Practicality of GPU upgrading NP9150?

I am considering getting either a 9130 or a 9150 in the near future and the fact that the 9150 can have a new GPU/CPU installed after purchase is pretty appealing to me. I've been reading different forums and some have said that in as little as 2-3 years, it would not even be cost effective to upgrade parts. I don't really understand why, as prices of current high-end GPUs will go down.

If I have the stock 670m and in a couple of years decide to put a 680m in or a 7970 (or even something better if its compatible), wouldn't that be better than purchasing the 680m right now for the extra $500? It would still give a noticeable performance boost, and you wouldn't have to buy another pc for a little longer. Maybe I'm off the mark on this, but can you guys share your opinions/recommendations? Thanks

EDIT: Sorry if this is the wrong forum, perhaps in the general Sager forum would have been better.

 

actually you can only upgrade GPU, CPU i believe will void your warranty.

idk, the 680M alone apparently is $1000, so...

 

If you plan on upgrading to a current GPU like starting with 670M then upgrading to 680M in a couple years then you can get the 680M for less then it is now. I think what other people meant is that in 2-3 years there will be much better cards out by then and it to upgrade to those would be $700-900 and not worth just that GPU instead of the whole computer.

You actually can also upgrade the CPU without voiding any warranties.

 

Plus the cost of a standalone gpu or cpu won't decrease in price much in 2-3 years. They will pretty much cost almost the same as they do presently.

 

If you already have enough RAM and decent hard drives, I don't see the problem with upgrading GPU/CPU down the line. Generally CPUs only work within the same generation, I believe, due to socket changes, but if the new video cards work... That seems like a worthwhile upgrade to me. If in 3 years you could upgrade to an Ivy Bridge XM processor and whatever the best card that is compatible with the 9150 by then is for about ~1k, that saves easily $500+. I don't see the need for a new machine when you could upgrade the core components so easily and save a couple hundred bucks in doing so.

 

I believe the next generation of Intel processors will use the same socket. But after that, I expect not.

Graphics cards usually work through different generations, and the same connector has been used for some time, but that can change anytime. It also depends on the amount of power the card draws as well.

 

It seems like the EMs support PCI-E 3.0, gpu-z always reports @ x16 3.0 when my GTX 680M is in use.

 

Oh really? Well that means you could probably put in Haswell in a couple of years and maybe a new graphics card if they have moved onto PCI 3.0 like hackness says. That would be some pretty awesome upgrades if it were possible.

 

Probably, anyway a screenshot, OC'd but only showing the PCI-E reading:



Sorry the previous ss was a little unclear, this one should be better.

 

oh that's nice to know. I thought i read something in the Sager manual something about CPU voiding warranty but that's great news

 

This is sort of what I was thinking. Even if I could just upgrade to the 680m in a couple of years, it's still a big performance boost, while not having to buy a whole new computer. I expect the IB processors will perform well enough for a while though.