Upgradable Laptops?

What are the good gaming laptops out there right now where you can upgrade their gpu?

 

Alienwares, Clevos, MSIs...

 

Any laptop supporting one of the numerous MXM standards (not flipped, inverted etc.) in theory allow GPU upgrades.

 

pretty much this is all you should be looking for, if it follows the mxm industry standard or which now is 3.0b, then everything else follows suite. being that processor memory and hdd(s) are upgradeable.

 

Add most high-end Acers to that list..

 

ASUS G73....best for the money....but thats just me

 

Dont the asus's have the inverted mxm's?

 

Asus uses an inverted MXM slot, so you can only buy newer graphics cards from them.

MSI and Clevo as far as I know are the only ones to fully adopt the MXM standard. They don't use any proprietary gimmicks.

 

What about the new Alienware M15X?

 

You can upgrade it up to an ATI MR HD 5870.

 

Does it run normal or is it too hot for the M15x?

 

The M15x has no problem cooling a 5870, in-fact, it runs cooler than the low voltage samples in the M17x I believe.

 

A related question: granted, some laptops can be upgraded. The question: how many of us actually do this?

I bought the rig below, selling my wife on the huge price tag in part with the logic "It's OK, honey, buying a good one like this means I can upgrade it in the future, instead of spending another huge amount of money on a new laptop!" Of course, I bought it about 3 months before Alienware rolled out the M17X's (no complaints, tho - I actually like this style better, and it's not like the laptop I have is a slouch in the performance department...)

With that said, I find myself thinking now that, in a few years, when something catches my eye that I'm likely to want to upgrade to, I'm wondering if I'll just be tempted to get another whole new rig instead... (Particularly since, unlike many of you here, I lack the tech skills to perform my own upgrades and will most likely have to send it in to Alienware to upgrade components...)

 

jeffrey - haha yeah that's pretty much true. I bought a sager thinking I would upgrade, just sold it and got a laptop I can't upgrade CPU or GPU lol. And I am capable of doing that tech work.. it's just a matter of sourcing the components for a decent price. But when GPU's are found for $300-400+ might as well resell and rebuy with all new everything.

 

It's true that a lot of people just buy a new laptop, myself included. Then again, how many people have shoved a 5870 in a M15x or 4870s into an R1 on these forums? Or posted up threads trying to figure out if they can shove a 5870 in their R1? There are people that take advantage of upgradeable gpus, and then there are people that just buy a newer laptop.

 

^ well speaking of the forums.. I see most people buying new laptops hehe. but yeah either way is all good.

 

Sager NP8690 and NP8790 are upgradeable.. so is M15x and M17x... i would say Asus G73 is not very upgradeable due to Asus MXM GPU but everything else in it is.

 

NP8690 and NP8790 are upgradeable...cpu maybe. GPU however, not sure. The gtx480m is apparently not compatible...and I doubt the newer ati mobile card will be either. But who knows.

 

Expresscard 2.0 released later this year will mean can have a desktop gpu attached via expresscard slot. Performance is pretty impressive. There are some examples of x2 1.0 already (same speed, but combining two x1 ports) in the DIY ViDock Experiences thread.

 

Exactly. Unless you like to game on the go, a DIY ViDock is a good solution that is cheap and can be miles better than any notebook solution. Plus it's fully and easily upgradeable.

 

amazing, thanks for the link! I can't believe it works as well as it does with a bus that's slower than 2x agp. 250vs266mb/s