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Advising on upgrading my M17xR3


chm

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Hello everyone,

Hopefully this post won't break any rules, I tried to make sure it didn't anyway but you can never be too sure! So, as stated in the title, I own an M17x R3 (specs are below) and I'd like to upgrade it as it seems to be getting a bit old to run nowadays graphics. The system also seems to have become a bit unstable, perhaps from my last formating even though I did follow the driver installation order that is on the Dell website. So yeah I'd definitely like to hear your suggestions, I don't want to spend thousands on it, but I'd definitely like to know how to make it better overall.

Here are the specs as received in the purchase email.. if I'm missing something please do let me know..thanks a lot for your time!

213-13053 Processor : Intel Core i7 Processor 2630QM (2.00Ghz, 6MB, 4C) 1

230-11837 Display : 17.3in WideFHD (1920 x 1080) WLED LCD 1

340-24210 Resource DVD : Alienware M17xR3 1

340-24209 Ship Accessory : Western European Docs 1

370-15259 Memory : 4096MB (2x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel 1

400-22273 Hard Drive: 320GB (7,200rpm) SATA Hard Drive 1

429-15640 Optical Drive : 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software 1

450-16348 Power Supply : Alienware 240W AC Adapter 1

450-13573 Power Cord : Euro 250V 1

451-11606 Battery : Primary 9-cell 93W/HR LI-ION 1

490-13155 Graphics : 1.5GB GDDR5 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M 1

555-13552 Bluetooth : European Dell Wireless 375 Bluetooth Card 1

555-13548 Wireless : European Intel Wireless LAN 6300 3x3 (802.11a/b/g/n) Card 1

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Depends on how much budget you have allocated for this upgrade.

1. Video card: GTX660M or up

2. Memory: another two more 2G to make the total 8G

3. SSD: 128G SSD as system and move your current 320G as data

4. CPU: 2820QM is fairly cheap now

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Hello and thanks for the answer! Actually I've had issues finding stores that sell mobile cards..for some reason I can only find desktop gpus for sale so I can't really compare prices, would you know of a decent site?

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  • 2 weeks later...

I got real lucky on a i7-2920XM CPU for my R3, works a charm, so any i7 CPU will be fine. I can run this at 3.6Ghz without the temps getting too high.

Just about to replace the AMD 6990M I have now with a 680M from an R4. Hopefully that'll be a simple change.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got the GTX 670MX in my sig for just over £200 in a sale on ebay (new). It's compatible with the same heatsink I was using for my GTX 560M. Only 'problem' is, is that you have to disable Optimus to use this card in my laptop. With a modified vBIOS on stock voltage I've also managed to overclock it by 50%, so it's nearly as fast as a stock 680M, and temperatures never go over 63 degC, plus it sucks 20W less power than my 20% overclocked GTX 560M I was using before. Very happy with that upgrade, and I'd recommend it. However, it does take some tinkering with thermal pads to set up the heat sink right, and you have to know the install procedure, etc, and then there's the modded vBIOS. So, it's not an EASY upgrade depending on your level of experience. So, I'd recommend the GTX 670MX to you.

Spending money on upgrading the CPU I don't think is necessary for gaming, yours is perfectly good; well, it wouldn't really be worth the money anyway. I'd upgrade the RAM to 8GB of 1600Mhz RAM if you can get a good price or just slap in another 4GB of your existing specced stuff to get it up to 8GB, but then you'll have to remove the keyboard to get to the 2 extra memory banks - only a bit of a pain.

And for general computing experience (not gaming so much), you could consider an SSD for a boot drive & use your 320GB hard drive for data storage/game storage.

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If immediacy is desired, consider a 670MX or 675M.

If you can afford to wait; 680Ms are dropping in price because of the 780M upgrade cycle, consider waiting a little longer and buying a GPU that will hold you over for a longer time than compared to a 670MX or 675M.

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I wouldn't go with the 675M though, because they are old tech (Fermi), run hot & suck a lot of juice, I also don't think they overclock well because of this. The 670MX is the latest generation (Kepler), runs cooler, sucks less power, is more overclockable beyond the speed of an overclocked 675M, and costs less to buy. The 675MX is a different story though, that's Kepler, and is the same as the 670MX, but just has more memory bandwidth due to 256bit memory bus, but the 675MX is significantly more expensive than the 670MX.

I do agree with fourberie though, it could be worth waiting for a drop in prices of the 680M (not sure how much they will drop in price though, sometimes these things just seem to stay at inflated prices), because they are way faster than any of the other cards I've mentioned, plus it will overclock pretty well when used with a modded vBIOS

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