MXM Cards way overpriced?

Been reading alot about laptops with upgradable graphics via mxm 3. What are the main reasons that these replacement gpus are so over priced? For instance if one were to order an alienware m17x with a single 260m and wanted to sli the card later the second card costs an astonishing $650. Who can afford that for a estimated 40% gain in performance? Compared to desktop cards which cost far less to upgrade is this simply a result of less market demand or less production? Still it seems these mobile cards are disproportionately priced compared to their stationary counterparts.

 

Smaller usually = More expensive in computers.
Less market demand since most people don't even update the hardware in their laptops to begin with. Results in less being made which means they have to charge more per unit which raises the price more and more and...

It's all for portability.

 

Mxm cards are always expensive, epecially just after they are released. However wait a year and the price will have dropped quite considerably.

 

It drops, but it doesn't become dirt cheap either; a 9800M GTX still costs over 500$ and it's been out for a while.

@OP: Unlike desktop graphics card, MXM replaceable GPUs are a niche market(only a small % of laptops/notebooks come with this standard). Therefore, the prices reflect this.

 

YES. WAY MORE OVERPRICED comparing do desktop ones.
due to many reasons.
small = expensive is NOT a reason. MXM cards are as big as the desktop counterparts. they do NOT usually shrink the gpus etc. they only transform the desktop gpus to meet with the requirements. they don't even have to design a new whole GPU!
an MXM card does NOT require MANY components that desktop graphic cards do. like many connectors resistors and specially the cooler. etc etc etc that increases a lot the total manufacturing cost. in fact the GPU chip itself is very cheap. it's always less then 100$ even for high end ones.
The cost of making an MXM board is less expensive then a desktop graphic card.
They are only overpriced due to market reasons.
Manufacturers will make MUCH MORE profit if you buy a new notebook instead of selling graphic cards. like it was said. it's a small niche it doesn't even represent 0.1%. and in that percentage manufacturers make sure to sell overpriced stuff in order to suck every dollar of your pocket.

and don't forget you are talking about AW. they are best known for selling overpriced components and notebooks.

 

Id really like to see a 10.5" mobile GPU.

 

remove the components that you don't need in a desktop graphic pcb to make a MXM board and you will have a very similar size.
if you don't believe me check the specifications.

 

The GPU isn't the whole card, it's that one(or two if you have an x2 card) little square thingy on the front.

For example, on this image, that little square thingy with "Nvidia" written on it is the GPU.

 

Mines still huge, plus the more you cram it together the more hot its going to be.

As said a very select few actually need and buy MXM cards, so the prices are obviously going to be very high.

 

A bigger factor in the production costs is probably that they have to adapt the assembly line to produce a new and pretty different product, and that demand for the product is not high enough for large scale production.

Of course most of it is just low demand and high threshold of money people are willing to spend within the niche they are appealing to.

 

Another reason they are so expensive is because they are worthless for setting up a useable standard.

In the past 12-18 months we have went through MXM2, MXM2.1, MXM3 "standards" and you cant upgrade between sets.

Desktop cards use the same standard connector (and have for quite a while) so you're not seeing the GPU makers have to come up with new cards and new formats every generation of GPU. It makes MXM a useless joke.

The idea is there and its a great one (make laptops modular like desktops are) but no one is using it correctly so it leads to artifically hyped prices and a componet that is basically useless in 6 months and un-upgradeable.

 

Wrong, wrong wrong. Why is it anyone think that the mxm standard is meant for the consumer?! MXM has been created for and ONLY for the manufacturer. the reason prices are so high is as mentioned previously...RARITY because they are not sold IN MASS but by people selling their laptops in pieces (and they are selling it in pieces instead of a whole because people like you buy the gfx card from them at RIDICULOUS prices).

A laptop manufacturer better hope you buy a NEW laptop to get all the latest goodies from him rather than a simple graphics card upgrade, and he INTENDS on keeping it that way you can be sure about that


EDIT: btw, nothing is overpriced, the prices are SET by what people ARE WILLING to pay for something. if noone was to pay 500$ for a mxm gfx card, then noone would sell one for 500$.

 

supply and demand

 

MXM standard was created by Nvidia for making a standard manufacturing process AND for the consumer to upgrade the graphic cards. That was the idea of Nvidia. A great idea. But just an idea.
Nvidia would actually get more profits if the idea was fully implemented. Please note that Nvidia only sells chips. Not pcb's or graphic cards.

Manufacturers would only adopt the standard if they want to. Many didn't. Some did but they didn't fully respect the specifications on propose for reasons that we known.

And supply and demand is NOT a reason for being so expensive. There are much more rare pcb's on the market that cost much more to produce and which are much less expensive then mxm pcb's.
And stating that nothing is overpriced is stupid. So if you find 2 people that buy an mxm card for 999999999999999$ then it's not overpriced?
Please realise for once that manufactures do not profit with MXM boards. MXM boards represent like 0.00001% of their sales. and that they sell it overpriced because they want it to. Otherwise people wouldn't buy new notebooks.
It would be so so easy for a manufacturer to produce more MXM boards. They have already everything, the design the materials the factories etc. it's almost just like clicking a button.

But I think I'm being a bit unfair. It's not really the manufacturer fault but more like the distribute. 99% of manufactures are not distributes and/or vendors.
Take the example of Alienware. Alienware does not produce any notebook. Alienware notebooks are made by Quanta. They make an exclusive agreement where Alienware wants them to produce X product with X specifications and X quantity and they agree with a price. Quantities are usually over 100000. It's Alienware that distributes and sells the notebooks. They are the ones who put the price tag. They are the ones who sell MXM cards to the public. They could very easily to ask Quanta to produce MXM cards. Sometimes they do. And they sell them extremely overpriced.
What is best for Alienware? Selling notebooks or graphic cards? well if you sell overpriced graphic cards that can be a very good business. And of course you will only have very few options to make sure that you will really need to buy a new notebook because you won't be able to upgrade it more times. It won't hurt their profits. And the best thing is that there's no competition. You don't have lot's of companies selling MXM cards. You only have one. Sometimes very few more. That assures the price is always high.
Very different from the desktop market.

Imagine a world where you can change your MXM card just like the desktop ones. you have 3 slots standards MXM 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. all cards are backwards compatible, all the motherboards use the same standard. you have many brands of MXM cards in all flavours. just like ram etc.
From a technological point of view is not even a matter of creating a new product a new design or specification. It's all there. All done. All you need is to implement it. You even have companies from which you can buy the connector components. And making MXM boards? that's even more easy. They have to make them anyway to make notebooks work.
And if you wonder about power issues, size issues, heat issues? that's one of the things why MXM was created. that's why MXM types exist. if you respect the specifications all cards are compatible. they will always met with the power envelope, the size and heat dissipation of each MXM boards type. The notebooks need to be made respecting those standards. But they are already made like that. Otherwise their own graphic cards wouldn't work.
In the beginning of this whole MXM thing some manufacturers reach the point of deliberated soldering their own MXM boards to the motherboad to avoid any upgrade or replacement and today some still continue to do that. Why would they do such a thing? some screws would be so much less expensive then soldering. They even waste their money to make sure that we will not upgrade the notebooks.
That's why this is a lost battle. And trying to fight a multi billion dollar industry it's just a worthless effort.

/end rant

 

I know what was meant; it was a joke ( hence the eyes ). A play on words if you will.

 

Quoted for truth.

We are dealing with companies that are milking every ounce out of old technology as well.
It's all because of money and the fact that the general population doesn't know that much about computer technology to begin with, which makes it that much easier for people in positions of power to exploit them, and even slap huge prices on mid range systems (plus because of the misconception that just because something is expensive it's more valuable ... which of course is hardly always the case).

Quite simple really, and it's also one of the reasons why new technologies (which are also being introduced in small/incremental instalments to begin with) that are supposedly cheaper to manufacture and are supposed to be cheaper for the consumer end up slapped with premium prices EVERY SINGLE TIME.
It's because they can.
Let's not also forget that some of the high end components never really go down in price to begin with.

Heck, Nvidia hasn't really been making new technologies recently ... all they've done was reduce the manufacturing process and increase the clocks of existing cards ... while simply renaming them, gaining measly 10 to 20% increase in speed for the same temps as the previous generation and the manufacturers ended up slapping huge prices on them ... while removing the older generation from the market for the most part before the prices can drop on those.

Besides ... making laptops not so modular to begin with forces the consumers to actually buy new laptops and spend much more money in the process compared to the upgrades to critical components that would cost less in the long run.
But with the pricing scheme that is imposed, sometimes even upgrading doesn't seem like a viable option because of the prices on some components.

 

and just to add... if you think nvidia chips are expensive...
you can buy a G98 chip for 10dollars. just click: nvidia store

and yes it's NOT a fake or an imitation. it's really a G98 chip. 10$ chip vs price for the whole card. With examples like this it's easier to understand that mxm cards are very overpriced.