Sager NP9280 GPU Upgrade...

Would it be possible to swap the 9280's GTX 280 for a GTX 295?

 

No, the 9280 uses desktop i7 processors, but uses a mobile GPU, and the GTX 280m is the best on the market atm.

A GTX 295 is almost the size of laptop...

 

i think (hope) he is talking about a possible future mobile GPU upgrade,

the simple answer is if it is MXM3b and physically fits then yes

 

@10.5x 4.376x 1.5 inches that isn't much of an exaggeration.

http://www.xfxforce.com/ecms.ashx/6...40ec59/GraphicCardModels/GTX295_PS_US_106.pdf

 

It isn't as simple as that. GPUs on notebooks are a lot different than just physical connection. There is a high chance that he won't be able to upgrade to any better GPU.

 

Sager NP9280 will be the first notebook to see a GPU upgrade. The real question is, when will that be? And what will be the specs?

 

Yes, he does. Widock4 will be able to use an external HD4890 card. However, you cannot have an external i7

 

I would be very shocked if there isnt at least one mxm3 upgrade

 

How is that true, didnt the 9262 go through 3 or 4 levels of cards?

 

You read in the wrong context.

The NP9280, by design, will be the first in line of the new MXM 3.0 laptops to upgrade to a new GPU. It has the capacity for a GPU larger and more power hungry than the 280M. If that were the case (and it very well could be... a 100 watt GPU in a laptop), sli systems wouldn't be as easy a transition.

Personally, I'd prefer to see a trend of more powerful single GPU's in laptops than the traditional sli option. Avoids the driver and scaling nonsense.

 

That's the first intelligent statement I've seen all day.

 

I completely disagree. Game designers need to start optimizing all games for SLI and multi-cores with the option to downscale to single gpus and single/dual cores.

We will never see a 512 bit gpu in a laptop due to power consumption and heat, so that means we will continue to see 5-10% upgrades for future gpu upgrades. The only exception will be when ddr5 finally comes to notebooks, and even then the upgrade significance won't be as severe as doubling bus size.

 

I never said we'd see 512 bit GPU's, but something along of the lines of a mobile 4890 with a core clock beyond 800 mhz is not impossible in the near future, thanks to smaller fabrication.

 

I know what you were saying, but I do things by the numbers, and I just don't see any significant gains coming to notebook gpus besides upgrading to DDR5 (and future DDRX upgrades). Higher clock speeds or not, without an increased bus, the gap between future generation gpus is going to be just as insignificant as previous ones, seeing very small gains each time.

This is why I'd rather just see games utitilize 90-100% of sli. That's literally doubling performance, much more significant than any single gpu upgrade we'll ever see in the near future.

 

That's a bit of a double edged sword, don't you think? Sli is nothing moe than 2 of the same card, if we advance no where, sli is going no where.

Because sli consists of a much smaller user base than those with single GPU's, it won't be gaining much more support than it has already. The best example is Vantage, with nearly 100% effectiveness, and at worst a game won't support it altogether. But sli has been around for at least 5 years, it has most definitely matured but still has its quirks, it's the nature of the beast.

 

Maybe that's my point. We should stop and optimize what we have before moving on to "bigger and better" things. What's the point in having ddr10 gpus and 8core processors if programs don't support them?

 

You will be able to use an external desktop 4890 with your laptop this fall, but I would definitely wait for the laptops to adopt PCIe 3.0 spec so that the bandwidth penalty of being an external card will be minimized.

Or just wait for Vidock to support this
http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia-11nm-gpus-with-5000-stream-processors-in-2015/
which will definitely beat this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMygkWmsf2g&feature=player_embedded

NP9280 will see the real 200GT cards in MXM 3.0b format but I don't know about the real 300GT, maybe a stripped down version.

 

I don't think you can use the same argument there...I would call SLI a bigger (although certainly not better) thing.

Just putting 2 of the same older GPUs is a total shortcut...You have 2x the performance (only in theory so far, since optimization sucks), but also 2x the voltage, amperage, chance of failure, heat...I could go on and on.

Smaller fabrication plus higher memory speeds are a better way to go since they also become more efficient as they become more powerful. I myself will also will never buy a 17" laptop, and most of the SLI solutions I've seen are bigger in size.