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    What on earth?

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by niffcreature, Oct 18, 2011.

  1. niffcreature

    niffcreature ex computer dyke

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    Need I say more... what on earth is this?
     

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  2. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    looks like a proprietary MXM card.
     
  3. lupusarcanus

    lupusarcanus Notebook Consultant

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    Broadcom Crystal HD competitor/successor is my guess.
     
  4. niffcreature

    niffcreature ex computer dyke

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    Yup, proprietary. Took me a minute to realize the connector is totally weird.

    But is it essentially a graphics card? Thats what i'm trying to figure out.
    Its either for A. an embedded system or B. an all-in-one pc. Almost certain on that.
    This could mean its a bit more like an embedded LVDS controller or even some kind of SB/NB chipset.

    Don't think so... pretty much not mpcie or anything standard at all.
     
  5. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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  6. niffcreature

    niffcreature ex computer dyke

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    Hmm, interesting, thanks. but AGP?
    I don't know about desktops, but does that look like some kind of AGP to you?

    I think they would've mentioned something about the strange form factor on that forum, unless it was plugged in to another board and had a cooler.

    Also, the models numbers aren't the same... Its only the 2nd set thats important, its the board ID. Although even that can be a few different model of card with the same number like p398.
    They were talking about 180-10150, this is 180-81138. 1000 boards are new cards in my experience, like the 180-11044 of the GTX 485m.

    As you may have noticed the 1st number after the 180 can be exchanged for a letter which is usually P, and other letters denote something... while its exactly the brand or manufacturer, I think its something important because Asus proprietary boards seem to have different letters.

    I don't know, it seems even if I figure it out I wont have something to test these so i guess they wont be sellable. :rolleyes:
     
  7. HTWingNut

    HTWingNut Potato

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    Perhaps AGP card converted for MXM. Certainly looks like an MXM card except a couple weird connectors on it, and only two chips of RAM instead of four or eight.
     
  8. talin

    talin Notebook Prophet

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    It does to me too. I suppose that back when AGP was standard that could also have been employed in notebooks, but I was never into notebooks way back then. It's kind of interesting though if that's true. :)
     
  9. __-_-_-__

    __-_-_-__ God

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    it's not a "standard". In the old days there was no pci-express. Instead AGP was used for connecting graphic cards. In notebooks all manufacturers had proprietary interfaces based on AGP. sometimes they would even advertise something like "XXX graphic card 8x AGP". then after that MXM spec was created by Nvidia to create modular graphic cards, just like in desktops. Then manufacturers started using MXM graphic cards soldering them to the motherboard to avoid users from upgrade.
     
  10. Xonar

    Xonar Notebook Deity

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    They are no longer MXM if they are soldered. But, other than that you are correct. MXM and AXIOM were the two standards of pci-e VGA cards created by nVidia and ATI respectively. It became really messy when each individual OEM requested a VGA card with their own size, specs and screwhole locations. AXIOM got the axe (It wasn't adopted as much as MXM was, but MXM still was only a handful of cards) and ATI decided to use nVidia's MXM. Before that you had x2/x4/x8 AGP and PCI. IIRC the original Acer Ferrari's with Athlon 64 mobiles had a 9700 Radeon in AGP :). Boy was that a while ago...