m15x with 8700m gt

On saturday morning I'm going off to buy a slightly used m15x with an nvidia 8700m gt in it. I am having trouble finding much benchmarks on the 8700gt but from what I can see it isn't the greatest...I just sold my gaming desktop (it had an ati 3870 in it) so this will feel like quite the downgrade.

I looked at the price of 8800m GTX's on ebay, and they are very cheap now. I can pick one up for only $300 with the heatsink and fan. What I'm wondering, is can I just pick up any old 8800m GTX and pop it in here? I know they made this to support it, I just wanna make sure there is nothing complicated about upgrading or that I need to find a specific model of the 8800m GTX.

I won't have the money to buy that card for a few months anyways, hopefully the 8700m gt will last me until then. If anyone wants to know, I'm picking up this barely used m15x with 1920 x 1200, 8700gt, 2.2ghz core 2 duo, and 2gigs of ram all for only $750! I had trouble even scraping together $750 though haha.

Is there any chance in the world that I could run Crysis Warhead at 1920 x 1200 with everything on medium? Maybe at 20fps?

These are the games I play, I don't think I'll have too much trouble maxing most of these at 1920 x 1200:

-Grid
-Crysis Wars
-Unreal Tournament 3
-Call of Duty 4
-Team Fortress 2
-Burnout Paradise
-Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance

 

Supreme Commander and anything Crysis will be a struggle at 1200p, especially SupCom with your moderate processor. You won't be maxing Grid either, but it will run well enough.

 

Yeah You'll get 20fps in crysis warhead on medium to low(mess with the resolution). I used to have the 8700's in my lappy I ran all those games fine (Never tried grid though), you have nothing to worry about. And for $750 wow that is an amazing price. Now about the 8800 for $300!? Your probably looking at the ones for a desktop. Sorry to say but your probably going to have to buy the graphic card off of alienware which I'd give it about $700 eeeek . Especially the 15x since its the first 15 inch with such powerful cards such as the 8800. $750 though is still an awesome price, you'll be satisfied I hope with the 8700's. They did me fine .

 

You keep saying 8700's, I will only have one in mine, not SLI

Well I did see one for $300 used. It was definitely the 8800m gtx

Do any other graphics cards work in this, like the 8800m gts or anything?

 

Hmm yeah I could see SupCom struggling lol. I guess I'll settle with medium graphics at 1200p for Grid. I'd rather have higher res with less graphical quality, than low res + high graphical quality. (if I had to choose, because of course most of all I'd want max res and max graphics!)

 

if you look at the AW site they offer:

256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8700M GT
512MB NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GT
512MB NVIDIA Quadro FX 3600M
512 ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3870

rumor has it the 48xx series may be able to fit, but nothing firm yet.

as far as the 8800gts, possible, considering the platform is the same as the other 88xx series...but do not take it as proof...

 

The 8700 is a decent enough card, the drawback is that the memory bandwidth is only 128bit. The clock of the card is okay, but that memory bus is a bottleneck. The 8800 uses more shaders, faster clocks, faster memory and uses a 256bit memory bus. All of that adds up to a significantly faster card. The socket for the two should be the same, so you should be able to just swap them out.

Hope that helps.

 

AW wont let him upgrade his since he is not the orginal owner ......he will have to do it himself i thought

 

That's my plan anyways . You really think I'd send it to some company and have them charge me a ridiculous amount? No, I build my own comps

Thanks for all the input guys.

@ Warzone -That 128-bit bus is a real killer
@Ryujin - No way! It supports the 3870 mobility?

 

This is the older design with the hinge flaw and that it's just starting to appear on this laptop.

What are my options when it does break? Is it still usable or does it completely stop functioning and I have to hold up the screen with my hand? Is there a DIY fix? I've seen pics of the m15x screen pulling away from the hinge. It still works though right?

 

check ebay for lids and cases

 

LOL is that the only option? . Didn't the update it to fix the problem with the hinges, or was it never fixed? Did they ever decided to put real metal hinges in?

 

the amount of people whose hinges have broke after the fix in july.

but issues still there sorta ..... you can go to lowes and get new door hinges screw them in

 

Vid:

yes the 3870 is supported... no lie there, as it is on the site now. and was discussed in a post on here last week or so.

as far as the lid issue...if you want a way to hinder or possibly fix the lid issue, then look for cha's (cha is his id here) thread about the material and covering he used. there is a company that makes a film that he applied and he says it has been more then helpful for him.

if i can locate it i will linky for you.

linkage 4 u

 

Hey thanks for the link . I might end up doing that later as one of my upgrades to this laptop

 

no worries...and GL

 

Thanks man . You have no idea how excited I am. This will be the first gaming laptop I've ever had! I've been needing one for a while, now I'm only 20 hours away! =D

Looks like I'm going to have a really really hard time finding any good mobile gpu on ebay. I looked for the mobility 3870, 4850, nvidia 8800m gts/gtx, 9700m GTS, 9800m gt, and couldn't find any of those for sale!

 

I have an m15x with an 8700 and its fine I can play all games most at medium or higher settings and running well.

 

Only certain resellers carry GPUs for sale. Try RJTech, Eurocom, XoticPC for starters.

 

Mind telling me some of your benchmarks? (like what settings, what res, and what game )

I could just wait until noon tomorrow, but I just can't wait!

I checked out those websites and couldn't find any mobile GPUs fo sale yo

 

I keep seeing people saying the best proc you can put in this is the X9000, but that's only a dual core. Can't you put a mobile intel quad core in this?

Sorry for all the questions people. I'm just MASSIVELY excited!

 

First off, no quad support. Ever. About the GPUs, you'll need to call or email the sellers to inquire about buying the cards.

I recommend that you get a 3870. It's not as strong as the 9800M GT, but it's also just half the price.

 

Ah bummer no quad support! It definitely sounds like the 3870 hits that good spot of price/performance. It wouldn't be worth paying double for only 15% more performance.

And ahh I see, I have to email them

 

yeah no quad only on m17 and the quad (and x9000) are kind of expensive I'd hold off. the 3870 does seem to hit a sweet spot I agree

 

yup agree'd

 

Sup guys! I'm currently on the road installing every single one of my games on my new alienware! woo. (typing this from centro). I have a few questions that I hope you can help me out with

1. The lights for the touch controls and the touchpad only are on when I'm running on integrated video....
2. what does the touch control that's just to the left of the stealth mode touch?

3. Which should I do first? :

-upgrade memory from 2 gigs to 4 gigs (approx $45)
-fix hinge (approx $45)
-get a nice big hard drice since the one right now is small ($100)

I haven't tested any games yet. can't do it until I get home where I can update vista and get video drivers