NP8850 with no Video card. Looking for what's compatible.

Got a NP8850 (W880CU) that had a GTX 480m in it but was removed due to it dying, I wanted to know what cards are compatible with this notebook I was thinking of getting a either a GTX 485m, GTX 580m, 6970M or a 6990M for it, but didn't want to break the bank too much (otherwise I would've just gotten a new notebook) but I see that there are Clevo types and Alienware type for video cards. Will the Alienware cards work with this Sager? Getting a heatsinks (for the video card) will be another problem since I can't seem to find parts for this particular system (since mine didn't come with a video hence no GPU sink) and the one I have didn't come with one, any suggestions on this too?

 

cant advise on what cards will fit and work out of what you mentioned above but the dellienware will not work in clevo laptops.

 

Most games are still gpu bound so a graphics card had for a reasonable amount can give a lot of value.

 

As far as I know, the old fermi cards from nvidia will work fine (still need to be with Clevo vBIOS).
There were some talks about incompatibility with AMD cards from the same generation on nvidia-configured systems.
There was supposed to be different revisions of motherboards (for the HM series laptops) that couldnt support cards different from the brand it was configured for (like a system with AMD card wouldnt work with a nvidia card).
Might be nonsense, but Im still throwing that out, just in case its true.

The bad thing about clevo machines is that they aren't really user-upgradable as far as GPU's go.
CPU-s are a piece of pie to exchange, but GPU's can be a nightmare.
Dell's and Acers are happy to accept other brand cards, though. Go figgure!

 

The 485M and 580M are practically the same card. I had a 485M for a little while and it's a wonderful performer. (485M = 580M = 670M).

I believe the 6990M is about 10-15% faster but I see many posts about them dying so I question their reliability.

I think your best bet would be searching the Computer Components For Sale forum here or Ebay.

Edit: I would only stick to Sager/Clevo Cards. Cards from other manufacturers tend to be buggy or not work in our systems.

 

Indeed you'd expect it to be the other way around with compatibility.

 

Well everyone for now I finally broke down and got another 480m for it. Still in the future I will experiment more with these older notebooks for those who still kick around with them. Thanks for the help.

 

The 485m is quite a bit faster...

Also 485=580=675 (not 670).