MXM cards advertised as user-upgradeable, but nobody sells them

I've been reading up a lot on MXM cards and how they claim that it's user-upgradeable. Problem is, virtually nobody sells them. There's a few sellers on eBay that pull them from old laptops and add a significant markup, and MXM-Upgrade, which only has one high-end card, the HD6970. They're not available at the more established places, like Newegg and Amazon.

My question is, can MXM cards really be considered user-upgradeable if you can't get your hands on a card? It seems to me that the slot was designed for laptop manufacturers to easily offer an array of graphics cards without having it coupled to the motherboard. However, this is hardly 'user-upgradeable', in my opinion.

 

its more of a demand thing.. when most people want to upgrade, they usually want to go to an upper end card. otherwise, why spend the money for a small performance upgrade?

what card are you looking for? maybe we can help you find it i know RJtech sells a variety of cards too. also the resellers on here can get there hand on cards.

 

Upgrading your gpu if it has an mxm slot is like upgrading your ram, the only difference is that you need to unscrew the card (4 screws or so), and replace the thermal paste.

If you upgrade from nvidia to ati however, you might need to use some copper to fill the space (as I had to do since the ati hd4670 didn't fit the heatsink as tight as the nvidia 8600m gt). But this differs from upgrade to upgrade, and normally it should be a piece of cake, especially with the help you get around here (and if you buy form the mxm-upgrade store, the guy will help you out too).

 

I realize that the process is easy, but the lack of availability of the cards themselves is worrisome. In my situation, I ordered a X7200 with 470M SLI. Sometime down the line, I may want to upgrade to either the 485M SLI or the 500 series if they're released. Problem is, the only place I can find 485M SLI cards right now are on eBay, and for a whopping $895 per card. To put this in perspective, the base X7200 on XoticPC comes with the 470M, and it costs an additional $1095 to upgrade this to the 485M SLI. If I were to buy two 485M cards on eBay, it would cost me $1790. Subtract that from the XoticPC price, and we get $695. Does that mean the 470M is worth $695? I certainly hope not.

I should also clarify what I mean by user-upgradeability. There are two parts to it, the ability of the user to acquire the part, and the ability of the user to install the part using standard household tools. Right now the second condition is no problem, assuming no heatsink issues. The issue is the first part.

 

It's definitely going to be cheaper to go through your reseller to buy upgrades. They should able to get them to you for closer to elwhat it costs them to get the cards ("should" being the keyword lol. I'd imagine they'd do this since your a recent customer)

Also, shouldn't be too hard for you to resell those cards either

 

Are the resellers the ones who install the cards? I was under the impression that it was Sager who installs them (along with the rest of the hardware), and the resellers take care of the warranty, custom paint jobs, and swapping out the screen for an upgraded one.

 

It is a good tip to e-mail and asked the reseller if you wish to buy standalone card and do the upgrade by yourself.

 

MXM Upgrade Home Page

Well...here you go.

 

MXM upgrade does not have great prices.

Of course the 400 series is expensive right now, its the newest.

Wait a while and prices may come down. There is not going to be a lot of variety among the higher end cards at any point.
You can see a lot of smaller MXM A cards sold on Ebay to Acer users.

There are high end HP business cards like the FX 3800m and 2800m around at reasonable prices, so users do have options out there. I for one found a good deal on a 470m on ebay.

 

And yes, the cards really are 40%+ of the full retail of the laptop. It's true.

Along with this, many resellers will purchase/install upgrades for you, for a small fee. This includes MXM cards.

 

Thanks for reading my original post.

 

Sorry, thought you meant MXM upgrades, literally, and not the site .

 

Obviously, resellers install everything in your laptop. Sager/Clevo only provides the barebones, meaning the reseller have to install the CPU, GPU, RAM, and other options you want in your notebook. That's why different resellers offer different options in terms of the CPU and GPU you can install. For example, Pro-Star is one of the few resellers that let you install Quadro FX cards for CAD users. And I doubt the resellers will sell you a MXM card for a lower price than it is on the market. They still need to make a profit.

 

Actually, it's only builders who do that, the resellers buy from sager with the RAM/CPU/GPU/Screen installed.

Even the builders get a screen and GPU installed if I am not mistaken, but their barebones don't come with CPUs/RAM/HDDs.

What you get from resellers comes from Sager first. What you get from a builder comes from Clevo direct (for what I mean, see the Clevo Barebones on RJ tech)

 

correct sir.. for example if you order from xotic and dont get a screen upgrade or custom sticker, it wont even go to them in Nebraska. it'll ship directly from sager (in California) to your door.

with builders, they get shell, mobo, gpu and screen. they buy the rest elsewhere to give more options or whatever