Upgrade Asus ROG G551jm video card?

[carecrimen94]

I recently bought a gaming laptop, asus rog g551jm with an nvidia geforce gtx 860m 2gb graphics card, i'm very happy with the overall gaming performance of my computer, but i was wondering if it is possible to upgrade the video card for a gtx 860m 4gb or a gtx 880m or a 4gb video card? I want this upgrade thinking in the "next gen" games, i'm not sure if 2gb would be enough to keep the actual performance level (graphics in high, all that stuff), thanks!

 

[Prostar Computer]

I cannot recall whether their 860M is an MXM module or a surface mounted chip on the motherboard, but either way, the video card/chip is not upgradeable. Asus locks their systems down, so even if your model touts a removable MXM card, the firmware will almost certainly conflict and prevent upgrading (or even downgrading, for that matter).

 

[HolyNephilim]

The G551 series has an MXM PCI slot.

Prostar is right. The firmware will fight you if it isn't a card the manufacturer intended for that mobo.

You can work around that though. Its insanely advanced stuff but it's doable.

You would have to rewrite portions of the BIOS and vBIOS to allow proper interaction between the mobo and the video card.

If you make a mistake while making these rewrites it may end up bricking your mobo and/or your video card.

If you're replacing your card with a ASUS card intended to be used in your mobo then it should work right out of the gate.

If you're replacing your video card with another ASUS card not intended for your mobo, and from the same series of cards (e.g. kepler, maxwell etc.), then you need only worry about driver issues.

I've taken a GTX 660m out of a ASUS G75 and put it in my ASUS G73vw (gtx 460m stock) so that I could get shadow play.

It's important to note that power requirements from one card to another will vary. This means you could end up with your battery and power cable not supplying enough power to truely get the best performance.