Upgrading Mobility 3870 MXM to 4870 MXM

Ok, so Alienware is shipping the cards, where can I get these things so I can pull out the rather dated 3870's and plug in two MXM 4870's?

I know my machine can handle it as a ton of people got upgrades from thier alineware 3870 based machines and I have essentially the same laptop. (i.e. 840W).

Anybody have any ideas?

-Hack

 

You cant upgrade to the hd 4870, these use the new mxm standar, you could install HD 4850s but to be honest, I wouldnt recommend that, come on is like burning money you only get a 15% performance gain...

Those Hd 3870s are very good, even a sigle one can handle every game at high settings...

 

Yes the only upgrade available for the m17 was 4850s and I believe single 4850 matches 3870 in crossfire mode especially when AA is enabled.

 

i don't think u can upgrade to 4870... 4850 is the best upgrade... but anyways mobile 4850 is only a slower clocked 4870... without GDDR5 and anyways u are not going to find a GDDR5 4870... so just look for 4850...

 

15% increase i think i just got a heart attak
the 3870 are still very capable cards but the 4850 are up to 80% faster
the 3870 are sill far from pushing crysis at 1900x1200 with everything on high

on the other hand getting the card from alienware them selfs has been a pain even for alienware buyers that bought the m17 befor the cards where out
and they might cause an additional issue to the laptop if you have a quad in the lappy

 

And how do you purchase those hd4850s anyway? Do Allienware have a part store?

 

I think I just got a laugh attack...

Understand, you are paying way too much money for the performance!, 80% lmao... For example you get around 10100 3dmarks06 with ONE HD 4850 and around 9800 3dmarks06 with ONE HD 3870 same processors stock everything. For me thats not a hell of faster... I know that 3dmark06 is a benchmark but if you look @ 40% (one card) of a performance increase you would easily notice the difference in 3dmark06... , but its ok, keep flushing your money...

With the performance increase of both CROSSFIRE cards I agree that it is a difference of around 30-40% but not 80%...

 

3dmark06 is the worst benchmark to use when comparing the 3870s to 4850s. Crossfire 3870 can already manage 16k+, because Ati specifically had 3dmark06 scores in mind when designing RV670 architecture (to market well against Nvidia).

In any game besides Crysis, Crossfire 3870 holds its own. Crossfire 4850 can easily perform 50% faster though. Why? Because a 3870 only has 320 shaders, whereas a 4850 has 800! The 3870 is clocked higher and can overclock very high, but that doesn't make up for the significantly lower number of shaders. The architecture improvements with RV770 also lends well to AA performance.

I wouldn't rather have a single 4850 to CF 3870, but I really preferred my single GTX 280M equipped NP5797 to my other option at the time, the CF 3870 equipped whitebook. You can't go wrong with some of the deals on the M17/Whitebook now though, I last saw one with a T9900 for only $1200.

 

That! is around 50%, at least 3dmark06 is better than vantage... Vantage is just a POS...

I have also noticed that the HD 4850 is faster, one of my friends has one MSI laptop with the HD 4850 but while playing crysis I see a 30% of FPS difference , but he has a better processor (q9100 @ 2.6ghz). I also agree that the AA performance is better you can clearly notice that while playing but my point stands... Those cards are very expensive and its not really worth it...

Yep I would pick a single gtx 280m instead of a CF 3870! I feel that it is more powerful.

 

Where do you find the hd4850? I'm looking for an hd3870 for my 1651 but can't find any, I might as well get the next gen version