My old Nvidia Geforce Go 7950GTX died :(

Hi everyone!

I'm in a very difficult dilemna. Back in 2007, I bought with pride a Sager/clevo laptop with that specifications :

- M570RU DIVINE-X; 17-inch Widescreen with Glossy Surface; WUXGA 1920-by-1200 pixels
- Intel Core 2 Duo® T7500: 2.2GHz; FSB800; 4MB L2
- 2GB; 2x 1GB; DDR2-667
- 512MB GDDR3; Nvidia GeForce Go 7950GTX;


Halas, my graphic card died last fall and I just put my laptop in a corner and just played PS3 or Civ4 on my office laptop (which has an integrated Intel Graphic Card 3000 HD with 12 GB memories and a I5 CPU in it).

The main reason was because I really didnt know what to do with it, if I should repair or not.

Now the problem is, Diablo 3 is coming in 2 weeks and I cant afford buying a new laptop or even a desktop for the next few months. I tried my best for it but large unexpected expenses happened recently.


So I was wondering if it would worth it to change my dead 7950 GTX card in that 4,5 years old laptop in order to play D3 in a decent resolution to a decent level of details for at least the next year ?

And if so, what should I replace it with ? Which card could work in my current laptop setup ? Would it still be available on the market ? I could also upgrade the memory to 4GBs if 2 is not enough.

Would it be affordable considering that it's an old laptop and we never know what else could die (unlikely the screen tho because I replaced it 1 year and half ago).

And at last, would it run smoother than that Intel HD 3000 ? I tried it for a night during the open beta and I was hitting 30 fps in low settings, no shadows, at 1366x768 resolution.


Thank you very much in advance for your advices and help!

 

dude, wasting more bucks on already dead machine doesn't make sense, even you are able to put 9800M GT on it (looks compatible both mxm2.1?), it will be crazily bad running with this computer (I mean the ram and cpu will kill it, really sorry about it ), and you will end up spending 200 bucks for the switch..

there are really good deals for laptops nowadays, maybe you can get a used asus for about 600-700?

 

I agree 100% with graz

Notebooks with a graphic solution that crush that GPU is dirt cheap these days. Examples: Llano, Trinity that is out in 8 days, Ivy Bridge with GT 640M etc etc. You get a brand new notebook with much better CPU at the same time. I`d go that route

 

Or go second hand route and buy a decent used sandy bridge notebook.

 

You'd probably end up spending more on a GPU for a notebook that is already on borrowed time than you would on a brand new PC that could play D3. Rather than waste money on it put it towards that new PC a few months down the road. You've got another computer with the Intel iGPU, use that to get you by.

 

Yeah, look in to building a new PC or perhaps buying a used one. PCs are way better bang for your buck than laptops.

 

A shot in the dark, but has helped a number of people:

Repairing dead graphics card

 

Thank you guys for all your advices and replies. I'll read that link you suggest me JasonNH and see if it ever solve my problem. Thx for your help in any case.

 

Here is your cheapest option:
HP FX3600 MXM PCI-E video card 492189-001 488237-B21 | eBay
Pretty much the same as 9800m GT

Or if you're international
HP FX3600 PCI-E 512MB VIDEO CARD 492189-001 | eBay

This might work too:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Compaq-n...eo_TV_Cards&hash=item2c64d1a9d7#ht_1343wt_924

 

well we got another thread right in this sub forum suggesting HD3000 should run D3 without any handicap, so just stick with your i5 and see how it turns.