nVIDIA 8800M GTX

well a dork is the male genital of a whale, and a geek is actually a term for a carnival freak who bites off chicken heads. Nerds are sweet and come in boxes. I prefer nerd.

 

Well it is 1430 here and my head hurts just from watching how long this discussion could go on for no real reason. But I agree user upgradeable is just stating that this is something the user could change out. It does not necessarily imply that the change is newer or older, better or worse, just that it can be done. Anyway have fun!

 

of course, UP gradeable... it's not Downgrading... so it refers to improving parts.

 

have you guys ever heard of term, snake oil? yea, it matches the definition of "user upgradeable" thats being spouted by clevo.

 

Snake oil?

Why.. are you suggesting some of the models are not upgradable to 8800? Seems so far most people are 99% certain the M570RU and the larger cousin are upgradable (by _someone_ technical if not a newbie, whatever, I don't care . Or are you suggesting not?

(Or are you talking about older models? Did they get the shaft.. ie: upgradable, but onyl between 2 cards already out or something?)

jeff

 

How about I give this a try?

It is user upgradeable if you are competent to use a screwdriver to remove 4 screws and then swap the MXM module w/ heatsink&fan, and then secure it back down.

takes less than two minute to do.... even in my older D900K using a proprietary module.

Calm down people.

 

lol what a mess here

user upgradeable is just another marketing word and don't bother listening to it just buy what you want.

 

i am talking about the marketing term, "user upgradeable", as being used like snake oil by clevo. and yes, the previous models, like the d900t, was advertised as user upgradeable for the gpu but they failed to mention that you needed to replace your motherboard and the power brick in order to do this. having to dis-assemble the entire notebook in order to swap out the motherboard does not constitute as user upgradeable. in fact, clevo has done this same thing with virtually every new gpu that came out for the d900t series.

this generation of clevo models may indeed be user upgradeable.

 

Ah, gotcha.

I would agree.. its an 'undefined term' and therefore open to interpretation (which is BS .. in a corporate environment we spend weeks hammering down terms until they're so werll defined you want to kill yourself .. really, as a consumer I would _assume_ user upgradable is as Gophn says.. relatively easily and maybe a few challenged for technophobes.

Removing a mobo sounds like somethign more than 'user upgradable' to me, but YMMV.

So yeah, its a bad term no one should use. It shoudl say 'easy to upgrade' or 'hard to upgrade' I suppose at the time they weren't sure how much work it would turen out ...

jeff

 

this generation is a first for Clevo.... using a standard format like MXM.

I was one of the most surprised (right next to the master of MXM, Ice-Tea).

With the MXM format, you have a specific set of requirements for a GPU to be able to be in a certain format.... such as:
- MXM-II has 25w TDP
- MXM-III has 35w TDP
etc....

So a motherboard replacement is not needs for a standard format ("either it fits or doesnt" kind of thing), like AGP and PCIe.

Nvidia is still secretive about the MXM-IV format, since Clevo is the only ODM allowed to use them... but it has the most potential for the highest end mobile cards.. unlike the previous formats.

 

You mean that although MXM-IV (HE?) is in the latest Clevos, its specifications are not well known? Wow strange.. I'm surprised theres no patent or import papers or the like that document the interfaces to death. (ie: how new PDAs are invariably leaked long before they're official unveiled.)

Lots of intrigue in notebooks!

jeff

 

actually it had nothing to do with the mxm format, or any format for that matter. clevo did not design the motherboard to handle an increased thermal rating beyond the 6800go. so when the 6800 ultra came out there was a motherboard revision. when the 7800 came out there was a motherboard revision.

so the previous generation the gpu was not user upgradeable. this generation the cpu was not user upgradeable either. clevo forced you to do a motherboard swap if you wanted the quad core cpu in the d900c. the original motherboards could not support the increased thermals of the quad core. and what's funny about this is that the quad cores use alot less power than the P4's used in the d900t!

clevo should be held accountable for these snake oil practices. design your motherboards to handle higher thermals for future upgrades and advertise as such like dell has with their m1730!

 

CPU and GPU upgrades are different.

MXM (if you research about it) does not require the motherboard to have a BIOS update to support a new card that can fit the MXM Type slot.

And for CPU upgrade, that will depend on the specs of the chipset and power consumption which is not set in stone like MXM format is.

I know that you are a bit peeved about your previous gen D900T, which had many issues due to it being the first notebook to get high-powered components (socket 775, and a 256-bit videocard)... but that was then with the proprietary modules. Clevo has stepped up to do something I personally thought that they were never going to do... go standard MXM.

 

Not only has Clevo done a great job standardizing this segment,
nVidia is also helping Clevo to boost it's sales if you look at it this way....

 

i have a question: how much will a single 8800 gtx cost?

i know everyone is waiting for the dec. 6, but i just want to get an estimate of how much more will it cost. i know the 7950 was $100 more. i'm trying to be optimistic and am hoping it will only cost a max of $250 more......... hopefully. i'm planning on getting a sager and have a budget of 2000

 

the 7950GTX is getting phased out, so the price would hopefully be comparable... with a bit of premium pricing, like about $200 or so more (over the 8700M GT)

 

My reseller told me I can exchange the barebone of the M570RU that I have now (with dead pixel) for a new barebone with the 8800M GTX, because I have dead pixel warranty. However he also doesn't know the exact price of the new barebones/video card yet. He will let me know, and I will let you know I just hope it's not too much, but I'm already happy that it is possible to exchange my 8700M barebone for a 8800M GTX one!

 

if the alienware m9750 has an mxm 3 slot how come it can support the 7950gtx when that card is rated at 45w?

 

The Arima's that Alienware is using (m9700, m9750) are not exactly using MXM.... its kind of special.

Did you even get a chance to research this up..

go to www.mxm-upgrade.com

(look under Types... for the Arima "Special" MXM.)

 

I'm sure that the following has been more than adequately discussed on other sections of this forum, but here it is: documentation of the basics of the HE version of the NVidia MXM standard is available from NVidia itself on the following webpage: http://www.nvidia.com/page/mxm.html

On the left side of the page are two links, one to the electromechanical specifications for the MXM format, including the HE version, and the other the software specifications.

That being said, as I believe Gophn has pointed out numerous times, and as is documented on the website he provides a link to (i.e., www.mxm-upgrade.com ), the big issue is, apparently, that even though a particular manufacturer "adopts" Nvidia's MXM standard, they still end up larding their designs with numerous proprietary features that essentially render the "standard format" bit about MXM more illusory than not.

Essentially, as it stands now, the only useful information you get if a manufacturer states that its laptop uses a certain version of MXM (i.e., I, II, III, or IV, or the HE versions of III and IV) is the physical volume set aside for the graphics card, the compatible cooling arrangements provided for in the physical system, and the connector type. You also get the basic pinout set-up for the graphics card; unfortunately, support for all of the individual pins is not mandatory on both the graphics card and the system (i.e., the motherboard). As a result, even if two manufacturers both use an MXM-III format as the basis for their graphics card, they can make other design decisions about which pins to support (or not) that result in the two graphics cards being incompatible because, e.g., one system was designed to support an optional pin, and is therefore expecting input/output on that pin and will hiccup if it doesn't get the right signal, whereas the other system doesn't support that pin at all and will not provide the graphics card with the I/O it is expecting on that pin.

Basically, until all of the optional aspects of the MXM format are cleared out, or are segregated by format so that, e.g., certain options are confined to one level of MXM, the term "MXM" will continue to be largely illusory.

BTW, according to the electromechanical specs from NVidia, MXM-IV only has the HE version; the basic physical difference between HE and non-HE is the number of connector pins - HE is built on a 232-pin PCB while non-HE is built on a 230-pin PCB.

 

so much for mxm being any form of standard. too bad.

going back to the arima special mxm. if it is not really mxm, and it can support the 7950gtx and 8700gtx, i will assume it will support the 8800gtx without any modifications or bios updates.

 

D'OH. why does this come out right when i've ordered my sager with 8600

 

www.xoticpc.com

 

PC MICROWORKS are offering a Clevo based computer with dual 8800gtx!!

Is there anyone who have heard anything about this company before? I've only found a couple of people on the internet that say that they ordered from them.

And they all seem to have registered just to say how fantastic pc microworks is.. They haven't made any other posts...!! (Prior or later)

And they all, whatever the orginal topic is, talk a little bit too much about "The great warranty, fast delivery.. etc"

I'm starting to get doubts about ordering from these guys. Especially when everyone else is saying that you'll have to wait until the 6:th of december to get the 8800gtx

What do you think?

 

Deodot stop spamming the same message everywhere. If you want a serious answer follow the forum rules.

Serious answer:
PAnkcakes and DucKs. Then haveing a golf paper, wolf and smart.

 

Yes I'm sorry about that.. I'm having to many windows open and made a misstake. Sure you've made one yourself in your life

I didn't get your serious answer...

 

PC Microworks has gotten a number of positive feedback here in this forum, no negative ones yet.

They have been around for over 10 years, and are reputable.

Sager will also get the 8800M GTX's for the Clevo D901C at the same time though (around mid-late december)

 

Deedot, u should just wait a couple of days till Dec6th and buy from Xotic PC, they have less prices and better service than PCMW

 

well for the same config on PCMW its $4200 usd wih free upgrade to SLI 8800m GTX's

And its about $3900 on Xotic, with SLI 7950GTX's. so unless they give free upgrade like PCMW, it will most likely be more expensive on Xotic, come dec. 6th

Just a guess though.

 

Check out RESELLERRATINGS.COM to look up different companies. This was what made me decide to go with PCMW.

 

Go with XoticPC...

Joe

 

Reseller rating comparsion of PCMW and Xotiic PC

PCMW

#of reviews - 15
Rating- 10

XoticPC
#of reviews - 47
Rating - 9.89

I would say the ratings are equal, but XOTICPC has a better rep in the forum, so they will be able to help u out in that way. Anyone who dealt w/them can vouch that they are very quick to answer you and your needs. In addition, they have price matching and deal matching.

 

Well to be honest the reason I ordered from PCMW is because they price was cheaper than xotic pc on black friday.

Bmonk said it best. PCMW $4200.00 xotic pc $3900.

PCMW 8800 GTX SATA300 200 gb Carbon Fiber lid Black with Automotive Black Paint (included) Aluminum Brief case

Xotic PC 7950 gtx (old Graphics card) SATA150 200 gb (old generation)$89.00 for graphics on the lid or up to $400 for paint Basic Black business case.


So like Bmonk said unless they offer the same upgrade I do not see how they could be much cheaper.

Here is the other thing that I thought about that made me go with PCMW.

Parts Availability- Xotic PC has such a huge following on these forums that the few 8800 GTX cards they get will be gone within 30 mins of them posting they are available. Then they will go on intergalactic back-order from people trying to upgrade their current 9261's. They do however, seem to give free upgrades when things go on back-order.

PCMW has also been known to negotiate. All the forum posts I've seen with Xotic PC says they will not.

It boils down to your buying style, since customer service wise they are both going to take care of you.

Out of curiosity why is Xotic waiting till the 6th anyways? PCMW and ErUoCOm seem to be taking potential customers with their earlier Pre-oRDERING.

 

lol, i think black friday deals are suppostu be cheaper than that

i mean really cheaper

 

The numbers I used are not black friday numbers.

PCMW had a better blackfriday deal than xotic pc. On some systems they were offering $800 off their retail. Not the 8800 gtx systems but some of the others.

All I saw on Xotic PC was free ground shipping for black friday. Their cost? $30?

 

just got the e-mail from rjtech about the 8800 gtx for my clevo d901c, they say "check back in the end of Dec. or early Jan. when the card is available, we don’t have any info on that card yet".

so any adea where can i change my sli 7950 to 8800? or should i wait the rjtech to get the new card?

it's just 3 weeks old.... if i had waited just a bit more!!!! and get it with 8800!!

 

lol, every vendor won't get it until end of DEC early JAN.

just chill people. wait a while.

it will eventually come out.

did you see what happened to varuka on WILLY WONKA???

I.........Want..............I...........WANT!...........I............Want.....IT.....NOW!




if you relax it will come.

30 days.

i'm sure ur fricken 7950 is okay for now... psshhh I got a 7900gtx and I can kill all the games I play with it OC"D to 650/730.

Crysis 1600x1050 @Medium= over 30fps/s

 

LOL !!!! you have a point man!! thx

 

FYI, Posted Thread Here

 

Justin, can you add this to the first post of this thread?

It would help out people that look at this sticky.

 

Be glad to! Just revised my initial post to contain this new info.

 

Well, that's no more HIBERNATE for me then (after I upgrade,t hat is )
But I'm glad the 5791 can at least carry the 8800 without MBupgrade

Does make me wonder how a new GFX on an old MB can work just fine EXCEPT "resume" ... anybody any thoughts on that?

 

It's hardly an OLD mobo. It's the Santa Rosa platform which is less than one year old, as opposite to the 9261,which has an older mobo type. I think...

 

Hard to be 'upgradeable' when you can't replace it with anything better because you need a new motherboard, isn't it.

 

1.We will allow the customer to upgrade on their own, under the pre-condition that the customer understands that the unit cannot resume from suspend to memory

This just tells me to shut it down when finished. If this is all that seperates me from a 8800 down the road, I'm happy.

 

If the 9260/9261 does indeed have an older motherboard in it (and the 5791 a newer board) then the fault may lie with NVidia, not with Clevo. On November 20th, 2007, Nvidia released a new set of thermal electromechanical specifications for the MXM format, version 2.1A, document number SP-03493-002_v1.0. See http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_13290.html

In particular, the version 2.1A revision made a number of changes to the pinout for the MXM module, including new pinout assignments for DisplayPort and HD audio support, as well as removing the pinout assignment for the old integrated graphics processor (IGP) support (specifically, support for IGP_RSVD was removed).

Unfortunately I have not been able to find a copy of the version 2.1 specifications to compare the 2.1A specs against, but I did compare the 2.1A specs against both the version 1.0 and 1.3 specs. In the course of reading through the 1.0 specs, I discovered that in the earlier versions of the MXM spec, if a motherboard had an IGP, the signal from the IGP to the LCD screen on a notebook was run through the MXM card and, if an MXM card was not installed, a bit of PCB containing a simple loop-through had to be installed in the available PCIe slot in order to connect the IGP to the LCD.

Based on the 2.1A specs, that mechanism is no longer used, and a number of the pinouts that were formerly assigned to routing the IGP signal through to the LCD have now been assigned to the DisplayPort support as well as to the HD audio support. In the absence of the version 2.1 specs, my guess is that somewhere between version 1.3 and version 2.1 most of the IGP support was removed, but that nothing that would conflict with an older motherboard that still had the old pre-2.1 setup had been assigned to the old IGP pinouts. That now appears to have changed, given that some of the old IGP pinouts have now been assigned to supporting HD audio.

As more circumstantial evidence that there has been an inconsistent change between the version 2.1 specs and the pre-2.1 specs, the software specification manual Nvidia has posted, which is version 2.1 (document SP-03494-001, released September 10, 2007, available at: http://www.nvidia.com/object/IO_13291.html ), states that any MXM version 2.x must be backward compatible to MXM version 2.0, but that no forward compatibility is required (and therefore necessarily implying that backward compatibility does not need to include any pre-2.0 version, such as version 1.3).

I would therefore hazard a guess that the motherboard in the 9261 is based on a pre-version 2.0 set of MXM specifications, and that, between the time the motherboard used in the 9261 was developed and the time that the videocard manufacturers were given the 8800M chipset specifications for use in developing the new 8800M card, Nvidia revised the MXM specifications up to the 2.0/2.1 version, which are incompatible with the specifications used to design the 9261 motherboard, thereby making it impossible to upgrade the 9261 as it stands to the new 8800M cards.

I would also guess that NVidia made this change final sometime in November (which would in part explain why there was such a long delay between release of the 8400/8600/8700 cards and the 8800 card), and that, true to form, it didn't inform any of the videocard or motherboard manufacturers of the change until that time. As a result, Clevo would not have known prior to the release of the 9261 that, in fact, it would be impossible to upgrade the GPU in the 9261 from the 7950/8700 to the 8800.

My final guess of the day would be that NVidia was rather secretive about the fact that it was even considering making a revision that would be incompatible with earlier versions of the MXM specification, and that the change that caused the incompatibility (namely, reassignment of IGP pinouts to HD audio support) didn't happen until the newly released version 2.1A specifications.

As a result, since Clevo would only have been privy to the version 2.1 specifications which, on my hypothesis, did not contain the HD audio incompatibility, and since, again on my hypothesis, Nvidia wasn't kind enough to let anyone know that they were even considering making an incompatible revision to be released in November, Clevo would have had every reason to believe, based on the original version 2.1 of the MXM specifications, that the 9261 would be upgradeable from the 7950/8700 to the 8800, and therefore offered the 9261 as being "user upgradeable" (on which point I would simply point out that, even as it stands, since the basic default card for the 9261 is the 7950, and since the 9261 can be upgraded to the 8700, which is a next-generation card vis-a-vis the 7950, that Clevo would have been warranted in stating that the 9261 was "user upgradeable" even if they knew perfectly well that the 9261 would not be able to support the 8800 (keep in mind, I don't believe that the facts warrant the assumption that they did know anything about the incompatibility of the 8800)).

That all being said, I would be happy for anyone with better information/knowledge to correct me. Also, what this sorry little story amply demonstrates is that, as it stands, MXM is a standard in name only, and is more a source of confusion and anger than of clarity or consistency (contrary to NVidia's advertisment of MXM, see http://www.nvidia.com/object/PO_MXM_UK.html ).

Instead of continuing to cause needless heartache and illwill (particularly for completely innocent resellers such as Sager, xoticpc, and company) by maintaining the pseudo-fiction that MXM is a "standard," NVidia should either give up the attempt as a lost cause, or else should get back together with its original partners and come up with a recast of MXM that will clearly define what is, and what is not, compatible with what, and that has a clearly defined method of advertising potentially incompatible revisions with enough lead time that no one is caught by surprise. That might not make everyone completely happy (because it might still be the case that, e.g., the 9261 as initially released would never have been compatible with the 8800), but at least everyone would have a better idea of exactly how "user upgradeable" any particular system was.

But that's only my two cents' worth.

 

Shyster, thank you for that thorough explanation. If that is indeed true, it reflects poorly on nVidia.

Some sort of standard is required, as it makes no sense to constantly have to buy new notebook when only the graphic card needs updating. Hopefully things will improve in the future.

 

Hopefully what I wrote is somewhat close the the actual "explanation" of the SNAFU; at this point, though, it's really more my own speculation based on suggestions from a few documents I was able to find. I agree with you, however, that NVidia needs to get its act together and/or put its foot down and finally make MXM a real standard.

Since Clevo just did a motherboard update (as opposed to an upgrade) a month or two ago in order to accomodate the new Intel quadcores, I would think that they would have incorporated the new MXM specs into the motherboard (and gone with an upgrade if that's what it took) rather than being made into laughing-stocks by the inability to upgrade to the 8800 if NVidia had let them know ahead of time that the changes were coming (or, if NVidia is really that paranoid about its proprietary trade secrets, at least told them to make the relevant pinout assignments software modifiable). It's rather unfortunate that Clevo, Sager, and the resellers are getting so much ill-will for a result that NVidia could have easily avoided - the real s**t should be dumped on NVidia, not on Clevo et al.

 

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.

 

Thanks Justin.