NP9260 - NP9261 and quad cores

So guess we have a new laptop coming up and a new motherboard revision incorporating some changes allowing quad core support. Seems a bit soon for an upgrade lol, anyway i guess the chasis is the same and the other components are pretty much the same. I wonder if changing the motherboard on a np9260 is an option, and if resellers will upgrade them for the new revision and how much will that be 1000$ ,,, ouch. Pity Clevo doesn t recommend putting a go stepping quad on the 9260, seems very close but the voltage problem might be a risk to big to risk it...yet some people are running them without problem...long term who knows. What do you guys think about this new mobo upgrade?

 

Personally, I think it bites for guys that just bought their 9260's But then again with notebooks, NEVER count on an upgrade being made available. Always plan on having to buy a new one.

 

QFT! When I look at a notebook and it says upgradeable it'll be nice but not something I would hinge my buying decision on because as we all know in the tech world - things change :S.

We as consumers prefer a nice clear upgrade path but the powers that be sometimes dont see things our way. Especially when business sense dictates its more profitable pushing and selling new laptops than providing upgrade components. So just buy what you need now and be prepared to buy another when the need arises

I still dont think its as bad as some might have indicated tho. But if this change affected future upgrades to the 8800 then that's not so good news for owners of the 9260

 

Yep exactly my point, quads its not something i really need, software support makes nearly useless unless u do rendering or encoding, but 8800 thats what makes me think now. Hope they dont forget us... that would really suck!!!

 

QFT indeed. The real question now is, are there any resellers who offer upgrade paths in these situations? How much would it cost for an owner of an existing D900C/D901C to swap out the motherboard and processor if it is even available? Do any resellers buy back motherboards and processors for other buyers who don't feel the need for quad core when they do the swap? etc...

I went for the M5790RU because I figured the D900C wouldn't be able to go quad core in its current incarnation. If the answers to my above questions are positive, I might regret my decision... What are the odds on 478-pin Socket-P accepting a quad core CPU in 2008 anyway? I suppose I might just resell and go Phenom X4 if Clevo has that worked out by then Even better, mobile 4x4. Get on it Clevo

 

having JUST bought my D901 im both glad and disappointed to hear this. THe current Mobo CAN handle the quadcores... even tho tests show it to be degrading over a long period, but my reseller does do upgrades and are offering the quad core in its system currently, so it must be somewhat ok. Plus i believe the 8800s shud be Perfectly fine. the new mobo has MXM-IV slots just as much as the current one. So unless the 8800s are some MXM-V thats only on this new mobo... the gfx card upgrade is good. either way, this baby is getting two new gpus and a quad core next year!... with or without a mobo upgrade, that im not even sure if its possible.

 

lol man thats typical clevo and these D900 series notebooks.....always requiring a motherboard revision in order to upgrade. these motherboards cost $500 dollars a pop and the Q6600 costs $300 dollars so it is not a cheap upgrade for existing D900C owners (and probably not worth it).

i think a D900 series motherboard costs about $500 dollars (i know to replace my fried D900T intel board the thing costs $500). you can do the swap yourself, of course. if you send in your laptop to have a motherboard swap the vendor keeps your old one and re-sells it as a refurbished board.

the only question now is if the new motherboards would require a bigger power supply?... i don't think so but you never know.

i would not count on the gpu to be upgradable to any card that has even a slightly higher Thermal rating (like the 8800m supposedly). history of the D900 and clevo has shown there will be another mobo revision.

 

Actually, mainly the Intel D900's that require the mobo revisions.
D900T = needed it to fix faulty mobo design and power improvement (for new GPUs)
D900C = needed to gain full and safe support for new quad-cores

The D900K with AMD X2/FX did not require the revisions to support the future cards.... hopefully the AMD Phenom X4 notebook will not as well since the D900C is getting its revisions first.

 

honestly thought..just because there will be a 9261 with quad core support, DOES NOT MAKE THE 9260 BAD...IT DOES NOT MAKE IT OBSOLETE...how many people really would take advantage of the quad core? gamers?

gamers hardly have dual core support as it is, so for the few games that make use of it, yes you will see probably huge boosts in performance, but for the other games i dont think it will impact it all that much.

i do like knowing that technology is rapidly advancing, and i fully plan to use my 9260 for a long time..i didnt spend $2900 for it to last a few weeks. i get great performance in all the games i play on it, and thats all i can ask for.

 

500, ok could be worst. Wont bother about quads until it becomes necessary (if), but knowing it can be done is good. Well have to wait for 8800 power needs when its released. Hopefully it works just fine. Hmm wondering if it will be directx 10 or 10.1... would suck baddly if they stiffed us with a card that only supports 10 x and not the new itteration f directx. Again time will tell...

 

Lets just hope so, for sanity's sake...

 

quads are for professional applications not games.

 

Yep if you are a 3d animator or into video encoding then quad cores are the latest craze. 100% faster rendering in 3d studio max is sure interesting . For games after 2 cores you get disminushing results per added core. First two are usually for physics and game engine, other 2 could be for ai and sound drivers etc But they wont be used very efficiently probsbly 20%. I dont think we ll see alot more performance out of quads, total annihilation was getting some ok results on quads but nothing out of this world. This might change, but frankly i m not sure its doable and if game manufacturer are going to go into it, they ll just alienate most of their market. Maybe when quad cores are the norm... or octo cores for that matter Time will tell . For now i put my money into 2 8800 in sli now thats going to be solid performance

 

Totally agree with student1...

An SLI 8800M setup is the ideal (assuming it's 256-bit )!

There is no doubt in my mind that the current dual SLI 7950M GTX setup in the 9260 will be able to handle games at top setting for the next couple of years in DX9...but the unfortunate part...they won't be able to render even the slightest advancement provided by DX10 (which may not really matter to some folks, but could really be painful if upcoming games such as Crysis are on your mind ).

If any manufacturer can even equal the power of a dual 7950 setup in a DX10 form, they'll absolutely rule the notebook world...regardless of whether quad core CPU's are supported or not

 

Kinda makes you wonder why some of the Dx10 features aren't ported to the SLi market. Still, console machines are going to drive programmers, not PCs. You go where the money is.

 

Not true... PC market is the place for innovation. The console market cannot be ignored due to the large volumes, but the PC market has a higher per-unit profit margin.

Also there's more success porting from PC to Console than the converse. PC Games that are ports from console almost always suck (maybe the only exception I can think of here is Fable, but even that is trounced by PC developed titles like Oblivion).

Oblivion is also a good example because it's developed first and foremost for the PC and then ported to the Console. Essentially a huge money maker for the developer Bethesda.

 

Big problem is in most cases its not worth to pour 20 millions in a pc game, the hardcore gaming market with 2 sli is way too small, so if your intentions are to sell only 2 pc and not consoles you wont be putting 20 millions in dev when only 1 % of the pc market can buy it. Just makes no sense, companies go where the money is and oblivion isn t a good example as its on almost all next gen consoles, was probably planned from day one... exception might be crysis but i wouldn t be surpised if it got ported in one form or another with wathered down graphics in one year or two. Besides games like crysis probably got mad subsidies from companies like nvidia to sell their cards

 

I guess that I'm just the crazy one of the bunch. I use my system for both gaming and work. I love to game to break away from work.

I want the DX10 capable SLI and the Quad Core. I often run multiple VM's that could use the extra horsepower. Now if I can just solve the problem of cramming more than 4GB of RAM into a system, life would be great.