Technical questions - Dv9000t

I'm very seriously considering buying a DV9000T. I have a couple of technical questions about it however. I asked one of them to their pre-sales tech support and they told me it wasn't supported - so I'm asking here.

The DV9000T supports up to a T7200 Intel CPU. The pin outs for the T7600 CPU are the same and the chip size appears to be the same. I'm wondering if the CPU is socketed to the motherboard, or if it's soldered?

I'd like to change it out later when the price of the T7600's drop. I figure I should be out of my warrenty by then.

Also, the GeForce 7600 Go 512mb version - is that 128mb dedicated and 128mb shared? Or does the video chip have it's own, dedicated 512mb chunk of RAM?

Anyone have answers to these questions?

Thanks in advance!

 

Almost all laptops nowadays are socketed except some ultraportables. My own personal opinion is it probably isn't worth it to upgrade from one CPU to a faster one with in the same class of CPUs. I believe half the memory is shared on the 7600. If you get the 512MB card, you get 256MB of discrete memory. Same one the 256MB.

 

no the 7600 512MB has the whole RAM as dedicated but it will do you no good, as the 7600 cannot use more than 256MB anyways. i have the dv9000t 7600 256MB and it is 256MB dedicated, nothing shared.

CPU isn't soldered but the GPU cannot be replaced

might be good to wait for the new santa rosa versions with dedicated graphics to come out soon

 

Thanks folks, for the replies. I appreciate it!

I've read a little about the Santa Rosa's... I don't know what they do though. Whats the big hype about them, if you could sum it up in a couple sentences for me please?

So the GPU is seperate from the T7200?? I thought all the GPU's now where onboard the CPU. The GPU is the math co-processor, right? Or am I totally off base here?

Thanks in advance!

 

santa rosa introduces a leap in the front side bus from 667 to 800mhz, allowing for faster speeds. it has improved the power consumption/saving abilities, meaning it consumes less power, saving battery life and less heat.

GPU is the graphics processing unit, for graphics intensive programs such as games and lately for HD movies. it is a separate unit from the CPU, sometimes integrated onto the motherboard and sometimes a separate card.

I think AMD who now own ATI are/were planning to one day integrate the GPU and CPU into one chip, but who knows when and if this will happen and if it will be successful

 

Not even close.
The 7600's are all dedicated memory.
Just look at the specs, or the decal on the notebook, it tells you that!

 

I am perfect, no. I am close, yes. I think I am allowed a few mistakes in almost 14,000 posts. Way to be gracious.

 

Didn't mean for it to be that way, just showing what to look for to be sure.

Accept my apology as I had no intent to defame you.

 

I been called much worse around here and was not harmed. No apology was necessary.

 

Thanks for the clarification about Santa Rosa!

Do we know when HP is going to incorporate that into their laptops?

 

you mean santa rosa?

they already did, its mentioned everywhere in the forum

the new model is called the dv9500t but does not have a dedicated graphics option yet, this will be coming up soon

 

Kalwren - I've had my dv9000t for about a month now. I'm very happy with the two hdd's and dual XP/Vista boot capability (two hdd's not necessary though for dual boot as you prolly know). Very happy with fit and finish and the WSXGA+ LCD is beautiful. Only marginally happy, though, with the driver selection for the Go 7600. Your choices are old drivers from HP or you have to hack the current drivers from Nvidia. As of last week, anyway, the Go 7600 was not listed as a supported card for XP on the Nvidia site. Plus - and this isn't H-P's fault - at least one older game (Raven Shield) will not run on the dv9000t due to both graphics and Core 2 Duo issues.

 

Not sure if the issue about drivers is only HP's problem, i think it's everyone as well. I think it is common for mobile and desktop branded computers to not always have the latest drivers for graphics cards but that should be something they sort out. As for the nvidia site, they usually don't provide drivers for laptop cards, they've done that for a long time now I think.

The issue with new drivers is that although it may seem that new drivers are good, this is not always so with graphics cards. Sometimes a new driver adds support for a newer product and doesnt really improve anything else. sometimes this driver improves performance for new products and leaves older ones with the same, worse or better performances. So while a new driver seems good, it may not be good for performance.