Upgrading old m17x to new m17x specs?

Im glad that I bought the old m17x, im not impressed by the way the new looks. However its specs look pretty good. Will the new m17x's gt280 sli cards fit in the old m17x? The cooling of the old m17x is amazing so im thinking heat wont be an issue.

will I be able to flash my bios so that I can OC my machine?

Im not to concerend with DDR3 and Quad cores. DDR3 isnt that much faster than DDR2 and I Have no need for a quad. Thanks. Semper.

 

i don't think AW will offer a GTX 280M upgrade kit for the old m17x.

 

...I figure they wont too. But the cards should fit as proven by a members m15x 280 install. Im just wondering about the heat issue.

 

sli 280m gtx in old m17x, think about the heat issue

 

My cards never get above 72 and thats with playing nigh end games llike crysis and far cry 2 maxed out. Would there realy be that much more heat?

Does one gt280 > 9800gt in sli?

 

for most games, dont think gt280 will kill sli 9800

 

Your cards might not get above 72, but the 280s could well produce a lot more heat than your cards. They use more power, I know that for sure, so they will produce at least quite a bit more heat.

Of course, we'll never know until someone tests some.

 

Well I might be the willing canidate, everything goes as planned Ill be back in the states in a month!! Once the 280sli is available I might jus give it a try.

Is a change like this plug and play, other than a driver change for the video cards?

 

PS
I was mentioning the temp of the cards due to the efficient cooling not the cards, as we know 9800m gt in sli create alot of heat, its just that the cooling in the original m17x is awesome!

 

Better check your MXM slots before you get your hopes up.

A single 280m GTX will fit in the M17 as well, but two won't.

The M17 has one MXM type 3 slot and one MXM hybrid slot.

Just make sure you've got two of the correct slots before you start figuring out how to make new heatsinks etc.

 

mmmmmmmm ok thats interesting, I thought it had two of the same slots. And I figured that seeing how someone put one 280 in the m15x that I'd be able to toss in two 280.

 

Also remember that the old m17x had a totaly different chipset and only 800mhz fsb support if i remember correctly the limit was the x9000 cpu and 800mhz ddr2.

 

800mhz FSB, 667mhz RAM (DDR2).

 

After a brief look at AW tech support site, it seems that the Master and Slave cards are exactly the same. The BIOS on the card might be different tho.

The 1st gen M17x has a very nice cooling system, very similar to those on desktops, no long heat pipes, with the fan right on top of the GPU.
I would say that the 1st gen m17x would take the dual GTX280M's with out a problem, may be a little increase in heat.
Heat sink

http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/...nBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9bTE3eA**&p_li=&p_topview=1

 

Thanks for the research that you gentlemen have done!!! Im glad to hear that Gen1 m17x has two of the same video card slots. What kind of slots are they?

 

Hey usmc, just curious if you ever got a chance to upgrade the GPU's on the old m17x?

 

no the highest card that will fit is 2 9800m GTX in SLI

 

The moo is correct, old m17x will not fit 280m gtx at all, i asked the alienware tech support about it prior and you are allowed to upgrade to only 9800m gt sli.

 

The old m17x can has MXM 2.1b slots, which are physically different (and 0% compatible) with the newer MXM 3.0 slots used on the M17x (new). The best you can hope for is either a single MXM 2.1b type GTX280m (the one that the clevo and that one user with the m15x used - NO SLI CONNECTOR) or 2 9800m GTX in SLI. The 9800m GTX cards will give you much greater performance though. You MAY (but doubtful) be able to run crossfire 4850 in that machine, but good luck getting a pair to check....The SLI GTX 280m in the new M17x are not going to fit into your notebook, only the GTX 280m without the SLI connector

I would say that dual 9800m GTX is your best bet as far as graphics go.

I would not expect a BIOS update to allow overclocking at all, what you got is what you get.

And I think the best processor you can take is the x9000 as mentioned above.

Hope this straightens it all out for you

 

yes but its goign to cost you an arm and leg buying them through alienware spare parts department thats the downside.

 

well I never said you should get it from them.....any of the 9800m gtx floating around the web should work

 

never base your theorys on a CS agent

 

and if you need a 9800m gtx send dondadah88 a pm, he got one for sell