Sager laptops upgrading potential?

I'm still in a heated debate whether or not to go laptop or desktop for my next (first gaming intensive) computer. There are obvious advantages and disadvantages either way but one of the supposed disadvantages of laptops is that they wouldn't stay relevant in the high-end gaming market as years pass due to their 'mobile' lesser specs and lack of upgradeability.

Sager is the laptop I'm looking to go with if I choose notebook, what are some of the upgrade options on the NP8690 and 8760?

What I would definitely do is either replace the standard hard drive or add, depending on which model I choose, a Solid state drive to the laptop when they go down to a reasonable price, and then could you also replace the video card, CPU, RAM?

 

- RAM & HDD is perfectly upgradeable.

- CPU is upgradeable to a certain extent. The laptop chipsets are often somewhat limiting when it comes to CPUs.

Video card is the least 'upgradeable' part in a laptop. There are numerous factors that decide if a new GPU will work, including:
- Bios support
- MXM version
- Thermal spesifications of videocard

 

So could I upgrade to an i7 840 or 940 CPU years after having the laptop?

 

If the laptop support those CPUs now, of course they will after some years. Availability on the other hand, is another question.

 

One thing to note is that you can upgrade your GPU to any current one, even desktop cards, by using a DIY ViDock solution (external graphics card) created in part by members of our very own forums.

This was a selling point for me making the same decision as you to get into laptop gaming rigs. Although I'll never be able to run an i-series chip, I can still get a lot of juice in the future by upgrading to a quad-core and getting an external desktop card.

 

Ok will prices for the i7-840 and i7-940 in laptops be down to reasonable prices in 2011? I can wait until mid 2011 to get the same priced $1500-$1700 laptop I would get now but in 2011 if it would have an i7-9xx and a high capacity SSD.

That's what I'm shooting for right now, and maybe dual video cards also included with that. I can get a Sager right now with all of that but it would cost around $2500+. I'm hoping it will be down to less than $2000 in 2011. Is this a possibility though?

 

Most likely the prices may drop a bit, but by then they may be pulled from production. If they are, prices will most likely end up going up due to low supply.

 

Ok that's makes sense but as laptops push the technology further won't the higher end Sager models of today be the lower end/lower priced models of 2011?

Like an i7-840 with an SSD today is $2000+ but as those things become more mainstream and CPU's become more powerful wouldn't that push that 'old' high end model down to the lower end when compared to the newer models thus lowering the price as well?

Or the highest end models could always just push the price further and further up and I could wait forever on a price/performance match that will never happen.

 

unfortunately it doesn't work like that. When a model is superceded the old model usually disappears. (M570RU->TU->W870CU or D900T->C->F)

 

Remember you need an express card 54 slot for this. Anything other than that, you won't be able to use this extended device for boosting your graphics performance.

As for buying suggestion, you either buy the bleeding edge of the new technology or a "just right" machine for your needs of the current technology.
IMO, there's no point buying a bleeding edge machine of old technology.
For now you could probably use your budget to find a "just right" machine for you which is relatively "very fast" with respect to older technologies (of couple months ago)

 

Ok thanks for all the info and clarification. I think what I'm going to do is simply instead of buying right now when it's not a necessity I'll wait until Q1 2011 about and then start looking again and hopefully find the right machine for me.

Which I guess is what you're supposed to do anyways.