[SOLVED] Upgrading an Alienware M18x R2, GTX 980M SINGLE? SLI? Or GTX 1060?

[nanocorp.tarsusendri]

EDITED 06-16-2019: Alright, so... it appears I have not gotten a single response to my question. For that reason, I am editing my question to give this another try. If no one responds again after a while, then I'll take that as "You're on your own.".

So, my current situation is this: I own an Alienware M18x R2 that is used VERY lightly up until recently when I started to use it more often. It is equipped with dual Radeon HD 7970M graphics cards in CrossFire. A recently problem I've encountered is that the newest drivers from AMD, while they work with my graphics cards, the drivers have an incompatibility issue with the laptop's display (after the driver update to the latest, the laptop reboots normally up until the OS boots up to the login screen, where the laptop display goes completely black, though you can connect an external monitor via HDMI to see the login screen). I've only found one version of the AMD driver, and that is the Adrenalin 17.2.2, that works with the laptop's own display.

And because of this problem, I have decided to look into upgrading the graphics cards to something else higher tier. I've looked into the Radeon HD 8970Ms, but if the current Radeon drivers are incompatible with the laptop display, I'd just switch over to the green team instead.

Thus, my question is this: Is it worth upgrading the laptop to dual GTX 980M for SLI? A single GTX 980M for non-SLI? Or upgrade to a GTX 1060M instead? Which option seems to make the most sense?

Advice and input will greatly be appreciated!

 

[nanocorp.tarsusendri]

I REALLY appreciate the advice! I'll look into trying out the 1060m when the time comes. If all else fails, I'll go for the 980Ms. Thanks a bunch!

 

[Collaboradev]

Hi nanocorp.tarusendri,

I just ran across this post. Hopefully I'm not finding this too late. I'm running the dual 980m setup in SLI that you're talking about. Honestly though, my advice is to get out while you can. Don't spend another cent upgrading that laptop. The GTX 980m cards although powerful are also very power hungry and the laptop itself with the power supply is limited to a max of 330w. That's a severe problem. This can be overcome by either modding 2 PSU units into 1 or by purchase a Eurocom 780w power supply. The problems don't stop there however, the 980m cards are very poorly supported on the Alienware M18X R2 hardware. You won't be able to just install the drivers. You'll have to patch the driver INF files and boot with driver signature enforcement off to get them installed. There are also thermal issues that come into play.

Honestly, if I had this to do all over again. I would punt on the upgrade. It's been more of a headache than anything else. Best of luck