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Alienware m17 R2 laptop (2014) - Upgrade whole laptop
Hello,
Can someone please help me?
I'm wanting to upgrade a Alienware R2 – intel i7 4910, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 880, 16GB laptop bought in 2014. Its now not keeping up with current games
Can someone please advise of the components that I can upgrade. I'm happy to strip the whole machine.
Thankyou.
Game7a1
727 Posts
0
August 1st, 2016 19:00
That's not a 17 R2. That's a 17 R1.
You can upgrade the CPU, GPU, RAM, screen, and storage, but you won't get much out of upgrading anything but the GPU; however, since the GTX 880m is the best Alienware validated for the laptop, any other GPU would require some additional effort.
BJFox
763 Posts
2
August 1st, 2016 22:00
You could install a 980M, but as Game7a1 mentioned it will require some additional effort. In all honesty, it will never be an elegant solution because the Haswell and Ivy Bridge Alienware laptops need a BIOS upgrade for Maxwell compatibility and Alienware is no longer providing the support those machines need. Their preference would be for you to purchase a new system, but beware... all of the important stuff on the new models (CPU and GPU) is soldered to the motherboard and can never be upgraded. So, ultimately, not as good as what you are wanting to upgrade, since what you have is fully serviceable and can be upgraded.
Better to sell it and buy a newer machine. Either build yourself a nice desktop or buy a Clevo with a socketed desktop K series CPU and MXM graphics cards, then you'll be set for repairs or upgrades with a modular machine. Two such examples are the machines shown in my signature.