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I have been working on maxing out my Precision M4600 within reason. Here are some notes about what is compatible and what is not.
Video cards - Must be MXM 3.0a
The fastest available that will work is:
Firepro M5100 2GB (was available in the M4800)
The BIOS doesn't know what it is, but it works anyway.
There is a modded vbios for it that allows for some more overclocking - higher TDP, voltage, and Power Limit.
AMD FirePro M5100 overclocking - vBIOS mod (Dell Precision M4800)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ocking-vbios-mod-dell-precision-m4800.789891/
Overclocked you can get pretty close to the speed of an HD 7770 2GB.
For overclocking, you will want to use Sapphire TRIXX. I tried MSI Afterburner first, but it wasn't working properly.
Not sure if Sapphire TRIXX is actually upping the Power Limit as my card would lock up at 900Mhz. From the reports of it, the general speed attainable is around 930Mhz.
For fan control on the M4600, you will want to use HWINFO and set the fans to Auto Custom. Manual mode doesn't work.
I left the speed at the default ramp given in HWINFO.
It dropped GPU temps from 95c to 77c under load.
Even with the higher fan speeds, the M4600 is not really any louder. Sure you can hear the air movement more with the higher fan speeds, but you won't hear it at all when you are playing a game.
The AMD drivers install the Firepro controls, but it says the card is an R9 M200x Series
CPU:
The fastest that will work is:
i7 2960xm
As the chipset should support IVY Bridge, I tried a 3720qm in it but it wouldn't POST.
I couldn't find any info on whether this had been tried before so I went ahead and tested it. I already had a 3720qm from another laptop so it wasn't a big deal if it didn't work.
Video cards - Must be MXM 3.0a
The fastest available that will work is:
Firepro M5100 2GB (was available in the M4800)
The BIOS doesn't know what it is, but it works anyway.
There is a modded vbios for it that allows for some more overclocking - higher TDP, voltage, and Power Limit.
AMD FirePro M5100 overclocking - vBIOS mod (Dell Precision M4800)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...ocking-vbios-mod-dell-precision-m4800.789891/
Overclocked you can get pretty close to the speed of an HD 7770 2GB.
For overclocking, you will want to use Sapphire TRIXX. I tried MSI Afterburner first, but it wasn't working properly.
Not sure if Sapphire TRIXX is actually upping the Power Limit as my card would lock up at 900Mhz. From the reports of it, the general speed attainable is around 930Mhz.
For fan control on the M4600, you will want to use HWINFO and set the fans to Auto Custom. Manual mode doesn't work.
I left the speed at the default ramp given in HWINFO.
It dropped GPU temps from 95c to 77c under load.
Even with the higher fan speeds, the M4600 is not really any louder. Sure you can hear the air movement more with the higher fan speeds, but you won't hear it at all when you are playing a game.
The AMD drivers install the Firepro controls, but it says the card is an R9 M200x Series
CPU:
The fastest that will work is:
i7 2960xm
As the chipset should support IVY Bridge, I tried a 3720qm in it but it wouldn't POST.
I couldn't find any info on whether this had been tried before so I went ahead and tested it. I already had a 3720qm from another laptop so it wasn't a big deal if it didn't work.