Some News for m9750 Owners (8800m GTX and Memory)

Wait, don't buy the m9750 unless you must have a laptop right now. You will be kicking yourself once the m17x is released.

 

its more of a budget thing. no way you will be able to get the m17x for 1299 lol. If you have like 2500 or so to spend then the m9750 might be appealing to a person because u can get the 7950'sGTX sli and the duo 2.33ghz for about that much which isn't bad and a decent size hard drive. its a good deal for some who doesn't play next gen games that much, and its a laptop most will have for a long time.

 

agreed. While it may not be bleeding edge, the m9750 is nothing to sneeze at!

 

Especialy with the new drivers, Crysis and Bioshock are running just great on my 9750

 

quick question, will the motherboard of m9750 able to install 8800m GTX?

 

some say yes others say no.
only time wil ltell id say yes but not until it has sold out and the m17x has been released

 

I am a few buttons away from buying a 9750...i've been looking for a laptop to hold me off until mid next year, but at least be an upgrade in most departments from my current 2.5yr old Inspiron 9300 (2ghz PM, 2gb DDR2, 7800GTX). It has been so difficult finding anything under $2500 that had both a CPU and graphics upgrade, and this one seems to hit the spot since it has C2D (Aiming at T7200), 7950GTX....now all this about possibility of 8800GTX

Decisions, decisions....wait it out and chance a lot higher cost new model, or bite the bullet with a decent machine at a rather good price :/

 

same here, the deal is killing me, i don't wanna miss it but I also want it with 8800m. I actually perfer the m9750 over m17x

 

I just purchased two pretty loaded M9750's for under $4500. A high end m17x will come close to that all by itself. I thought about waiting but my wife and I decided to go ahead and pull the trigger and we couldn't be happier. The performance is great, all my games run super smooth, and I think the M9750 looks alot better than the m15x or the m17x. I have no doubt that these will run anything I can throw at them for at least the next three years.

 

Don't bet on 8800 upgrade for M9750....
Except if Dell built it especially !!!

 

it might be able to handle everything but year after year you have to turn the settings down a lot, i dont see it having 8800ms it ould have used them then maybe i would have gotten one but as more and more demanding games come out the m9750 will struggle more and more

 

That's a complete lie.... dual 7950's are only worse than dual 8800's right now..

 

are you talking to me?

im not saying that dual 7950's are crap or anything im just saying as more and more games come out with higher requirements they will begin to to sruggle sure they will be okay if ya dont mind not having it at the highest settings i think they will last about a year or 2 but when more and more games come out with better use of DX10 the 7950's will not be as good as they are today

 

Erm... NO! A single 8800M GTX beats a 7950M SLi configuration.... see Chaz's GPU guide here.

The best mobile GPUs (last in the list) are as follows:
From worst to best...

The only thing better than a 8800M GTX is TWO 8800M GTX!

 

I guess that's because you have 7950, right? I bet u will say something different if u have 8800m. http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html
dual 7950 is not even close to single 8800m in 3dmark

 

that website's benchmarks are not accurate.

i got 8500 3dmark06 score with my 7950gtx sli at stock clocks.

7950gtx sli is neck and neck with single 8800 gtx.

i have already ran a direct comparisons with a desktop 8800gts 320 overclocked gpu vs. my stock sli 7950gtx 512 using supreme commander as the benchmark, a game that is not even coded to support sli. if i overclocked my card i would have beat the desktop 8800 gts card quite easily.

went to my brothers house to do direct side by side comparisons and becnhmarks with his desktop rig. he has a c2d e6300 @ 1.8ghz and 8800gts 320 graphics card. his cpu is stock speed and his gpu is bios-flashed to the OC (overclocked) version that you can purchase from various vendors. the only difference was his monitor was only a wsxga (1680x1050) resolution which he ran at that and he did not run vsync on since he does not need to (and i do otherwise my fps crashes as mention above).

he got 37.6 average fps compared to my 33 fps average. now, i did not overclock my graphics cards so i am fairly certain that i can match his average fps if i do. i then loaded up identicle saved games with fraps running in the backgroun to see how our systems performed side by side. suprisingly i was getting 50% more fps while the camera was zoomed all the way out, and he started to pull slightly ahead when the camera was zoomed all the way in a certain spot.

both our monitors supported 1600x1200 resolution so we set them at that and the in-game fraps bench was virtually tied with me still having higher fps when camera zoomed out. so i was very please with the resutls. an sli 7950gtx 512 laptop can go head to head with a desktop 8800gts 320 card.

i want to add that i needed to enable vsync for my sli otherwise the fps were not stable. if the game was coded for sli i could disable vsync. with vsync disabled i run 20% better score (at 43 average fps running at higher resolution than the desktop as well.) with the games built in benchmark that the 8800 gts.

 

I got 9770 3dmark06 score with my 8800GTX . 7950gtx sli is not neck to neck with 8800M gtx. Maybe 8800GTS. - maybe.

I have to agree the only thing that beat 8800GTX is 8800GTX (x2).

 

3dmark gives scores for cpu performance, also.

what cpu you have?

 

the 8800 may be better then dual 7950's, and it would be nice if m9750 owners coulds upgrade, but the 7950's will last long enough to play games at high quality for the next 6-9 months, maybe a year, then medium quality for brand new games for another few months, then you may have to start really turning down the quality to get playable framerates.

 

This is starting to feel a bit heated again....

I think the article by Anandtech was the best at being non bias at measuring performance between the cards.

http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3196&p=4

But I also agree that the 7950SLI setup will start strugling at the end of this year, unless nVidia universally makes major improvments to SLI on all cards. And then we dont really know when we will see DX10 only titles comming out, do we.

My two cents.

 

2.4ghz sir

 

I don't mind playing at lower resolutions to keep frame rates up. I have played around with the settings and I can keep all settings max on most of the games I play at the native resolution of the laptop. If I have to slum it and drop to 1600x1200 next year and then 1440x900 the year after that its not that big of a deal, after all a laptop can't display past 60 fps anyway. Of course if game companies step up and make better use of SLI then it extends the life of the 7950's even farther. The point is that the M9750 is a very good value for the money it is currently priced at.

I you have to have the absolute cutting edge then so be it but I would say to anybody looking to purchase an M9750 to go ahead and buy it, you won't be dissapointed.

 

Yeah if I will to buy 2 laptops I will opt for the m9750. The price vs performance beats eveything hands down. I would say the 7950GTX SLI is pretty powerful enuff to max out most games. Besides the design of the m9750 is proven to be well built unlike the m15x - to much cracking sound and overheating issue.

Anyway u are those lucky few who has his other half sharing the same hobby.

 

The Dual 7950s are definately not as good as one 8800m, but most of the scores are tarnished because the setups are not equal. If a 8800m GTX setup had the same processor and ram as a 7950 SLI setup then the scores would be pretty close. The 8800m GTX is better, but the reason that it is better is not because of the small performance increase. It is because it has DirectX 10 and it is a single card, where as the 7950s aren't always supported by every game since SLI is not that great at times. Thats what I think atelast. I could be wrong though.

 

hey kockm, i noticed your sig has you overclocked your sli 7950. what are your clock speeds at and is it stable in games?

 

I didn't overclock my 7950s. Just my processor. From what I have heard it is pointless to overclock the 7950s, but I could be wrong.

 

the thing about it is that people want to justify buying a m9750 because a. it looks badass and 2. it has proven its quality. thats why all these debates are going on. The single 8800 is better but it just so happens that the 8800 is in a troubled laptop atm. If the 8800 was offered as a single in m9750 guess what these debates wouldn't be happening.

i hope they dont go with the glossy black on the m15x cause the flat looks wayyyy better not to mention glossy would mean i have to buy a bottle of cleaner every week. i want the flat black but i know they wont keep it.

 

The only M9750 problem is it can't fit penryn CPU...
If we can use 2.8 or 3ghz cpu, M9750 will be "up to date" for long time...
And 7950 SLI should perform long time too...

Aaaaaaah, my dream : 8800SLI and X9xxx cpu in my black box !!!

 

i dont see that happening.

 

Well said, KockM and JGRiopel852 !

 

I was browsing the AW Support Forums and saw this tidbit:

"Physically it wont fit. The heatsink that is used on the m15x is completely different from the one used on m9750. Heat disipation is the main reason for the differences between heatsinks.
Warner Johnson
Forums Tech Support"

 

but yet, just yesterday on the AW forums, Warner posted this

"The optiona to offer a video card upgrade for the m9750 is beign looked at, kirkff. At this point there´s no ETA for it, plus we need to run more tests. As soon as I get an definite answer, I´ll post back here. "

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warner Johnson
Forums Tech Support


And they wonder why we are confused

 

When nvidia sent out the press release way back when, they initially stated that the 8800M GTX would be released in MXM III and IV. If thats the case then AW should have no problem getting the card to work in the M9750. If it isn't made in MXM III then it will never happen.

 

I just placed my m9750 order on hold, since it's weeks away from being built anyway. For some reason, there's been a major delay with the m9750's beyond the usual scope. I placed my order about 2 1/2 weeks ago and it still hasn't moved out of phase 2 yet. Granted, I had to return my last laptop, but it should have started the process at the beginning of last week. Luckily, this is great news if true and I don't mind holding off a few weeks.

I call myself tomorrow and check to see if any of the sales team heard anything.

 

We placed our order for the m9750 about march 5-6 and it is already shipped to us (on local delivery truck)

 

that's weird... I placed my order last tuesday march 11th, and it was delivered yesterday march 18th. 1 week from time of order, to having it in my hands. I was upgraded to free priority shipping, but I went from phase one to phase 9 between tuesday to the following monday. So 6 days including a weekend. One week from the time of order to having the laptop in my hands deffinitely isn't too shabby, I'm also Canadian so you would think that it would take longer for me...

 

I bit the bullet and ordered monday night...
Tuesday it was at phase 4,
Shipped out today
Scheduled delivery: Saturday (FedEx Home)


5 day turn around is awesome!

 

well here seems to be the nail in the ol' coffin

Re: Upgrade to 8800 from 8700 Video Cards?
Posted: 03-19-2008 01:14 PM
It's been scratched for now, bzowk.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Warner Johnson
Forums Tech Support

 

Of course it has. Why would they allow the m9750 to run dual 8800s when they can't even get a single 8800 working correctly in their newest offering. Do you really think they are going to dedicate a lot of time to making it work on an outdated (by their standards) system when they have a new one coming out?

As much as I'd love SLI 8800's in my m9750, I'm not counting on it.

 

glad i didnt go for it then.
i want dual 8800m's or at the very least a single 8800m

 

I'd love to have a single 8800m to replace my 2 7950 GTXs...but I'm not holding my breath. I bought my system in June, knowing well that it would be a fat chance that the m9750 would get a Dx10 card that was actually good. I've been hoping for an upgrade, and Alienware has been telling me "yes" from the get-go, but I'm not counting on it.

 

I read that the ATI Mobility HD 3870 is coming out soon. Will we be able to put this in if it is MXM compatible or do our motherboards not support ATI? I heard rumor that it might be better than a 8800M GTX specs wise, is smaller, runs cooler, and uses less voltage. That rumor could be wrong though.

 

Stop teasing us KockM!!!

 

Lol, just want to get the very most from my computer.

 

An m9750 with dual 8800m or ATI HD 3870's would be wicked nasty! Doubt it will be possible though as it will kill m17x sales

 

So can I get that 8800m GTX upgrade anytime when it comes out? I just got my m9750 in December... I don't want to make any purchases anytime soon. I just want to know if you can get this upgrade like later this year or even next year... lol


*EDIT* I just read the entire thread. Well, i hope they release this upgrade. If not, cheers.

 

According to some of the representatives at Alienware that statement would be true Caffeinated, but they have been sliding in and out of "Yes and No"s since January. We just won't know.

 

I'll try emailing alienware with different email's to see the different responces

 

I see. It would be really nice if they made it possible. If anything, they would probably do it a couple months or so after the release of the m17x.

 

right now it is not possible to fit the 8800m gtx in ther m9750. the card has an extra set of copper pins which the m9750 motherboard cannot physically accept.

look, this is the 8800mgtx card (it's the small picture of the gpu)

now, look at the m9750 gpu slot (large picture of my m9750 with 7950gtx card), it does not physically have the extra slot to accept the copper pins on the 8800 card. not only does it not have the extra slot, but you can clearly tell that the cpu fan is in the way if you even attempted to put the card in.

the only way we could get an 8800m gtx is if nividia redisigns the card just for alienware (which will not happen) or if ARIMA decides to update their model with a new motherboard and heat sink design to accomidate the 8800m gtx (which probably will not happen as alienware is phasing out this laptop chasis, unfortunately).

now having said the the best chances of a gpu upgrade would be if the 8800m gts is mxm3 (and not mxm3-he, like the 8800m gtx is). if so, that will work in the current m9750. but, so far i have not seen this to be true. the gateway's new gaming laptop features the 8800m gts but they are soldered onto the motherboard...

bottom line is that there will not be a gpu upgrade for the m9750, sorry folks. grab your tissues and start planning on your next laptop purchase or make do with what you got.