 680m that i no longer use, do you think it will fit in his computer? also im worried for the psu, its just 180w

 

No, the GTX770M is the only Kepler card, which work in the barebone.

180W PSU are normal for this barebone, because there is no greater power supplies, officially. Unofficially some guys rebuilt the 230W Power Supply from Dell / Hp.

 

PCB/BIOS compatibility answers it all, plus PSU bottleneck.
You will need unlocked EC to drive more performance.

 

I don't think the older machines really had the EC limits as such, it's more down to what the motherboard can deliver. You can get a 7970M running just fine in those machines though so a 180W PSU with 970M (tweaked) and 980M (stock) should not provide any issues.

 

MSI had implemented power limitation since the early 1651/1721. GPU went over 100C before and they had to limit the power draw in the latter version of EC.

 

So, if i give it a try (the 680m), can get damaged either the gpu or the laptop itself?

 

The GTX680M is not compatible with the MS-1761, also your heatsink is not not compatible with the GTX680M. The GTX570M Heatsink will only fit on GTX670M, GTX580M and GTX675M.

 

Thats bad news, i will tell him, but im afraid those cards arent a big jump in performance from his 560m. Do you know if the 7970m is working or any other amd gpu?

 

yea, the GTX680M is a very good Card, the performance is a little bit better like a GTX770M. The Radeon HD7970M and other Radeon Cards can be work, but not all revision´s... but i have not so much experiences with radeon cards, so i can´t give you a better answere

For all Radeon Cards you need also another heatsink.

 

The performance os the 680M is a fair bit better than the 770M and the tweaking potential is much higher. The 7970M has similar stock performance but not as much tweaking room.