ATI Mobility Radeon HD3800 series

With the official release of the HD3800 mobile cards I wonder if AW will entertain the idea of offering them in the M9750 and keep it in their lineup for a bit longer as it is obviously a good seller.

The card is definatly MXMIII according to the official pictures on the AMD/ATI site at this link. http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/Additional/ARG3850board_flat_E_rgb_HighRes.jpg

If you look at the 7950GTX at this site http://hothardware.com/image_popup.aspx?image=big_GPU_Board.jpg&articleid=883&t=a

You can see that the cards are almost identical in size and layout. It looks like they could even use the same heatsink as currently used for the 7950GTX.

The card is 55nm and is sure to use less power and create less heat.

I wonder if its possible? Here is hoping AW at least looks into the possibility as it would put the M9750 owners in a very happy place!

 

How's it going Frag,
It actually looks like it might work. I guess there's some things that Alieware will really have to look at.

1. Will the BIOS allow an ATI card?
2. Will ATI provide compatible drivers?
3. Is the motherboard compatible with ATI cards even though it may fit?
4. What about cross fire?
5. If the card will work, can you only install one? (It needs a slave card)

Gabe

 

You should submit this to AW if you haven't already

in regards to crossfire, my guess is that it wouldn't work in the M9750, simply because crossfire is a proprietary technology just like SLI is (and both unlike the MXM standards) so it probably can't interface with the SLI mobo setup that the 9750 has.

 

you mean you think it will fit because the cards literally "look" like they have the same dimensions?

 

@Wilsonywx - That is percisly it. MXM was supposed to be very good but it kinda got messy which is why the 8800GTX won't fit in the M9750. From the looks of it they look the same except for some pins.

 

yea thats what my hd3650 looks like in my laptop right now, maybe i can upgrade to this also

 

It might work as a single card but maybe not SLI!

 

do 7950 GTX and HD388 require enclosure?

 

Why dont they update the proc in the m9750 yet?

 

that would require mobo upgrade.

 

So do it.....

Its much better than the m17x imo......

 

i think the only reason why us m9750 owners are so much for upgrading is because of all the speculation that occurred from the alienware reps. if they were honest, rather than trying to make a quick buck and sell all their notebooks, then i feel people wouldn't try to push so hard for upgradability in this notebook.

how well does this HD3800 card perform compared to sli 7950gtx's?

 

We will forward this to our Product Group; Thank you for your inputs.

 

well.. if it was under performing (i mean below 8800GTX) then the 7950GTX SLI will be better but still lack for DX10

 

if the card is par with the 8800gtx, then i can see the upgrade to one being beneficial. to boot, if we can incorperate the crossfire technology, i would really be interested in the upgrade, but i don't know if that's possible. so if a single HD3800 doesn't perform as well as sli 7950gtx then i don't see it being worth looking towards.

thanks Armando for looking at the thread! perhaps you can help us m9750 users out!

 

just as Levenly said, if the upgrade is worth it, IE: its up to par with the 8800GTX it will still be a good upgrade since there will be less heat and that so called "DX10" will be available, otherwise, it isnt worth it, but the problem is that i still dont see AW doing a refresh for the mobo while its m17x havent sold anything big till date. its AW's call now, Customer VS $$

 

the thing is, they can make money by refreshing the m9750. with all the m15x problems and the monster price tag of the m17x, i don't see why some marketing person on their staff said a refresh is a no go. people are scared of purchasing the m15x due to possible problems, and the m17x seems like it should have offered more than it has because of the delays (not compatible with the new platform?). i can't say for sure how many m17x's have sold, but i do not think it is nearly as much as it was all thought to be (not saying the notebook is a failure).
i have read through many posts on here in regards to people who will pay for an upgrade, so even with the refresh of the m9750, it would be possible to begin producing the notebook again and still generate a revenue. the people who purchase the m9750 were most likely looking to invest in it for gaming. most gamers would like to upgrade to the most modern technology if they can. in my opinion, the notebook looks KILLER and is built SOLID, and a refresh would revive this beast and i'm sure many people would invest in upgrading it.

but it is, at the end of the day, AW's call. i only hope they will listen and try to work with their m9750 customers!

 

Well if they do offer it, don't be surprised if they go ahead and secretly jack the m9750's price back up, or discontinue the thing altogether (so only previous owners can upgrade)

but also it's wrong to say that everyone would then stop buying the m15x. personally, I didn't buy the m15x because it had an 8800M GTX -- there are several laptops that do -- I bought it because it was a 15" with an 8800M GTX. From my perspective, even if they could put an 88 in the m9750, I still wouldn't get it because it's a 17".

Also, doing this would also be less competition for the m17x than one would suspect. Chances are, since ATI runs dual cards by Crossfire, not SLI, you won't be able to do dual 3800s in the m9750, while the m17x can do SLI 8800s.

 

My main hope would be to get near the performance of my SLI 7950 GTX's with out the headaches of SLI plus the ability to move on to DX10 when WinXP finally reaches its end. I know I would much rather have the Radeon HD3870 than the 8700M.

I have owned many laptops in my time. I currently own 3, one being a Sager, and I can honestly say that my M9750 is without a doubt the best laptop I have ever purchased and would love to keep it as close to current tech for as long as possible.

 

I read somewhere that the 3870 is on par with the 8800M GTS.

 

Hmm, not bad but not great either. Though in a year or so when I switch to vista it would still offer decent performance in current and future DX10 games. Still I doubt that there is much chance of getting it any way but it sure would be nice. Maybe I will try to see if I can get my hands on one and try it in my wifes M9750, that way if something gets fried I won't have to be without my computer while hers is getting repaired .

 

as you say though, you'd still be able to get off the SLI pain-train and have *some* support for DX10 games.

if you do test it be sure to report -- are they available yet?

 

Haha yea sometimes SLi makes me cry... not... But in all seriousness if the 3800 was a little faster than the 8800M GTS than I MAY switch. By switching one could get better battery life and a cooler notebook.

 

Remeber, nobody has seen them in action yet, so it might just be another ATI mumbo jumbo about how good their cards perform in 3dmark and how they suck at gaming.

 

I just came back from Fudzilla. They show picks for the mobility 3800.

And as far as i can tell, yes it is MXMIII, but its size is huge! I have a feeling that it wouldnt fit the m9750.

Or am i wrong and it is just the other modules are smaller than standard size?

 

those other modules look like type II while the 3870 looks type III.

you can see the comparative sizes here; you can see that type III is much bigger than the earlier types

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/types.html

 

Mobility Radeon HD 3850 X2 - 12800
Mobility Radeon HD 3870 - 9200

 

what are you posting nirvana, 3dmark06 scores?

 

3dmark06 I assume?

 

JINX! YOU OWE ME A SODA!

 

corrected.

 

Nirvana, do you have any idea about what was the CPU used with the HD 3870? because if its anything above 2.33ghz on the Alienware m9750, then this is not good, since i can get 9100something 3dmark06 with my CPU Oced to 2.2ghz

 

Probably a T9600 (2.8 ghz). That's what they used for the 3850 x2.

There could be a way to implement two cards in SLi without going Sli. If they can use an SLi-bridge like cable that not just traffics bandwidth but "activates" the 2nd card to run in x2 mode, then notebooks with two MXM slots can bypass this, seeing as Crossfire is not necessarily the same as x2 (Crossfire is two cards, two PCI-e slots, X2 is 2 cards in 1 PCI-e slots, at least when discussing desktops.

If Arima could make a card like this, it would be awesome. After all, they're the only ones who made the 79xx MXM cards with SLi cables/bridges.

 

What's the power consumption of the Mob HD 3800? 20 watt? 25 watt?

 

how is that not good? that means that the 3870 is like 2x 7950GTX

 

way to raise a 4-month-old thread from the dead...

 

Actually, it may be a good thing because I pre-ordered a OCZ Whitebook (that should have been here by now ). It has two Mobility 3870 cards and I will be testing to see if the card(s) work with the M9750.

 

congratulations on the purchase, although i don't envy you over the xfire'd GPUs... from what i've heard, xfire can be a bit of a handful, even more so on laptops. but of course, it could just as well work out perfectly for you.

 

my thoughts are if the hd3850 performs even AS well as SLI's 7950's then it would be a good move...having the dx10 support, and a cooler running machine would be sweet...plus the simplicity of running a single card would be great as well...I'm still a little choked there is/will be no upgrade to the 8800GTX available for the m9750 - I hate being lied to.

 

The 3870 is 9800m GTS level (9400 3D06), 3850 is more 9700m GT level (6300~ in 3D06). That 3850 test is from a MSI GT735 yesy from notebookjournal.

And @whizzo, you should envy the xfire 3870s, they can get 15100 in 3DMark06.

That means xfire is waaay better than SLI, almost providing a 200% increase for the 3850

 

link please. oh and from my past experiences, ATI driver support flatout sucks, and a friend of mine who has xfire'd ATIs is always complaining about what a nightmare xfire is. that's why i don't envy ichime.

 

Well seems like thing have changed with the success of the 4870X2 GPUs for Desktop.

I cant post the link, im in my ipod touch. No copy and paste !! It was Mark from Killernotebooks btw.

 

Well, you can go to this section in NBR for more info about the cards and the experiences people are having with it. So far, no Crossfire issues have been reported. More benchmarks can als be found here.

 

ah now... OC'ed CPU, 64bit, and pro edition of 3dmark06 with lowered resolution... so this score isn't quite comparable to ours.

but still, a very nice system, i must say.

 

umm...those 3dmark scores were done with the basic edition and standard res (1280x1024). But you are corrent that the scores aren't that much comparable due to a higher clocked CPU and a newer platform. If I'm able to get a single radeon card to work on the M9750, 3d06 scores would most likely be significanly lower than the 9190 score for a single GPU posted (maybe 8100 or so with a T7600 and 7300 with a T5500). Depending on how my tests go, I might even try to see if I can get two cards to work on the M9750 since the cards are seen as a single mobility 3870 X2...