How To Change Video Card On Laptop

Pssst—at that place'southward a hugger-mugger that few in the PC gaming customs know: You lot actually can upgrade your big-fatty gaming laptop's graphics.

But fifty-fifty the few who know it'due south possible, believe information technology to not be worth the time and effort. Later all, who wants to scour some obscure forum to find out whether blowing a wad of cash on a GPU from eBay will work? And and so there's the inherent risk of having the used GPU blow upwardly later a calendar month of employ.

Enter Eurocom, a Canadian laptop vendor that in February began offering i-cease-shop upgrade kits for consumers who desire to take the take a chance of performing the equivalent of open up-eye surgery on a laptop. Even meliorate, the kits cover competing vendors (every bit well every bit Eurocom itself, natch), such every bit Alienware. To notice out how well these kits work and how the laptop upgrade process goes, PCWorld decided to upgrade a laptop and run the numbers.

eurocom 980m card — Y'all probably tin upgrade your quondam gaming laptop'southward graphics card, only is it worth it?

Temper your expectations

First, earlier you lot get too excited thinking you lot can get some other a few years out of your four-pound, sparse-and-light gaming laptop just by swapping out the GPU, you probably can't.

Nearly of the upgrades available from Eurocom are aimed at the Big Berthas of laptop gaming that push the definition of portable. Information technology's almost as though the rules forbade any laptop weighing less than seven pounds from existence upgraded.

That'south because these upgrade options are usually just for large laptops fabricated by the manufacturer Clevo. Clevo's non the only manufacturer, of course, but information technology's the about mutual.

The good news is that even if your laptop is from a small boutique gaming company, painted scarlet and has a custom keyboard on it, there's actually a good chance it was made by Clevo, which presses dozens of different designs for dozens of different PC makers.

The laptop I'thou using for the upgrade is a Eurocom P150EM Racer. Information technology's generically known as the Clevo P150EM. Within is an Ivy Bridge quad-core Core i7-3740QM, 8GB of DDR3 and a Seagate hyrid SSD along with a GeForce 675MX.

The GeForce 675MX itself is a Kepler-based GPU with 960 CUDA cores. It's not a bad picayune card. (Note that Nvidia sold ii different GPUs with the model number GeForce 675MX. The older i was Fermi-based and far slower.) The 675MX by itself is nevertheless usable if you want to turn down settings, but I'd had enough of turning settings down. So I had Eurocom loan united states its GeForce GTX 980M kit, grabbed my screwdrivers and cranked up Lil's John's Turn Down For What? Kidding.

The actual upgrade

The physical office of the upgrade is fairly straightforward, but at that place are some things y'all should check off before you lot go along.

Starting time, scan Eurocom's VGA showroom to run into whether the visitor sells a GPU for your laptop. Eurocom supports Clevo units in addition to Alienware units. Once y'all discover a GPU for your laptop, read the fine impress. You may need a certain-level BIOS on the laptop for it to work, and you may also demand a sure-level power brick too. This may be enough to dissuade some from doing then.

For the undaunted, with BIOS updated, it's now fourth dimension to uninstall the Nvidia drivers on the laptop for the GeForce GTX 675MX menu. You then ability down, unplug and pull the battery out. Eurocom warns y'all should also take the usual ESD precautions, and wear a grounding strap. Y'all can a live high-risk life we do and only do it without whatsoever of that, simply at least discharge any built-up static electricity in your torso, and rethink doing it on the retro shag carpet you only installed on a low-humidity day.

On the P150EM, remove 4 screws and slide off the bottom cover. There's another door that covers the ii.5-inch drive likewise. If this were a full upgrade, I might ditch the hard bulldoze for an SSD, or at least also slot in an mSATA SSD into the bachelor slot to improve my drive access times. With just the main hatch open though, you lot have total access to the GPU and CPU.

eurocom p150em guts — The "Eurocom" P150EM is actually built by Clevo, which means the GPU upgrade for information technology should fit many other laptops likewise.

What nearly the CPU?

Much to Intel'southward agitation, a lot of gamers really don't need to stay with the fastest CPU if "all" they do is play games. If you're concerned nearly bombardment life or exercise a lot of video encoding/editing, then yep, you might need the latest and greatest CPU. The chip in the P150EM is quite decent: The quad-cadre Ivy Bridge has a base clock speed of 2.7GHz and volition Turbo Boost to iii.7GHz.

Haswell is certainly a better CPU, just honestly, Ivy Bridge all the same has plenty of life in it. Here'due south the proof you don't need to upgrade the CPU in this quondam war horse below. In pure mult-threaded performance, the Core i7-4720HQ is almost the same speed equally the older Ivy Bridge CPU in the EuroCom P150EM.

originpc eon15x handbrake encode — In pure performance, the quad-core Ivy Span chip is just equally fast equally a similarly priced Haswell quad-core chip.

Then just leave it alone. Demand a projection? Add an MSATA drive or more RAM to the P150EM.

The GPU matters more in gaming

I won't say the same for the GeForce GTX 675MX. It's a good function, only it's not a GeForce GTX 980M. Even better, the GeForce GTX 980M upgrade kit features an 8GB frame buffer. You lot probably won't need all that RAMm but when yous start turning up features in GTA V and lookout information technology swallow more and more than RAM, y'all're glad you're not "stuck" with 2GB of RAM.

eurocom gpu heatsink — You'll need a couple of pocket-sized-head Philips screwdrivers to remove the estrus piping from the GPU.

Remove the rut pipes

To admission the GPU, y'all have to remove iii screws from the heat piping on the GPU core, and some other three on the heat pipe on the voltage regulators and the RAM. Heat pipes, for those who don't know, are cooling mechanisms that wick estrus away where it can be expelled past blowing cool air through it.

One time all seven screws are removed from the two heatpipes, you utilize the paper tabs on the heatpipes to pull them off gently . The heatpipes may actually exist stuck to the GPU from the melted thermal paste, so don't be alarmed if it doesn't budge. At the same fourth dimension, apply common sense on how much strength to use to remove it. Gently rocking information technology effectually a bit may as well help break the seal of the thermal paste.

eurocom upgrade2 — Hither's what the P150EM looks like with the upgraded GeForce GTX 980M mounted.

With both oestrus pipes moved, you at present take access to the MXM module. Ii hex-shaped nuts that likewise must be removed. You can use a minor box wrench, crescent wrench, pair of pliers or flathead screwdriver to break them loose. Once loose, back both off using your fingers. The module will not gently rock upwardly at an angle and out of the slot. It'south like a behemothic RAM module nigh in the way it slips into the slot.

eurocom kit — The Eurocom kit comes with screws, mounts and new heat pipes to friction match the latest GPU you bought.

The kit for our unit of measurement included the MXM module or Mobile PCI Express Module, two heat pipes, screws and offsets for the GPU. Well-nigh of the screws and offsets looked the same, merely I ended up using the new ones to be prophylactic. The heat pipes looked a niggling different, so I decided to utilise the new ones, assuming they were matched to the 980M GPU.

Installing the new 980M card is a bit like a fleck piece of RAM: You slide the edge connector function way into the slot and so push button information technology a bit to make certain information technology's fully seated while tilting it downwardly.

Now insert the 2 hex nuts you lot previously removed and torque them down with a flathead screw driver but a tiny bit ,so they don't back off. Install the heat pipes, making sure to avoid the typical rookie move of leaving the protective plastic cover on the thermal paste.

eurocom gpu heatsink2 — The graphics upgrade kit I received from Eurocom comes with a thermal pad applied to the heat pipe. Simply make sure to avoid rookie mistake #14: Recall to pull off the protective plastic sheet off.

Use caution when installing the GPU heat pipe

When attaching the heat pipe that goes on the GPU core itself, don't get as well crazy. Unlike a CPU, which has an integrated estrus spreader to protect information technology, the GPU cadre is direct exposed for maximum cooling. Chipping a chip off the edge by pressing down as well hard on it will destroy it. The heat spreader uses fairly small screws, and so it'south tougher to damage the core itself. Exercise caution at this phase.

With everything installed, put the bottom cover back on. Install the battery and plug it in and power up. If y'all did it all correctly, information technology should power up and boot into Windows. Nevertheless, remember that in most laptops, there'southward integrated graphics, and it will kick to the IGP before using the discrete graphics menu. You're non quite in the clear even so.

Initially when I did the upgrade, I could use the "reference" drivers from Nvidia'southward website. Just those drivers would not recognize the new GPU and refused to install. Later some caput-scratching, I contacted Eurocom. And aye, that's another reason why buying from Eurocom rather than used on eBay helps—I tin plough to them for advice.

No more reference drivers

It turns out reference drivers don't piece of work with the new GPU. Nvidia's drivers actually check hardware signatures before assuasive installs. Drivers, from hither on out, can only be obtained from Eurocom. The practiced news is if Eurocom goes kaput, there is a lively customs which mods the drivers to work. All the same, you don't to go hunting for drivers. Because timeliness is extremely important to gamers, I asked Eurocom how long it takes to release drivers after Nvidia does. The visitor said pretty fast. How fast?The example I was given was that it took an employee three days to update Nvidia drivers for 64 separate cards. That'due south pretty quick.

In one case I had the proper drivers installed, it was time to check the card to see if I had installed it correctly. To practice that I used Ungine four.0. This synthetic benchmark will put a heavy load on the GPU while also displaying its temperature during testing. Eurocom tech back up said I should see 90c to 95c for it to be normal. Mine were a niggling high, so I opened up the unit and torqued down the GPU on the estrus just a tad more. I closed her back up and tested again and my temps had dropped down to the mid- to high 80s—inside the normal operating range according to Eurocom.

Performance-testing my upgrade

To come across how it performs, I compared benchmarks I took before and after the GPU swap-out and threw in the Origin EON15-X laptop with GeForce GTX 980M to see if all was good. It was. At that place was a slight operation driblet, but that could be from the faster CPU in the Origin besides equally a slightly better cooling solution, as information technology'southward a newer laptop. The improvement in this synthetic is huge over the original GeForce GTX 675MX though.

eurocom p150em 3dmarkextremeoverall — For comparison, here'south Origin's EON15-10 with GeForce GTX 980M to run into if we surrender much operation on the upgraded P150EM. The answer is nope.

In an actual game I saw healthy bumps, too. With the original GeForce GTX 675MX, Tomb Raider ready to Ultimate quality is out of the question at 1920×1080 resolution. With the GeForce GTX 980M in place, I saw 74 fps set to Ultimate. That'south above the magic number of lx fps for all shooters. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor set on Ultra sits down at 32 fps on the original GPU. With the new one I was playing at 65 fps. I also ran K Theft Car: V before and later on and saw it go from unplayable (with almost everything turned to maximum) to playable. GTA V does tend to hammer GPUs depending on the settings. I intended to run more GTA V tests, only a DRM result with the game put a terminate to that. Why Rockstar? Why?!?

eurocom p150em tombraider ultimate 19x10 — 980.The Eurocom P150EM with GeForce GTX 980M upgrade kit installed smokes the original GeForce GTX 675MX in Tomb Raider set to Ultimate.

Doing the math

The results weren't surprising. Information technology's an awesome performance bound going from a GeForce GTX 675MX to a GeForce GTX 980M and no one can debate with that. What they'll fence with is whether it makes sense. The upgrade kit from Eurocom costs $980. Holy kryptonite! Mobile GPUs have never been every bit cheap as their desktop counterparts (a retail desktop GPU is $600), but that's still a practiced chunk of modify.

Think virtually the options. If the principal problem was non wanting to compromise on modern games because the old GPU was inadequate, the alternative is ownership a new laptop. To become into a laptop with a GeForce GTX 980M-class graphics card, you have to spend at least $2,000. So from a certain point of view, spending $one,000 to get state-of-the-art performance saves you $1,000.

There'southward as well the argument that y'all could just sell the laptop to fund a new one, merely I priced that out: You'd exist lucky to sell this particular vintage laptop for $700. That all the same means $one,300 to become its replacement.

Some other option: Sell the used GPU, as well. While used desktops GPUs from 2012 don't hold value, mobile ones obviously do. I've seen the GeForce GTX 675MX sell online for $300–nifty.

1 final thing to consider: Eurocom does warranty the GPU for six months of use. The visitor won't help y'all if your ham-fisted ways bust your laptop doing the upgrade, but if it the GPU melts itself in three months, Eurocom says it'southward covered.

Nosotros know well-nigh people aren't always going to scissure their laptop. Even with its loftier price and risks, withal, there's some justification for doing a graphics upgrade on a laptop if you lot want the performance and are willing to do the work.