fatboyslimerr

I find my solution of pointing fans at 45 degrees to the gpu exhaust definitely keeps it a few degrees cooler. Without these fans the case gets hot and hot air just blows out the back without any force to remove it. With fans on the case stays cool and the hot air is blown away from the exhaust. Also might be some incidental cooling of the heatsink grille as it feels much cooler.

Thanks guys for the continuing recommendations but the first post does indicate that I may already know about BS and TR I've tried walking dead series but I found the point and click gameplay so constraining and restrictive. Maybe best played on a tablet? I found the PC version hard to play for long periods of time due to frustrating controls. Right now I'm just loving replaying Max Payne 3 so much! Its such a fantastic game and the gameplay is perfect. It will really be hard to follow up my 3rd or maybe 4th playthrough of this great game with any new releases... Again thanks for continuing recommendations.

Ip man 2 is also brilliant but not quite as good as the first one. Similar to Fearless with Jet Li in that its Chinese Kung Fu (Wing Chun) verses Western Boxing. Pretty ridiculous but seeing as how the boxer in the film is British I wasn't sure who to cheer for.... Very rapid fight scenes so best watched in high resolution.

Edit: miscellaneous information

Unless you like the stock cooler of GTX 780 I really like the look of the [h=1]EVGA GeForce GTX 780 ACX Superclock[/h]I read an article Jacked-Up: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 SC with ACX Cooling - HotHardware that really rated the ACX cooler, meaning more headroom for overclocking or higher clocks if you don't disable gpu boost 2.0.

16GB 1333Mhz DDR3 is the max although only 8Gb will be displayed in BIOS, 16GB is reckoned and used by windows. Also something like an i7 720QM or 840QM will be a great performance boost from your current processor and is much cheaper than an XM processor.

An Intel i7 (Clarksfield) would be a big increase in performance over your i3. The best option is the i7 920XM or 940XM as these are unlocked processes and can be overclocked quite heavily. Both work well in the M15x. Graphics card depends on your preference but the AMD 7970M works well but does experience throttling issues when combined with a XM processor. I run mine undervolted to keep it running cool and it generally works very well. Nvidia options: GTX 660M, 670MX, 675MX, 680M, 770M all work well with the 680M being the best option. Apparently the 680M doesn't throttle as bad as the 7970M whilst offering more performance but it is considerably more expensive. All Nvidia cards after the 460M require a slight driver inf file mod that should be available on this forum. You can buy Clevo or Dell graphics cards but you will need a different x-bracket for AMD cards. You can get any 1333Mhz DDR3 SODIMM memory, or even 1600Mhhz but it will downclock to 1333Mhz due to that being the max supported speed. x2 4GB sticks of 1333Mhz would be a good upgrade. A SSD will be a very nice boost in boot times and various other things. The Samsung 840 or Crucial M4 are both good options as the M15x can't take advantage of faster write speeds due to being limited to SATA 2 interface. All of those things may add up to $800-1000 however....

Ok here is the latest build: Cooler Master N200 mATX case (amazing budget case) Gigabyte G1. Sniper M5 (amazing sound with Xfire or SLI) i5 4670K HIS HD 7950 IceQ Cosair Vengeance 2133MHz 8GB RAM BeQuiet Pure Power 730W Modular PSU Zalman CNPS11X Extreme CPU cooler and one Air Penetrator for front intake to feed air to gfx card. Thanks for all comments so far.

Good idea but I just assumed fans would ramp up to maximum eventually and stabilise temperatures. Also going to try re-pasting and cleaning heatsink.

What would be considered acceptable gpu temperatures whilst gaming? I'm running undervolted and still temperatures can sneak up to 80 degrees. I get thermal shutdowns at 85 degrees. No idea why....

Wow that is exactly what I am looking for. Thanks so much for writing all that. Really appreciate it. I will definitely buy Fallout 2 off Steam immediately I've played Amalur and whilst the combat was fun the story was utterly weak and disappointing. Thanks for the suggestion though.

Thanks, not sure about the comic-style graphics but I'll take a look.

The one on the left has a cover for the VRAM on the bottom of the card, if your card has VRAM (black chips) on the bottom which it looks like it does from the compression of the thermal pads then I'd use the one that came with it for slightly better cooling.

Signed! I want Red Dead on PC, including the zombie expansion!

Yeh I've got the second one ready to watch. I've also seen there is a film called Grandmaster The Grandmaster (2013) - IMDb released next month that appears to be a remake of Ip man? I love how brutally Ip Man dispatches that Japanese General! Wing Chun rules!

I did exactly what you are trying to do with my M15x. I bought the SSD, placed it in a USB 2.0 enclosure (about £10) then used Acronis True Image to clone the current HDD. (You may need to go on Administrative tools and assign the SSD a drive letter so that it shows up in my computer). Then swapped SSD into hard drive slot and it worked perfectly.

Oh my gosh I've just seen this tiny mATX case from Silverstone (SG09)! Its amazing! Coupled with closed-loop cooler, it'll kick ass! I want it!

Thanks for all your recommendations. I've built up a bit of a game library now. I've been playing Bastion a bit and like how it plays. I will definitely take a look at Fallout 2 but I am worried the aging graphics may ruin the experience somewhat. Also for pure ridiculousness I got Sleeping Dogs because it looks like a bit of fun. Along the same lines I've been replaying Max Payne 3 and even though the story is a bit lackluster the gameplay is just perfect. Slow-mo done properly. For me it has fantastic re-playability on the hardest difficulty and the story being dull isn't a big problem for me. Dropping an entire room full of bad guys in less than a second (real time not slow-mo time) and watching them all drop to the ground at the same time is just brilliant! I'm worried by what games are on the horizon though. What do we have to look forward to for the rest of 2013?

Just finished watching Ip Man. Its brilliant. The story of the man who trained Bruce Lee. Amazing kung fu fights.

Is that because you're using a 330W PSU with modded 1-wire ID chip? Can I have your PSU when you get your new laptop?

Bah maybe I'm just bitter that I got a 7970M and not a 680M. You did experience the throttling issues of 7970M in M15x right? Then my Dell card likes shutting down at 85 degrees meaning I can't overclock it and have to run it undervolted....using ICD7

Isn't 675mx a 100w card (notebookcheck says power draw is slightly less than 680m) and 770m a 75w card? Wouldn't 675mx run a bit hot? Also does it throttle in M15x?