a terrible mistake:i bought an i9300 with a x300 card

hi all
after making the terrible mistake of buying an i9300 with a 128mb x300 card.i tried contacting dell asking about if there are any upgrades available to the 6800 go card.and if it requires the 9 cell battery and the 130v adapter like the 7800 card.,but i wasn't successful ,so if anybody knows a way to do this through dell itself i would appreciate it.i thought about getting the card from e bay,and giving it a shot ,but i doubted the reliabilty of the whole idea.thanks

 

You should order the parts through Dell, and have them sent to you and you can install it yourself. If you're not comfortable doing that you can either send it in to Dell and have them upgrade the system for you, or if you know a computer savvy person they could do it for you.

the 9300 currently does not have 7800 card support, installing such a card right now would void the warranty. However if you took out the card and put back in the x300 when you send it in for repairs you should be fine.

You probably wouldn't notice much battery performance difference between having a x300 card or a 7800. However upgrading the battery is a great idea anyways!

The card that you CAN upgrade to and still have Dell support is Go Geforce 6800 card.

USAFdude & SouthernGirl currently own this laptop model as well, they probably will post in this thread with addtional information for you. So don't go off making a decision yet until they post. I do know about a few things on the 9300 and I believe what I said is to be true.

 

I'm in total agreement with bandaid.

In my opinion, i really don't see anything wrong with the 6800 card that they offer. This upgrade is possible without having to change your batter/adapter and does not void your warranty. You just have to call the spare parts line (1-800-372-3355), and order it. It probably will cost a few hundred dollars though.

I don't think voiding your warranty to get the 7800 is really worth it unless you are wanting to play Doom 3 at its best capabilities or something like that. The 6800 card is very good from what I've heard and will support games in the future...

SG

 

Actually, you would need to upgrade the battery and the power supply if you go with the go7800GTX, otherwise you would not be able to run the GPU at full speed. Think about it this way . . . The P-M has a thermal design power of 27watts. The go7800 has an average power draw of 30W. That's 57W already at an average load. Take into account the fact that the go7800 can peak at up to 48W and also the fact that we haven't even added in the power requirements for the lcd, hard drive, ram, chipset, etc and you can see why the 9-cell battery and the 130W PS is necessary.

xbandaidx is correct about the other facts though. You can get the upgrades through Dell: go6800, go6800 Ultra, go7800GTX. The go6800 Ultra and the go7800GTX are not supported by Dell atm. Battery life would suffer with the go7800GTX or the go6800 Ultra though. These have greater power requirements than the x300 card.

Have no fear about the reliability of this upgrade. Although it is not supported by Dell officially, you must understand that the I9300 and the M170 have the same motherboards and the basic chasis are the same minus the fancy lights and plastic on the lid. I have done this mod myself as have many others with no ill effects. The thermal solution is exactly the same with this mod as you would find in the M170. My go7800GTX idles in the mid 40'sC and peaks around the high 60'sC.

As for the warranty, you could do like xbandaidx says and just replace the x300 card if anything goes wrong. One thing to note though is the fact that you will have to change the BIOS to the M170 BIOS. You would have to change this BIOS back to the I9300 one to return your computer to Dell's standard.

Is this mod worth it? I've personally never used my warranty before for a computer except if there are problems when I first get my laptop. So, I can't really say I think much about warranties in general. But as SG says, don't bother with this mod unless you know you're gonna be playing a lot of intense 3D games.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the go6800 upgrade costs $199 when ordering a I9300. You can get the go7800GTX card for $248+tax and shipping. Price/performance wise this seems like a nobrainer to me as long as you don't really care about your warranty. This is kinda skewed though as I have given you the most expensive purchasing option for the go6800 and the cheapest for the go7800GTX.

Here's a link for specs of both GPU's:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=185&card2=323
The go7800GTX is about 100% faster than the go6800.

 

If nothing else, you should be able to return it.

Howie

 

The Go7800GTX has improved power consumption vs. the Go6800 Ultra.

Just so you know - the Go7800GTX is about 50% faster than the Go6800, so it is worth the extra $50 or so to "future-proof" it. Where did you see if for that low of a price? I know that is not from Dell.

Make sure you know that you will void your warranty if you stick anything other than a Go6800 in there. And, it's going to cost a lot more than $250 or so to upgrade the card (if you get the Go7800GTX) - as stated, you will need to upgrade the battery, which will be over $100, as well as the AC adapter - you're looking at over $400 for the upgrade.

 

The price I quoted for the go7800GTX was from Dell. It's a refurbished part. You can order it from the number that SG gave: 1-800-372-3355. The part number is HF594.

The go7800GTX is actually about 50% faster than the go6800Ultra with the same thermal requirements. The go6800Ultra is about 40% faster than the go6800. This makes the go7800GTX about 100% faster than the go6800. My numbers are taken directly from the Nvidia website, so they may be a little optimistic. Of course, if you want real world proof that my numbers are correct I got a 3DMark05 score of a little over 3000 w/ the go6800 and a score a little over 7000 with the go7800GTX.

 

Well, the 3000 score is with the stock drivers for the Go6800. With good drivers and a bit of OC'ing, you can get about ~4000.

 

Nod, but if you want to play that game you can get a lot higher with the go7800GTX also. Hehe.

 

Nothing better than having the most powerful GPU in your laptop!