nVIDIA 8800M GTX

On November 19th nVIDIA launched the latest in mobile graphics the GeForce 8800M GTX, and Sager is pleased to announce it will be one of the first offering this technology to its customers. We are currently working with Clevo on the final verifications of the new card options. We will be taking pre-orders for units featuring this exciting new technology starting December 6th 2007 and will begin shipping later that month. We are looking forward to keeping our customers on the cutting edge in mobile gaming.

Thread posted Here

11/28/07 UPDATE
Some have asked for a bit more detail on why the 8800M requires a motherboard modification.

As an initial matter the motherboard of a desktop and a notebook computer are complete different in design. Notebooks have much tighter space constraints and this has implications for design, heat dispersal, and signal interference. As an example, a VGA card in a standard desktop has a monitor output directly on the card, but in the case of a laptop the card output has to pass through the motherboard and the LCD monitor itself has to pass through the notebook design for power saving controls and other.

In the case of the 8800M, prior cards including the 8700M were done with a design kit that allowed ODMs to design and build the card modules with the GPU chips that supported 2 protocols to communicate to the LCD panels -- LVDS & EDID. However with the 8800M things have changed a bit, nVIDIA decided that they would pre-build the modules and ship them to ODMs for final customization, and only the EDID protocol is supported by these modules. This limits Clevo’s ability to make software changes for compatibility. Both nVIDIA and Clevo are doing their best to find ways to get around all the speed bumps with software fixes, but there are just some resources that must be adjusted by hardware rework due to this protocol change.


11/30/2007 UPDATE

Upgrading Sager NP9260/1 (D901C) & NP5790/1 (M570RU) to new nVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX w/512MB

Due to specification changes out of Sager’s Control, the Sager NP9260/NP9261 will require a motherboard swap out to the updated Revision V6.x motherboard to correctly support the new nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB. The motherboard version number can be located on the bottom memory socket. The Sager NP5790/NP5791 has three different upgrade options available*.

For NP9260/NP9261/NP5790/NP5791 users wishing to purchase the nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB, Sager will perform the necessary motherboard swap out and install the card. Shipping and handling charges to and from Sager will be the responsibility of the customer. Sager will not be responsible for any case scratches or paint chipping that may occur during the modification. Please Contact the Sager Technical Support department for detailed information.

The upgrade/swap out kit will be available beginning Jan 15th, 2008. For Sager brand Clevo D901C/M570RU customers the swap out process will take 5 business days. Non-Sager branded Clevo D901C/M570RU units will require 10 to 15 business days. Rush service available call for details.

For Sager Branded Clevo D901C / M570RU customers, the nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB GPU and motherboard will receive a new 1 year warranty or the remaining extended warranty if longer than 1 year remaining; the rest of the unit warranty (or extended warranty if previously purchased by customer) remains as is.

Non Sager branded Clevo D901C / M570RU units will have 90 day warranty for all replaced parts. Sager is not responsible for the terms and conditions of any other warranties on Non-Sager Branded units, and you should review those terms to determine whether Sager service on such units will void other warranties.

For a limited time (Jan 15th, 2008 through June 30th 2008), Sager will offer the upgrade packages at a discounted rate.

Sager NP9260/NP9261 (Clevo D901C):
• Price good between Jan 15th’08 through June 30th’08
• New revision D06 (Ver. 6.x) motherboard
• 1x nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB Card
• Labor included
• $899.00 after instant $200.00 off for Sager Branded customers
• $1099.00 Non-Sager Branded systems

$745.00 for additional nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB Card


Sager NP5790/NP5791 (Clevo M570RU):

Option 1: Full swap out package
• Price good between Jan 15th’08 through June 30th’08
• New nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB
• New Motherboard
• Labor included
• $899.00 after instant $200.00 off for Sager Branded customers
• $1099.00 Non-Sager Branded systems

Option 2*: Send in to Sager for Motherboard Rework
• Available Jan 15th’08
• New nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB
• Sager will perform motherboard Rework needed
• $745.00 Sager Branded Systems FREE Labor Included
• $845.00 ($745.00 +$100.00 labor) for non Sager Branded systems

Option 3*: Pre-condition User self upgrade
• Available Jan 15th’08
• New nVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTX w/512MB
• User understands that the system will have unable to wake from suspend to ram (S3) aka: Suspend / Sleep mode issues.
• $745.00





* NOTE: NP579x Option 2 & Option 3 may or may not be available depending on final testing results from Clevo.

 

Justin,

Do you know if it will be possible to buy just the graphics card and upgrade an existing 9261 laptop ?

 

nice Justin.

Told ya guys to be patient....and Sager will give official word.

Sticky please.
(time to replace the old D900C sticky)

 

I put an order through you guys. Is it possible to leave it as a pre-order for the 8800 GTX. Instead of the 8700 GT. Still waiting for payment to clear.

 

contact XoticPC right now, through phone or email

 

Chaz, are you working on some News Bits for 8800M's that are confirmed what whichever notebooks?

This is worth pointing out. With the SLI 8800M GTX's and Quad-Core CPU, the Clevo D901C will still remain the king.

 

Darko - On 12/6 we will know more info on this, please feel free to email or contact us and we can confirm this with you at that time

Dtechlogic - please send a email into us with your order # and we can put the order on hold if you prefer.

 

Just marked the date on my calander.

 

Thank you Justin I will.

 

I was going to wait for the 8800GTX but i will just get the 8700GT. Waiting is not my thing right now. What do you think guys. SHould i just wait or get it now. I can save some more money and then go sli with it. Is 8800 GTX worth it. will every pennie i spend on it worth it. Advice.

 

it's worth it... but you could also start with one

 

WAIT !
the 7950GTX is 150% the 8700, and the 8800MGTX is 150% the 7950GTX , add that up and it means that you will get at least twice the performance of the 8700 GT with the 8800MGTX .

 

Hi, Justin so we can start to pre order on the 6th of December when do you think we can get the video card once we place the order.

 

That is what the specs say it will have twice the the memory bandwidth. That is impresive!

 

6 weeks later

 

So no news if the M570RU will be upgradable?

 

I sent a note to Powernotebooks, where I purchased my 5791 in late September. I got a response back a little while ago, and I still don't know if I will be able to upgrade from my 7950gtx or not....

Hello John,

Sager and nVIDIA have officially announced the nVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX today, but it has not yet been released. We will be taking pre-orders for systems with the nVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX starting December 6, and they will be shipping later in December (Sager has not given a specific date at this time). Once this happens, we expect Sager to give us pricing on individual upgrade pricing.

Currently, we are waiting for Sager to tell us whether or not the NP5791 and NP9261 will be ABLE to simply swap in an 8800M GTX without a motherboard and power supply upgrade.

We expect to know more on the 6th of December.

Thanks,

Thain
www.PowerNotebooks.com
1-877-711-1777 Sales and Admin
Warranty and Technical Support
http://www.powernotebooks.com/support/​

I am concerned about the line that says "....we are waiting for Sager to tell us whether or not the NP5791 or NP9261 will be ABLE to...."

I guess it will be a long couple of weeks until we get a definite answer.

 

i assume the 8800M GTS will be able to fit nicely into a NP5791 without a PSU upgrade since it is in the MXM III format, and the NP5791 is MXM IV.

hopefully that'll eliminate one of the issues he mentioned above. and that thing is impressive anyways, 8000+ in 3dMark 06, wow!!!!

 

fubarms - I would anticipate it to be late December when the 8800's will be shipping.

Sorry guys wish I had more info on the 8800 and current 5791/9261's. We will be sure to post any new info as soon as it is available!

 

That is the same nonsense I got from AW for my M9750. Its bogus I tell you, why is it so hard for the notebook community and so easy for the desktop folks.

 

Sager does not deal with rumors.... as seen with so many previous things.

They only deal with the facts... to the point where I find it frustrating to get anything for them.

But I trust them since they so that they have a strict rep.

 

If there is a production issue, how is it that Sager will have these available in Dec and Alienware has to wait until Q1 2008? Not that I am complaining, because I'd get the Sager unit but it seems weird.

 

Alienware has to wait for both the stock of the units and the videocard modules.

While Sager and other Clevo vendors already have the units out, and just needs to wait for Nvidia to ship them the 8800M modules.

 

Is there word a 8800m GTX for 15" sager notebook?

 

justin any idea of any approx prices of what the separate card will run to upgrade our 8700 ones?? even just a guess??

 

My guess would be about 500$-600$ a card. Probably closer to 600$ to start out at. Just a guess though.

 

I would say thats a close guess as well. At least $500.

 

First I'd like to say it's not your fault BUT

If current 5790/5791/9260/9261 can not be simply updated Clevo/nVidia should stop advertising their notebooks/MXMcards as easily upgradeable. It's bull****/bad marketing/money making but NOT FAIR to advertise a notebook as upgradeable, when you need to swap out virtually everything except the chassis.
And I don't believe it if they're gonna say it was impossible due to XYZ to make the card fit the current laptops without major adjustments.

 

^^^^ i fully agree 150%

 

I have never seen a Clevo site say the cards were "easily upgradeable". The sites say "user upgradeable" which is a huge difference. That means you are technically able to do it yourself but you may need to have some knowledge to do so.

 

1: I disagree. "User" is too broad. If all they say is "user upgradeable", I may assume that my gf should be capable of upgrading it. If it requires some skills, they should advertise that.
2: The way it's advertised AT LEAST leads you to believe it's easy, certainly if you have some basic skills.
3: My point is not the skills needed to upgrade, it's the hardware. While you have a point about the skills, I didn't even consider that (now). My point of view is that, even with all the skills, if you're required to change more than 1 part to change the GFX, it's not easy anymore.
4: Since you claim they never said it to be easy (which you're literally right about I suppose), let's forget that for a moment, and focus on the 'user upgradeable'. I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that every reseller will refuse warranty if something goes wrong after you changed the motherboard. In that case, though technically it is 'user upgradeable', it in fact isn't, unless you really want to void that warranty. In this same case, while one might have the skills to upgrade the GFX, one does not necessarily need to have the skills to upgrade the MB. In that case, the term 'user upgradeable' is also at least misleading.

Proper advertisement would be something like 'GFX: user upgradeable if the user knows how to disassemble and reassemble the entire laptop'. And then I'm not even talking about a fair warning for the price: one probably knows (though even that is debatable) that upgrading the GFX will cost some money. However, that does not mean you are willing to pay for a new MB as well.
Now, I can fully understand that, if you have to warn people about all those possibilities, you loose a great part off the attractiveness. Imo, that doesn't make it right, and I even find it misleading, to advertise 'user upgradeable', even in the case that you do not assume it's easy upgradeable.

I hope my rambling makes some sense

 

All I am going to say is it boils down to common sense.

To me, your fourth point puts this arguement to rest. It is advertised as user upgradable but your warranty when purchasing the product says you are S.O.L. if you screw it up. You should treat your warrantly like any legal document. It lays out your rights as the consumer. If you refuse to read the fine print it doesn't matter, it's your fault.

 

It isn't common sense to advertise a product as 'user upgradeable' and then limit the user in upgrading it through some legal document.

Before you say: "if you don't agree (with the warranty), don't buy the product", I'll point out that the entire purpose of advertising the product as 'upgradeable' is to make people buy it.
I have no idea what you mean with S.O.L. btw.

I also find it unpleasantly patronising that you consider this discussion closed because of my 4th arguement. It's like me saying this discussion is over because you didn't seem to understand my finger does NOT point at the warranty. But I don't. Instead, I try to make it clear to you what I do mean.
So, instead of just typing some stuff, completely off topic, you might want to rethink this all through and comment on the points I DID actually make.
I'm not saying I'm right and you're wrong. But to prove me wrong, you should give to the point arguements, nothing less.

Btw: if the 8800M does fit in the current 5790/9260, this discussion is even more pointless. So just to say: I'm not condamning Clevo (not yet )

 

I don't know why you are taking this so personally. I was just telling you how I interpret things vs how you interpret things. I could go on a long rant and rave about this but I've said my piece that makes it obvious where I stand.

So any ways, sorry if it doesn't out for you (being able to upgrade with ease, that is).

 

MY question in this is how does "user upgradeable" imply that there will be future components to put in a system? All it is saying is that this is an option for the user to do themselves.

 

I see everybody talking about the 17" models, but what about the 15" from sager/clevo/compal? Will there be an IFL90 refresh that will support the 8800m ?
Or will the IFL90 be compatible ?
Excuse me if these are dumb question and/or already answered, but seeing that AW is able to fit it in a 15" laptop, why wouldnt Clevo be able to do so, manufacturer of the "king of all laptops"..

 

I doubt the existing 15" Clevo books will have the ability to upgrade to the 8800m. You have to remember that Alienware unveiled NEW 15" models for the 8800m. They aren't using existing 15" models so it makes sense that they can fit them in there.

 

15" laptops have power and heat issues that go beyond just whether a gpu will fit in the socket. The IFL90 doesn't offer the 7950 or 8700, so you may not be able to safely plug in the 8800 either. Although with the 8800 having lower power requirements than the 7950, I guess there could still be some hope.

 

Np.
You have your opinion, I have mine.
This makes me believe even stronger that the wording chosen by Clevo is wrong: they should describe it so it's clear to everyone what they mean.

To do WHAT themselves?
Upgrade?
And how are you going to upgrade without new components?
Right: you're not.
I wouldn't make a big issue out of it if there was no upgrade.
However, there IS an upgrade. One that should be compatible with current systems, since there's nothing extra-ordinary which would require a different MXMslot (for example). So, if it does NOT fit in the current systems, that means (99%) that nVidia/Clevo did it on purpose.

As I said before: it is highly likely the 8800M WILL fit without any other (major) upgrades, since that will make them loose a big part of their current customer base.

 

kwakkel, CHILL DOWN mate!

if you carefully read any Sager commercials, you will see that all it says is "user upgradeable" - it doesn't say you can swap GFX and it will work out of the box..all it say is that you can upgrade it, so even if it will require new motherboard to get 8800M it still counts as upgradeable..no one said it's gonna be quick and easy..all they said is that user can do that (if you feel like doing it and have some skills). thats all - no false advertisment here.

btw. if you want to talk about false advertiment, check out AW site..it says there that 9750 can take up to 4 GB of ram..while it has intel 945 chipset that will never address all this memory..that IS false advertisment and Sager never did that.

Peace and lets close this subject.

 

i doubt this will require a new motherboard

 

I find it kinda funny to see how people think i'm getting excited about this.
I'm not
I'm just telling how I see things.
And then Im thinking about the wonderfull US justice system, which would let the plaintiff win (should there ever come a case like this)

Apart from that: I agree with zfactor that it is highly unlikely that anything more than a BIOS update will be required (and I've said that before )

 

well I am not sure if this had been mentioned but Rock, a custom computer dealer out of the UK seems to have put the 8800gtx in a clevo M570RU

here.

http://www.rockdirect.com/viewNotebook.php?pName=XTREME 770

And here is a video of benchmarking comparison to 8600gt in another custom M570RU from the UK. Why the hell do they get it first...!@!

http://www.unwiredshow.tv/2007/11/19/22-nvidia-notebook-graphics/

 

Kwakkel, dude they offered two cards to start with that would allow you to upgrade the system anyway you wanted. When an item says upgradeable does not mean there will be more options for it. In truth most laptops are upgradeable to some degree, but most manufactures decide to put out new models and not offer any other cards.

But really chill and if you want to try to take them to court on soemthing that was never in print go ahead. You might get lucky!

 

kl: i'm sure I'd win if that's the way I wanted to go. However: upgrading means 'making it better'. I've never heared from someone who said he upgraded his computer from (for instance) a T7500 to a 7300.
Similar, you can't call changing from a 8700M to a 7950GTX 'upgrading' (you loose DX10 features - and no, we're not going to discuss the usefullness of those). You could say moving from a 7950GTX to a 8700M is an upgrade, because the 8700M is newer. But you'll loose FPS, so 'upgrading' doesn't cover it in that case either.
And, I'll say it again: I'm not excited or anything. Just convinced that I'm looking at it in the same way 75% of the current customer base will look at it when the upgrade is impossible (or way to expensive). you want to go tell them in that case that they were all wrong?

 

Saying something is an "upgrade" is actually a subjective statement. It implies that you will be getting something that you want and don't have now. It does not mean that the item being "upgraded" is any newer or older. If I had the 8800 GTX in my desktop, and decided to put in the "newer" 8800 GTS - would that be an upgrade? Of course not. That card is technologically inferior in every way. It's just @ a more attractive price point for new customers.

For some reason, this thread makes me think back to one of those evening entertainment news shows that my wife watches (I can't remember which it is), where they have a segment called something like "upgrade or downgrade", and they look at celebrities and who they are currently dating vs. who they were dating last. Just because the host of a show thinks that someone has "downgraded" does not make it so. Perhaps the newer partner had something that the old one lacked. Completely subjective.

I know you don't want to get into DX9 vs. DX10, but if I have an 8700 gt in my system, and I decide I want to push higher FPS in say WOW, I might decide to replace the 8700 GT with a 7950 GTX. In this case, I have upgraded because my stated goal is to increase FPS in a game that is not utilizing DX10. Conversely, if I have a 7950 GTX in my system, and I want to install a Blu-ray drive to watch movies, I might decide to "upgrade" to that 8700 GT as "It is the world’s first video processor to offload 100% of Blu-ray and HD DVD H.264 video decoding from the CPU. " ( direct quote from nvidia.com). As the 8700 GT would provide a better picture in this scenario, it could easily be considered an "upgrade". Again, completely subjective.

 

well put Sambun. Thanks for having patience with the children. Though I was getting excited over the possible nerd fight.

I do consider myself a nerd btw. It pays well.

 

Oh, P.S.

For the record, to me - the term "user upgradeable" simply means that the GPU is not an integrated card hardwired into the motherboard, but instead a seperate daughter card that is non-proprietary.

While this my just seem like semantics, please keep in mind that many companies DO use proprietary hardware and integrated graphics still. In fact, the vast majority of notebook computers are NOT user upgradeable for one of these reasons.

While you and I are a bit spoiled tech wise (since we're discussing high-end desktop replacement gaming systems), and realize that "user upgradeable" as I defined it above should be able to be taken for granted on this type of system, your average user might not. Someone without the tech savvy or experience with this class of system - or someone who doesn't surf forums prior to purchasing might not realize that changes can be made to the GPU down the road. Or stated another way - if your only laptop experience was with a system that used proprietary hardware, the thought of changing your GPU aftermarket might never even occur to you.

Heh - now it seems like I'M worked-up about this... I assure you I'm not. I'm simply bored ATM, and reading your posts got me to thinking. Since it's 2:00a.m. here currently, I have diarrhea of the brain. Sorry for the wordy posts all =P

 

Thanks BMonk, I consider myself a nerd as well.... I much prefer that to dork, which I feel has a negative connotation

 

Since english is not my native language, I'm not sure whether you're partially agreeing with me or not
However, since daddie BMonk is tired of seeing child Kwakkel making an arguement, I'll just call it the end of my participation in this topic.