Everyone with 15" Studio notebooks, I NEED YOUR HELP!

Alright, so I am going through a system exchange and I am being shipped with a 15" Studio notebook to replace the notebook in my sig. As far I know, the 8600m GT is not offered nor supported on that system.

They are telling me that there is a NVIDIA card shortage, and the system will inititially have an ATI Radeon 3450 that will later be replaced with a 8600m GT (despite my telling them it isn't offered on the system). This is where you guys come in:

please check Dell's driver website to see if nvidia drivers are listed for it. Also, please check the spare parts website to see if the 8600m GT is offered as a compatible replacement card.

 

Okay first of all, a GPU wouldn't show up as a replaceable part because THEY ARE NOT REPLACEABLE. And second of all, why not do it yourself?

 

Okay first of all, a GPU would show up as a replaceable part because they are replaceable. It is possible to replace the card as long as it is a dedicated graphics card an not integrated.

And second of all, you need the service tag to check for drivers and parts for a notebook. You can check without a service tag, but I want to confirm that even with one drivers and the card are not listed as compatible parts.

 

you dont need the service tag to search...its just a lazier way of finding your model number. the service tag search does not give you drivers specific to your machine like you would think, it gives you them all.

 

Atin has a point, in MOST notebooks even if the GPU is dedicated it isn't possible to change it. However, Dells are one exception in a limited sense. AFAIK the GPU for a specific Dell laptop is designed just for that model; you can't upgrade to anything other than a more powerful option currently supported by that notebook. For example, it's possible to upgrade from a 8400M GS to a 8600M GT in a Inspiron 1520/1720. However, assuming Dell does not design a more powerful GPU specifically for the Studio 15, it's not going to happen.