LordKarango

Anyone here know of some max mem clocks for the 870m? I tried oc'ing the core, however I could not do much more than +40mhz, however im running +400mhz on the memory and it seems stable. My logic is that memory overclocks would be more beneficial on a card such as this with a small memory bus width.

I've tried using KBT to increase the voltages on the card, however temps got a bit high for my liking (high 80C, with quite a loud fan speed), so I reverted back to the stock vbios (the razer blade isnt know for its good thermals).

Seems like a power limiter issue. Check what the perfcap reason is in gpuz, while running a game/ benchmark.

I had it on my previous 760 sli setup, and while it works, it is not very elegant (you probably expected that). you will have to deal with vrm, and possibly vram cooling yourself, and this is an issue especially with amd cards, where the vrms can get very hot.

The fan on it also has to be connected to a motherboard header, meaning that it won't be controlled by the gpu temp, which is a bit silly.

If you got it for cheap, then go ahead, but After my experience, I just saved a bit more for a custom loop.

If the temps are fine, then just play around in msi afterburner and see what it can do. When on stock volts, your temps should not go up significantly.

It just might be that they make less money off the PC platform as oppose to consoles. Also with next gen consoles being almost the same as eachother, it is very easy to port between the 2, while it a bit more tricky to get it onto the PC (lot easier than in the ps3/ xbox 360 days)

Your idle temps are only 5C above ambient. That is already very good, and I dont see any practical reason to waste your time on reducing it by a couple of C.

I bout a noctua cooler a couple of years back, and since the included thermal paste is suppose to be pretty good, i generally use that for all my desktops/ laptops (except for my current razer blade, as many people are reporting that the stock paste is pretty good, and replacing it can lead to worse temps due to the lack of a heat spreader)

Yes, but indirectly. It is because of the new edge browser, that is a lot lighter on the cpu than chrome is, and since i watch a lot of youtube, when not plugged into the wall, it helps more than you think (go from around 2 hours to nearly 4 on my 2014 razer blade)

if windows detects the gpu when you hotplug it in, can you not go into the nvidia control panel, and set the games to run off the gpu?

I don't have any benchmarks perse, but so far the gaming experience has been visibly similar to windows 8.1. The gaming experience in general (game crashes, BSOD, etc) has been fairly similar as well.

TBH, has external gpus not been a thing with previous version of thunderbolt? I thought it was issues regarding drivers/ gpu manufacturers, that stopped them from coming into fruition.

Personally I feel that it's more important to have a more powerful gpu in a gaming laptop, but That has recently happened with Nvidia showing off laptops with desktop gtx 980's inside (pure insanity)