The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Standalone graphics cards are easily $500-900 on their own, depending on the model you're looking at. For the shell swap you're mentioning, you'd be looking at everything new except for RAM/HDD/Screen- which is why it's starting to get closer to the price of a new machine.
Does the screen have to be changed as well because of the new chassis? The old one cannot be reused for lower cost? The swap reuses CPU and GPU as well.
You can use your old screen, however, we can't get shells with no screens so we can't drop the price of it, however, you do get the screen back in either your new OR old shell. Please note: You DO keep your old shell to sell or do with whatever you want to help offset the cost. Anything we don't swap we give back to you.
Yes, but I was under the impression it was a better deal than buying a shell at RJ-tech myself. With those numbers, I'm better off getting a shell, then using my old notebook for parts where needed and getting an upgraded GPU at least. With myth's prices, you're getting the shell, minus the cost of the GPU, plus several hundred added on for labor it looks like.
Depends on what you have already, if you have a 460m it might not be a bad deal, but the 6990m you have is more powerful than the 675m that you could get the shell with, so a P150EM from RJ-tech w/ a 675m is $1014, which vs $850, and you don't have to do the work or spend the time. So you are still saving money, and you have to remember you get your old shell to sell off or do what you want with.
I get my old shell in either case. In the RJ-tech case, I also have a newer mobo and CPU once Ivy hits. I also have more in my old shell, meaning it could sell for more. And presuming I would wait until 7970 or 680 is available, it becomes less attractive. Still, it's a good program for those who don't want to do work themselves.
I certainly appreciate that Mythlogic is helping people out with an upgrade service, however many of us are in the position where we have a 150hm (or similar model) that is working perfectly - and don't need a new battery, AC adapter, or LCD - we are looking for the cheapest way to upgrade to a new shell and motherboard so we have future upgradability, Optimus, and the backlit keyboard.
If there is no reasonable way to do this because shells aren't sold without all the extra bits - then I suppose that's life - but ideally, we're trying to update the least possible and for the least possible money.
Have you not considered just buying the P150EM barebone, transferring over whatever components you deem necessary, then selling off one set of GPU, PSU, and LCD to offset the cost?
Can we get just bare motherboards, and bare empty plastics and just the keyboards... Yes, and it all works out to be basically the same price and then there is more labor to assemble the motherboard into the shell, and so on.
So thats why we offer it like we do, its the cheapest way we can make it, if we could get pre-assembled mobo's in shell's with keyboards only we would be all over that, but alas we don't have that option.
We don't do tradeins on video cards, but a 480m SLI -> 7970m CFx would be a big boost, we still don't know if the 7970m will work in the X7200 it still needs to be tested.
The standard AMD drives DO NOT support switchable graphics, so no you have to have special drivers that have the intel drivers baked into them. At least for the 6990m, we haven't seen the new 7970m final drivers yet to see whats going on with them, but it'll probably be a monolithic driver also.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
