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Video card upgrade

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slawson

Registered
Joined
Feb 15, 2002
Location
Vancouver, Home of winter Olympics.
I have a Dell I9300, 2gig ram with a nvideo geforce go 6800 vid card. I would like to improve performance. What would be the best video card I could get that would work with my laptop.
I did a Pentium-m 400 to 533mhz pinmod a couple of years ago and at the time that was my my best shot RE - price/performance. Now that components must be cheaper (can you say ebay) I want to improve performance anyway I can. Is a GeForce Go 7 Series compatible with the I9300? Forgive my ignorance if the answer to the question is obvious.
Any sugestions on improving anything would be gratefully received.
Thanks
 
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Most laptop graphics cards (with the exception of the extreme high-end) are soldered directly to the board. I recommend checking with dell to see if it can be done.
 
Even older laptop video cards are still extremely expensive.

I would contact dell and see what they can do for you, but honestly, you are MUCH better off just saving your money for a new laptop.

Because in the end, you will have a lot more performance in a newer machine for less.
 
Call up dell and ask if it uses the MXM/MXM-I etc interface or if it is soldered into the board. If it is not soldered, you can use any graphics card that uses the same SLOT Mechanism.

Here:
Smaller graphics modules can be inserted into larger slots:
MXM Type Width Length Pins Module Compatibility Thermal Compatibility
MXM-I 70mm 68mm 230 I I
MXM-II 73mm 78mm 230 I, II II
MXM-III 82mm 100mm 230 I, II, III II, III
MXM-HE 82mm 100mm 232 I, II, III, HE II, HE
-wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MXM

Find out which one of the above it is then you can upgrade to anything that is the same size of smaller. Seeing as you have the 17", all of them should fit.
 
I have a Dell I9300, 2gig ram with a nvideo geforce go 6800 vid card. I would like to improve performance. What would be the best video card I could get that would work with my laptop.
I did a Pentium-m 400 to 533mhz pinmod a couple of years ago and at the time that was my my best shot RE - price/performance. Now that components must be cheaper (can you say ebay) I want to improve performance anyway I can. Is a GeForce Go 7 Series compatible with the I9300? Forgive my ignorance if the answer to the question is obvious.
Any sugestions on improving anything would be gratefully received.
Thanks

The short answer to your question is yes. However, you're at the point of "diminishing returns" in all honesty.

A 7800GTX will work, but to power the beast, you will need the 9 cell battery and 130 watt power brick. You may also need to upgrade the heatsink on the chipset as the 7800GTX has a secondary heatpipe that passes over it. The early chipset heatsinks are too tall and won't clear.

Last I saw on eBAY, the 7800GTX was around $360. The power brick was around $50, and the battery around $60... The chipset sink if needed is around $20. Thus, you're looking at almost $500 just to upgrade the graphics subsystem.

That is the Point of Diminishing Returns.... I just bought an i9300 speced out like yours but with 1GB of ram for $526 + shipping. To almost double the investment just to upgrade the graphics subsystem isn't economically feasible...

Take that $500 and put it towards an i9400/E1705. Not only will you have more and better options on the graphics end, but a dual core CPU and SATA hard drive support. IIRC, the i9300 maxes at 2GB of memory, the i9400 goes to 4GB.

Plus, the palmrest from an XPS 1710 will drop right onto the i9400, giving you a rather cool XPS touchpad, with the XPS logo in it lit with LED lights.

As the saying goes; "You pays your money, you makes your choice.", but this is one mod that really isn't worth it, IMHO. If you decide to go for it anyway, there's a really good instructional thread for this mod over at the Notebookforums.com site in the Dell subtopic.

Regards,

B.
 
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