17 R1, need advice for GPU and screen?

dang lol 1070s and 1060s is pretty expensive dont think i can justify the price of that. im curious tho if ill run into issues using my current heatsink with the 970m because the 970m has more memory modules and little square chokes or transisters and im not sure if my current heatsink will cover all those areas with its thermal pads and i take the chance of burning out parts of the circuitry on the card? do you think you could give me the model number off some of your 120 hz screens?

I haven't seen the heatsink that comes with the 765M so I couldn't say for sure. I have the triple heatsink with my 970M and it seems to work fine. As long as you cover the parts on the PCB with thermal pads then you won't fry anything and you can double or triple up the pads to help them reach the heatsink. The pads are mainly used to separate the PCB components from the heatsink and any thermal transfer is secondary so just go nuts with the pads if you want to, just as long as you're not going too high and putting extra pressure on the heatsink when you screw it down. Make sure you use pads on the underside of the card if there are extra vRAM chips there. 

EDIT:  I'll check what the 120Hz part#'s are and get back to you.

Here is a detailed thread on the 120Hz upgrade. It has part numbers for you. 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/120hz-3d-screen-upgrade-for-alienware-17-r1.758711/

i want to experiment with the unlocked bios can you help and tell me how i download it i cant find it anywhere? im really not liking optimus because my gpu actually runs really cool but my cpu doesnt and having the cpu render video while processing only increases its heat

@yojimbojones Here you go. There looks to be a link for an Unlocked BIOS on page 30. I've never flashed the unlocked BIOS on any of the 17's that I've ever owned so read through as much info on this thread as possible.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/alienware-17-r5-r1-bios-unlocked.802440/page-30

I should be receiving a broken 17 later this week that has the 120hz panel. We may be able to work something out if you can't find one locally. 

Sounds good keep me posted. its a toss up which one to get 60 or 120 hz but we can work something out. hows the viewing angles on your glossy 120 hz? im pretty sure yours is tn but is the picture, colour and viewing angles any better than the screen that orignally came with your 17 r1 back in 2014? thanks for the link btw

I'd have to check the angles. Honestly, I never use my 17. It's just an OEM display that would have come with the laptop. 

@yojimbojones How'd you end up going with this? The 17 R1 I got with the 120Hz ended up being in perfect condition and it was just a faulty mSata drive so I just grabbed a new SSD and I'm flipping it. I am waiting for another one with a 120hz to arrive this week though.  

thanks a ton solid info. is there anyway to get a gtx 970 thats a dell brand ? so that i dont have to use a modded driver? i know modding a driver isnt the end of the world but if its a dell gtx 970 would i have to use a modded driver?. going to go with the 60 hz screen

hey matty can you link me to the 120hz screen and ribbon cable ill need for my AW 17 R1?

@yojimbojones it doesn't matter if it's a Dell 970M, the driver issue lays with Nvidia. Nvidia only give driver support for the specific GPU's that were originally released with the particular laptop model so anything past the 800M series isn't supported. Strangely enough, they did start adding support for a short time for the 900M series in the 17 R1 but it didn't last long. 

Below are some links. The first link is to the different panels for the 17. There are a few eDP panels but I'd have to check which ones (if any) are the 120Hz 3D option. The descriptions aren't clear. I have a few 120hz panels in the garage so I'll check the part numbers after work. 

120Hz panel - https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=category&id=151&subid=446&refine=lcd+screen

Display Cable - https://www.parts-people.com/index.php?action=item&id=18041

Thanks for getting back. what type of connector is my Alienware tho a 30 pin or 40 pin it has a 1699x900 resolution? What is an eDP panel how is that different from a regular LCD?

I'm pretty sure they are 40 pin cables. The 17 R1 motherboard has three display options. eDP is a more modern style of display that can allow for higher resolutions than the older LVDS displays. 

1600x900, 60Hz - LVDS

1920x1080, 60Hz - LVDS

1920x1080, 120Hz 3d - eDP

The LVDS panels plug into the LVDS connector on the motherboard. The eDP panel plugs into the eDP connector, this is the one with the screw mounts. They won't work if plugged into the wrong connector. 

You need the LVDS display cable for the LVDS screens and the eDP cable for the eDP screen. 

thanks matty can you send me 2 links 1 for the 120 hz screen and another for the proper ribbon cable?