Thinking of upgrading - input wanted.

Hola!

Thinking of buying additional hardware.

1) SmartBay battery.
Pretty obvious. I'm guessing no one here has one for sale? (AlienWare are a bit complicated when sending to other countries..)

2) Upgrading GPU.
Have a 8700M GT now. Want better. What would you recommend? Money is not an issue. Should I wait X months for a better card to come out? Or get one now? If getting now... from AW or eBay?

3) Laptop cooler.
Thinking of one. Anyone have an awsome tip for me?

 

1) Not much of a question there, but smart investment.

2) I would recommend the 9800m GT or 3870 , they are the best for the m15x from Nvidia and Ati respectively.

3) Zalman NC1000

 

1) Not a bad idea if you need more battery life on the road~

2) 8800M GTX/9800M GT or the HD3870 from Alienware themselves if it's still under warranty

3) CRYO NZXT if you can afford it/don't mind the huge size~ Zalman NC2000 if it's significantly cheaper though.

 

As I'm an "international customer", my warranty is voided by default. Great service, thanks. But nevermind, I'll manage.

If I'll buy 8800M GTX or 9800 GT or HD3870... assuming same size = will fit the M15 without any problems.

Should I buy any new/other cooling paste?

Regarding the GPUs nowadays it's a jungle. I was OCing both CP- and GPUs like 10 yrs ago. Lots have changed, and I've been doing other things... eh.

Thanks for all answers, so far. I appreciate any input!

If money is not an issue - which is the best GPU?

 

The 8800m GTX and 9800m GT are almost the same. All three recommended GPUs will fit, Alienware offers them on the m15x site. All three are the best money can get for your m15x.

Get Arctic 5 silver paste, they usually are recommended by people.

GPUs are still OC'able.

 

I'm not able to find any 8800m GTX or 9800M GT from ebay...

Can anyone recommend a good store? Perferrably one that ships internationally, but if not I'm able to solve it, with some difficulties..

 

I'd say hold out for a little while until they decide to use the 260M. This will not only be better than the 9800M GT, but it will also be cheaper. Why pay more for less performance? If you don't feel like going with the 260M, it'd still be worth waiting for it to come out as others will be upgrading to it and will want to sell off their 9800's.

 

When is the 260M coming out? And it's safe for the m15x? Price?

 

Any more input?

 

and when will this be? it is all speculation at this point. if he waits for this one, then when the next one is announced he might as well wait for that one...and so on.

while i agree with your post to a point, it is difficult to say wait when there is no viable time frame.

 

It is speculation, but I'd say it shouldn't be too long because Sager now has the 260M; AW should soon follow suit. Anyone know how long it took AW to update their cards when the 9800M GT came out (the time frame should be about the same I would guess).

 

i would gander around the 6 month time frame is when they started offering the 9800 series. then a cpl months after that the ATI cards.

 

What's the upgrade process going to look like, if the 260M is compatible with the m15x? This something we can do ourselves? 'Cause wow, is it sexy.

I think it's really a personal decision as to whether he should wait or not. Sager has it out already, not to mention the 280M on their 17", so it wouldn't be unreasonable to wait. At the same time, there is no confirmed time frame, it seems? So, I suppose at this point there is no right answer.

 

isn't the 260m a rebranded 9800m-gts?

 

i thought it had a smaller proc size. (drawing blank here, so i hope you understand)
man i am having trouble naming stuff today....

 

Hm, someone was saying it would be cheap too. If it is, it could be something. Guess we'll find out when it comes out?

 

if it is possible, i think it would be like a standard upgrade....order the unit and replace by yourself.
but thats if nothing further needs to be done to have the card fit right.

 

I'm in a similar situation thinking about the 280M. I'm planning on waiting to see how the dual 4870's perform and if there are any issues and the same for the 280M. Just gotta have some real world testing.

For me, if the performance is similar I'll go for the 280M. Not that I'm an Nvidia fanboy, but the 280M should be less CPU dependent, use CUDA, use PhysX, and it's only one card.

Time will tell though so I guess it's a waiting game for now.

 

Sorry no. The GTX 260m is a smaller die 9800M GTX also with about 10% higher clocks. I am estimating the GTX 260m to be an improvement over the 8800M GTX of about 15-20%.

 

Here are the specs for the 280M:

Main | Features
GPU Engine Specs:
Processor Cores 128
Gigaflops 562
Processor Clock (MHz) 1463 MHz
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 38
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz) Up to 950 MHz
Standard Memory Config 1 GB GDDR3
Memory Interface Width 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 61
MXM Type MXM 3.0 Type-B
Feature Support:
NVIDIA SLI®-ready* 2-Way
NVIDIA PureVideo® Technology* HD
NVIDIA PhysX™-ready yes
NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology yes
HybridPower™ Technology* yes
Microsoft DirectX 10
OpenGL 2.1
Bus Support PCI-E 2.0
Certified for Windows Vista yes
PowerMizer Power Management 8.0
Display Support:
Maximum Digital Resolution 2048x1536
Maximum VGA Resolution 2048x1536
Standard Display Connectors HDMI
Dual Link DVI
Single Link DVI
DisplayPort
LVDS
VGA
HDMI* yes
Audio Input for HDMI SPDIF

And the 260M:

GPU Engine Specs:
Processor Cores 112
Gigaflops 462
Processor Clock (MHz) 1375 MHz
Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 31
Memory Specs:
Memory Clock (MHz) Up to 950 MHz
Standard Memory Config 1 GB GDDR3
Memory Interface Width 256-bit
Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 61
MXM Type MXM 3.0 Type-B
Feature Support:
NVIDIA SLI®-ready* 2-Way
NVIDIA PureVideo® Technology* HD
NVIDIA PhysX™-ready yes
NVIDIA CUDA™ Technology yes
HybridPower™ Technology* yes
Microsoft DirectX 10
OpenGL 2.1
Bus Support PCI-E 2.0
Certified for Windows Vista yes
PowerMizer Power Management 8.0
Display Support:
Maximum Digital Resolution 2048x1536
Maximum VGA Resolution 2048x1536
Standard Display Connectors DisplayPort
Single Link DVI
Dual Link DVI
VGA
LVDS
HDMI
HDMI* yes
Audio Input for HDMI SPDIF

 

9800m GT -where to buy anyone?

280M - is that only for 17"?

And..

BUMP!

 

if you are the original owner of the m15x you have, you can just order from AW direct as an upgrade.
if not, you can still try to call them and order it.
aside from that, see if anyone on the NBR market place here on the forums has one.
others may have other ideas aside from the standard ebay and such.

 

i think eurocom still has the 9800m-gt. you'll need the proper heatsink though...