Alienware Area 51 m7770 video cards

I have an Alienware Area-51 m7700 laptop. It came with a ATI X800 video card. With all of the new games coming out, this video card isnt supported by many. Especially ones that support Shader 3.0.

I contacted Alienware about potentially upgrading my video card. They pretty much told me that I'm sh** out of luck.

I did some research and it looks like some people have put better cards in this model laptop. Any suggestions on what to do about this problem or were to get these parts.

Thanks

*Sorry the Title of this thread says 7770.. and its 7700*

 

You cannot upgrade your graphics cards on laptop, except on 1% of the time...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=86864
IF your specific model ever had better GPUS and they`re not soldered in the motherboard,it might be possible.
But at what price? Honestly, I`d consider getting a new one, a decent 8600M GT would sufise for a lot of gaming needs...

 

The entire video card is one unit including the cooling fan. I have had to replace it once from alienware. Its not integrated.

 

The question then becomes how expensive would it be to buy an upgrade used off of ebay (if AW doesn't offer then anymore, they probably aren't available off the shelf anymore either), and would the perf gain be worth the cost. eleron is right though, you would probably just be better off trying to put some cash away to buy a new rig.

 

Just sucks cause I spent 3500 bucks on this thing. I would have thought that alienware would have had a better upgrade system going.

 

How old is that laptop? No matter how expensive, all computers go out of date eventually. That is compounded by the fact that AW is overpriced, so you get less for more.

 

Don't assume. Research, research, research.

 

As I said, about 1% of the laptops are 'upgradeable' and they either have MXM format GPUS or proprietary modules like Dell.

 

I bought the laptop in July of 05. You are also right. I didnt do my research very well when I got it. OH well.

 

You can still find upgrades for your notebook (Clevo D900T).

Depending on the motherboard revision*... this notebook can support up to:
- Nvidia 7800GTX
- Quadro 1500M
- Nvidia 7900GTX (256mb or 512mb version)
- Quadro 2500M
- Nvidia 7950GTX .... previous Clevo proprietary (non-standard) module.

If you have the previous/first revision, the motherboard would only support:
- Nvidia 6800 Go (DDR1 or DDR3)
- ATI X800

The motherboard version (or revision) of the Clevo D900T (Alienware m7700) can be checked by looking at a small sticker placed on one of the memory slots.


* To support the Geforce 7x00 cards, your motherboard has to be at least v6.1

To purchase these D900T/K modules, go to:
- www.rjtech.com
- www.eurocom.com (contact them)

 

You can get a laptop for >$1000 that would be faster than the one you have now and be able to play the latest games, it's not worth it to upgrade your video card. You're looking at $400 - $700 for a new card most likely, and you might not even be able to upgrade (check your motherboard revision as Gophn noted).

 

Chaz is right on.

If your motherboard revision is too old or the videocard modules are too expensive,
...then it might be worth getting another notebook since you can find a sub-$700 that's fully loaded with Core 2 and 8600M GT.

Some have successfully upgraded their systems with a 7950GTX (getting it off of ebay, rjtech, etc.)... which is still high-end... but thats only for those with a supporting motherboard revision. If your revision cant upgrade to that... then definitely considering getting another notebook since the Clevo D900T is so old (with Pentium 4.. no dual core options) that its not worth trying to upgrade the motherboard/videocard/CPU.