Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.
On the laptop end of things, Apple's are just as upgradeable as their competitors. Upgrading the memory and hard drive on newer MacBooks is very straightforward. This is coming from someone who has upgraded more than 100 laptops from all kinds of manufacturers.
I would never use anything...
I would also check for any bent/missing pins on the VGA or DVI connector. If you have another card that uses the same type of external connection, you should definitely test that in the same rig.