Why are the laptop graphic cards so damn expensive

I go to ebay and I see someone selling a 8800M GTX for $600...are you serious??

And the 280M GTX costs $650 on RJTech.

nVidia sure know how to overprice circuit boards that aren't even worth the fiberglass they are printed on.

 

take a look here
http://forum.notebookreview.com/com...0m-compatible-mxm-2-0-2-1-type-iii-he-iv.html

 

Because there is a very small market for standardised mobile video cards and there are actually very few standardised MXM cards.
If all manufacturers agreed and implemented a standardised GPU and motherboard design similar to that in the desktop market, then prices will go down... but why would they want that now ?

 

They have a FX2700 on ebay for only $229..
IBM Lenovo W700DS Nvidia Quadro FX2700 512MB Video Card - eBay (item 370414618930 end time Aug-29-10 11:53:01 PDT)

So if you can go below that maybe I'll buy it

Say $140 or so, what do you think?

 

Actually you have to give Nvidia credit for at least trying to do this, after all they developed the MXM standard. But upgrading a laptop by having MXM makes only sense in gaming or workstation laptops. Only if the laptop costs a lot of money, it would make sense to upgrade the GPU instead of just buying a new laptop. Also only high-end cards need the advantages that MXM offers while implementing MXM produces additional costs for the manufacturer. The high-end notebook market is only a small fraction of the whole laptop market. Sure, it would be nice to have MXM in every laptop, but obviously using the standard costs more money than just gluing the GPU to the motherboard or using a cheaper home-made standard.

 

I don't think they are really made for individual retail.

 

By the way, for what laptop you want that video card?

 

Actually that's not entirely true. Acer for instance uses standard MXM cards in all its notebooks and they are very well priced. ASUS does the same, but they intentionally slightly modified the slot so that it won't fit with other notebooks. It doesn't make laptops more expensive, if anything it will make them cheaper, but in the long run the seller won't make so much money out if it as many people will simply upgrade their notebooks instead of buying new ones.

 

Many of the Acer laptops with lower-end graphic cards (where it would have made sense to upgrade), did not use the MXM standard. Also many of their newer models don't carry MXM slots. Same with Compal, they used MXM, but now they don't. Well, implementation of the MXM slot lead to higher design costs, that should be logical, but due to the benefits MXM offers, if you implement it in a couple of laptops so you can use the same card for different models, it will outweight the initially higher costs. In my opinion, those initially higher costs plus the fact that the MXM slos still changes too fast are the reasons why not every manufacturer is using MXM. There are only so much people who really upgrade their GPU, I don't think this is a problem for manufacturers.

But your right, MXM should be the standard in every laptop... if every laptop producer would agree to this, they would certainly save quite some money.

 

An NP5797 / M570ETU

It has mxm 2.1 standard

 

If you are patient you can get a good deal.

Just check ebay everyday and the forum marketplace.
I have seen a few 4850 MXM 2.1 GPUs in the NBR marketplace go for a good price.

I picked up a 3700m on ebay last week for $150.

 

Hmm, would a FX 3700 (mxm 2.1) fit in a M570ETU?

 

It would fit, the only thing I can think of that might cause a problem is the back plate of the MXM card which the heatsinks screws go into, you might need to take the one from your old card and put in on the 3700m.

You can see a photo of one here:
HP 8730W FX3700M 1GB NB9E-GLM3 Video Card 488125-001 - eBay Graphics, Video Cards, Graphics, Video TV Cards, Computer Components, Computers Networking. (end time 04-Aug-10 03:16:25 AEST)

Not sure what card you have right now, but it might look the same so the heatsink should fit well.

 

Should fit.

 

It's not because Nvidia overprice the GPUs. GPUs like the 8800M GTX now cost a lot more because they are EOL and are only sold individually, therefore the price that is charged will rise or fall depending on the demand vs availability.