Why aren't laptop GPU's officially sold?

Something that I've been curious about lately.

Obviously there's a massive industry in desktop graphic cards - all boxed up and sold in your local computer store.

I heard that those new MSI laptops with the 900M series inside them have mentioned that they can be "easily upgraded", the only problem is that the only places you can get laptop GPUs are eBay and obscure shopping sites hosted in third-world countries.

So how come there's practically no official market in laptop GPU's? People on eBay price them reasonably well depending on the generation, but you can never be so sure whether it would work or not seeing how they've been salvaged from other laptops. Is it because no one really knows what a "gaming laptop" is? Is it because gaming laptops are niche products?

I honestly reckon both Nvidia and AMD could make more profit selling notebook GPUs, especially considering MSI and other companies are pushing out monsters of laptops with changeable GPUs.

 

Market too small, parts (mostly) too proprietary and majority are attached/matched to the MB/BIOS and or CPU originally installed.

 

agreed, its a tiny market on the consumer/gaming side. ( MSI, Alienware and Clevo ) and on the business/workstation side we just buy upgrade our replacement cards directly from HP and Dell, and most times they end a tech to install them for us as well.

 

A notebook computer is more or less a closed environment. Even if a notebook's design allows one GPU to be swapped for another, the replacement GPU has to have the same exact kind of board otherwise a new heatsink will be required and so on. Then there are power concerns especially with regard to how much heat the notebook can handle (and supply) ...it limits possible upgrade paths.
I don't think this is going to change in the foreseeable future.

 

"Easily upgraded?" not really. It involve removing the heatsink and handling delicate electronic components. It is uncommon in the desktop world to open up a GPU, at least for most end users

 

Which really isn't difficult, especially for MSI laptops or their related barebones.

Their new GT72 promises the ability to upgrade by the looks of it:

 

Good question, my D800 had an upgradable gpu. It's over 10 years old, but Dell sold the upgrades themselves (years prior to buying AW). Still, to many even a memory upgrade is thought of as something unfathomably difficult and far beyond a mere mortal's realm of capabilities (Dell has 'technicians' for that ...). Which leaves a potential seller with an infinitesimally niche market; the likes of us.

True, but neither is fixing a flat tire or handling circuit breakers. Now, think of all the people you know and give those 'skills' a nay/yay estimate; 60/40, 80/20, 90/10 or ... ?

... which is a perilous road, considering that there's more and more technology crossing that magical boundary (read: where ignorance begins). In the cretaceous' days (pre-ipad, involved chalk); if you wanted a radio, you'd have to build one. That may not have given full comprehension, but at least some grasp of the concepts behind the device. Today, tech's more ubiquitous than ever before, yet there's fewer and fewer people with even a modicum of understanding. And at the end of that road is a world where the vast majority lives in magical fairyland and considers all for granted.

Slant:
Browser crashed unexpectedly while typing, so made full memory dump of the program (928MB) and did an <abbr title="American Standard Code for Information Interchange">ASCII</abbr> search with UltraEdit (because, unlike data-recovery, there's no fun in retyping):

 

As mentioned, niche market (upgradeable laptops) within a niche market (high performance laptops), and to some extent planned obsolescence -- because forcing the user to buy a new machine is more profitable than allowing end user upgrades.

 

Simple. The only upgrade they want you to do is to buy a new laptop.

 

This is one of the biggest reasons.
Plus they make it far more problematic by additionally inflating the prices of mobile GPU's - which makes it that much more difficult to gain access to.
And then there are some manufacturers who intentionally shift over to a different interface or just invert an existing one to further limit modularity.

 

Couldn't say it better myself..

 

All of the negative comments are true, but SO-DIMMs are quite wide spread. Granted it's kinda apples to oranges, but they could've done it if they wanted to. In reality it only requires just a bit more skill than swapping the RAM. We don't need to spread the paste ever so evenly as a decade ago (AS5), just put a blob and call it a day (MX-4). I have my hopes for MSI. Their machines (mid and top tier ones) have MXM modules since... quite some time (more than 6 years) and only now they are advertising them as upgradeable! And who among others have the means of pulling that one off. After all they are one of the biggest, if not the biggest, GPU manufacturers. They also make pretty nice MoBos. While I'm not expecting to see laptop MoBos on the shelves anytime soon, I really hope the MXM modules to get there

 

The main reason MXM exists isn't for the end consumer, it's for the OEM's to easily swap out cards so they don't have to manage as many motherboard combinations, and for cheaper warranty costs. It's cheaper and easier to offer one or two motherboards with 3-4 CPU options and 3-4 GPU options than it is to have all those embedded with 20-25 different motherboards with different combinations. It's not like a PCI-e card in a desktop that is meant to be user upgradeable/replaceable.

There was a site dedicated to MXM cards here: MXM Upgrade Home Page

Unfortunately that gentleman has shut down the site since it never made him any money. Now it's more or less relegated to a second hand market on eBay or online forums.

Although it seems that the industry is moving towards embedded CPU's and GPU's more and more with mobile computing, which is completely unfortunate, because that likely means less choice for the consumer, since OEM's and resellers will want to limit the configurations they offer so as not to have to manage 30 different combinations.

 

I know, but still - MSI is quite serious.

 

MSI is serious only if they can offer parts at competitive prices (on which they have no competition...) - until then, this is just marketing and business as usual.

Nothing to see, move along.

 

*cough*

You know, that's the one thing I know I'm going to regret with this machine. It's not the non-upgradability per se, but the prices (and waste) for combined mb+gpu's when only one of them has failed. Still got one, but am going to be sorely miserable when something similar turns up with MXM configuration ... if the Aorus X3 did I'd gotten that instead (along with CAT5 and power at the back).

 

Pointless upgrading if the CPU is soldered IMO.

 

I can't agree more, but I guess this is how it is going from now on. The top modification would get 4980HQ, which is not that bad, still locked multis though I'll stick with the old stuff for the time being, as it seems.

 

Well hindsight is always 20/20 but seems like I made the right decision to go back to desktops.

 

That's the plan for me as well - I'll get back to them when the old tech with 16:10 casing comes insufficient. It's fine for me as of now, and I'm planing some more mods down the road.

 

What? Because I own a laptop that has an emedded GPU? Show me a 13-14" gaming laptop that has an MXM GPU and I'll get back to you. Everything else about the Clevo W230SS/NP7338 is modular compared with other machines, with one 2.5" drive bay, two mSATA slots, two swappable RAM slots, a socketed CPU... only thing it's missing is an MXM GPU and this machine ONLY comes with the 860m, which was the fastest embedded GPU at the time. MXM is relegated to larger laptops, if you want smaller you don't have a choice. But now they're doing the same with the 15" and 17" laptops, embedding components.

Roll your eyes at the Razer Blade, since EVERYTHING is embedded...

After using the MSI GT72 after a week or so, it's not so bad, but the CPU is soldered on. Such silly times.

 

You know what I hate most - different BGA/PGA and lack of BGA chips. In the C2D era there were PLENTY of everything. Of course there were BGA chips with soldered pins, which is not something you want to put in your machine, but if you are on a budget and decide it's worth the risk, who are the others to stop you... Anyway, what I meant is, if those ^%@%#@ HQs weren't different BGA, you are a soldering station away from getting 4930/40mx soldered on this very MoBo, or at least getting this config and sourcing 4980HQ down the road... but Intel knows their stuff and none of those options are available. Of course they are hardcore, but are options, unlike now.

 

Not everyone is gonna want to have to change to a new laptop straight away, because that would just be silly. It's also definitely more expensive as well. The beauty of desktops as well as MXM laptops is that you don't have to replace the whole thing if something goes wrong or if it became too obsolete. Your point really only applies to standard laptops, or laptops that have undergone something that's warranted a replacement.

I would so love to go back to desktops - I've never really owned a gaming desktop before but I can already tell that the power gap between laptops and desktops is huge. Building your own PC sounds like a ton of fun as well, and most prices are normally under the thousands.

So why do I have a laptop and why am I buying a new GPU for it? Well, being a traveler sucks sometimes...

 

Well ... yes, kinda. Do notice that I bought the very same laptop . And for similar reasons; most modular of the bunch. Now have 2.4 TB storage on a 'netbook', so it'll store most work-stuff without need to drag along external drive.

Still ... think it's quite possible to have 13" and MXM. Wouldn't be a looker, of course; added height on small device = hobbit.

 

I believe clevo cards are made in Taiwan or something, and unless you live in china and have access to the Chinese "amazon" (taobao) to get a brand new card, your only option is pretty much getting them from Chinese vendors on eBay who sell it for 1/3 more the price than in China..

I also believe there is a kind of pressure from the manufacturers

 

Clevo is a Taiwanese brand anyway. Them, and in fact most other laptops are made in China, there is no difference. The mxm cards can be bought from Clevo resellers in the US or EU, they just don't advertise them, you have to ask.

 

The point of my post was clearly lost on you. THE MANUFACTURER DOESN'T WANT YOU TO UPGRADE YOUR LAPTOP'S GPU. This has nothing to do with whether you think it is wasteful or silly. A laptop manufacturer has little incentive to support an end-user in upgrading the GPU. They want you to purchase a whole new laptop instead. HTWingNut is completely right in saying that MXM is NOT for the benefit of the end-user, but rather for the benefit of the manufacturer.