Worth upgrading or not?

Area-51m 7700

specs:
Motherboard: Clevo D900t
Vid card: 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon X800
CPU: Intel4 HT 3.4GHz
Mem: 1GB DDR2
OS: win xp

so, what do I need to replace to have this thing decent for gaming again?
(besides more ram ofc)
and would that be worth the effort and cash?

 

3gb RAM and a clean install of XP and it will be good for gaming again.

 

To see a really significant upgrade in graphics power you'd have to go for something like a Geforce 8800M which would be expensive. 2-3GB of ram should sort things out nicely. 7200rpm hard disk will help load times if you don't have one already, but really that's a pretty nice gaming machine. X800s are outclassed for shader operations these days but they still pack a lot of raw power, more than all but the very high end new cards.

 

yes well about the ati, I bought age of conan and the only thing that loads is the ui and an empty skybox and rainbow 6 vegas wont work because of the outdated shader.
does anyone have any idea where I might get a hold of a Geforce 8800M
call alienware?

 

You most likely wont be able to change the graphics card. Nearly like 95% of the notebook gpu's cant be changed because its soldered into the motherboard.

 

Well when I bought it they advertised it as a fully upgradeable notebook, so I hope so for their sake -.-

 

Fully upgradable still won't mean to any GPU, just to ones they want you to have, so they will probably just want you to buy a whole new system for anything much faster.

 

True that it might have a modular GPU, but that's a several generations old, the slot might have changed now. I think you should contact alienware and see if they could offer any upgrades. Chances are you might be able to upgrade to a geforce 7xxx or a radeon x1xxx but it all depends.

 

any laptop is fully upgradable,,, as long as you don't mind tossing the old one and UPGRADING to a brand new one!!!

 

Don't know if it is worth it but I think since your notebook is based on Alienware design chances are pretty good that it has a compatible MXM slot for upgrading.

So you could even fit a GF8800 into it if you are lucky - it is not easy, dangerous and can be expensive but you might want to check out:

http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/Table.html

There are a few people who successfully upgraded their Alienware (and also different) noteboks with new graphic cards. It is risky but when it works you will be happy

 

The max GPU for the D900k is the 7950GTX...now , I don`t really know much about the D900t , but it should work similarly, at least up to a 7800 go GTX...

 

the clevo d900T and the Clevo D900K were branded by Clevo as being MXM capable, but they changed their mind after they initially called it MXM IV. Clevo instead dropped the name MXM and gave full MXM to their next series of graphics card.
I have my sales information from Voodoo and it states my quadro is a MXM IV card. Rjtech, Xotic and Sager all stated this in and before June. In June Clevo stated that they were going to make the direct x 10 cards all mxm for their high end laptops.
Flipfire, the graphics card is 100% upgradeable. The D900T can be upgraded to up to the 7800GTX if you board has a revision number of 3. If your board has a revision of 4 or higher, it will support up to the 7950GTX/quadrofx2500M.
The X800 is a pretty weak card, I would recommend going for a 6800Ultra or a 7800Gtx
Here is a list of compatible cards:
x800
x1400 pro
nvidia 6800
nvidia 6800 ultra
7800GtX
7900GTX
7950GTX
quadro fx 1400m
quadro fx 2500m

The 8800Mgtx is not compatible with this laptop.

Their are 4 memory banks in your laptop, so you can put up to 4gb of memory in it.
You also have a lot of harddrive upgradeability. if your board has two pata/ide connectors you can put two of the fastest samsung HM160HC drives in their. They are currently the fastest ata harddrives. The 160gb 5400rpm drive uses one platter, enabling it to hvae speeds of 52mb/sec on average.
If you have two sata ports you can put any sata mobile drive in your laptop.
If you have pata/ide, you can simply buy a new harddrive cable for about $60 which will allow you to have two sata harddrives.

You can also upgrade your cpu up to the 3.8Ghz intel pentium 4 processor. It is the fastest processor which your laptop supports.

I hope this helps, look at my avatar, it looks like yours, I know the d900t/d900k inside and out.

K-TRON

 

sweet thx K-TRON thats the info I needed.

 

That's my Alienware! Except you have a faster processor.

At this point, I'd recommend just getting a new laptop instead of paying 500+ dollars for a new GPU. An 8600m GT is MUCH more powerful than the x800, even though it is a middlerange card. I keep my Alienware around as a kitchen desktop.