Anyone ever thought it would be cool to have Upgradeable Video Cards? I think it would be cool if someone built a “standard” AGP card but had a “socket” for the GPU and a slot or two for the RAM. I mean it could almost make them cheaper. You could build one PCB card for a whole host of RAM/GPU configurations like a mini motherboard. You could stick in industry standard DDR-RAM (I don’t know if the RAM used for motherboards is the same that is used in Graphics cards) and multiple types of GPUs. First you buy the base PCB card then you can put in a GPU from a 7500 to a 9800 pro depending on how much you could spend. Then you could slap in anywhere from 64 MB to 1G of DDR. It would be nice if you could swap out your GPU for a faster one instead of buying a whole new card. I know that technology moves so fast and each graphics card is probably so different in every way that it can't be done, but it would be cool don't you think?
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What if Video Cards were Upgradeable?
- Thread starter skahtul
- Start date
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- Jun 24, 2002
- Location
- Maple Grove, Minnesota
might be a cool idea, but I think that buy making everything built on it comes out a lot faster. I dunno though.
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2002
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- Williamsport, PA
making people buy (as in sell you meant to say by) a whole new product is better for business then scalability.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2003
- Location
- New York
I posed this question awhile back,
And while its s great idea, It will not work. Mainely because of resistors and such on the boards. The most you could do is change out gpu,s and mem. That is the same as OC the card anyway. Now, If and this is a big if, Why would the card companies do this? They see now that most of us will upgrade now as it is, no matter what the price. And truthfully i think as fast as techknowledgy is moveing, we would prolly spend even more money upgradeing up to every little thing they will come out with.
I say just wait for the card that has everything you want in a card, and buy it and enjoy it for a couple years. Then go out and buy the next greatest Card.
Harry
And while its s great idea, It will not work. Mainely because of resistors and such on the boards. The most you could do is change out gpu,s and mem. That is the same as OC the card anyway. Now, If and this is a big if, Why would the card companies do this? They see now that most of us will upgrade now as it is, no matter what the price. And truthfully i think as fast as techknowledgy is moveing, we would prolly spend even more money upgradeing up to every little thing they will come out with.
I say just wait for the card that has everything you want in a card, and buy it and enjoy it for a couple years. Then go out and buy the next greatest Card.
Harry
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- Jun 9, 2001
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- Montreal, Quebec, Canada
AMD, Nvidia, VIA, along with some others are already working on it. Part of the Hypertransport consortium thing.
http://www.hypertransport.org/index.html
http://www.hypertransport.org/index.html
- Thread Starter
- #7
Re: I posed this question awhile back,
Companies would do this because people may upgrade more often. Changing out the GPU and the RAM would be the only two things that would matter. Nothing can't be done it is a matter of choosing to. That is true that it is the "same" as doing an overclock but not really. You can't get an XP1700 to perform like an XP3000.
harryinny3 said:
Companies would do this because people may upgrade more often. Changing out the GPU and the RAM would be the only two things that would matter. Nothing can't be done it is a matter of choosing to. That is true that it is the "same" as doing an overclock but not really. You can't get an XP1700 to perform like an XP3000.
Beast Of Blight
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- Oct 17, 2002
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- Orange County
How many times will this exact same thread and this exact same idea be posted?
- Thread Starter
- #12
Re: Re: Re: I posed this question awhile back,
OOPS, well "can't" is not the right word but an overclock is as much as a luck of the draw as it is skill. And there is more than the speed. You can't turn a Thoroughbred Core into a Barton by overclocking. That is what I am getting at. A complete upgrade for the GPU that supports new technology as well as more speed.
Damian said:
OOPS, well "can't" is not the right word but an overclock is as much as a luck of the draw as it is skill. And there is more than the speed. You can't turn a Thoroughbred Core into a Barton by overclocking. That is what I am getting at. A complete upgrade for the GPU that supports new technology as well as more speed.
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- Jun 27, 2001
- Location
- Wash. State
This idea is being done with laptops according to what I read in PCWorld magazine this past month. For a laptop it should mean more sales coming from the recreational user crowd, which is what has been lacking up to this point. What I read had an ATI 9600 card that had an upgradeable gpu and memory in it.
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2003
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- Odessa Tx
I've got an old ATI card that had a horizontal slot to upgrade to 16MB. The only difference in the 8 and 16 meg cards was one already had the upgrade.
I agree with skahtul, each new card has lots of different changes, like a Barton compared to a Tbred or even a Tbird since those first two aren't a ton different.
I agree with skahtul, each new card has lots of different changes, like a Barton compared to a Tbred or even a Tbird since those first two aren't a ton different.
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2002
- Location
- North Vancouver, Canada
Yep, older Matrox cards such as the Millenium 2 also had these slots.
I remember a few years back Micron and Rendition attempted to something similar to this, with a socket, and also embedded DRAM, nothing came of it obviously..
I remember a few years back Micron and Rendition attempted to something similar to this, with a socket, and also embedded DRAM, nothing came of it obviously..
Beast Of Blight
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- Orange County
Just face it, its not economically feasable.
It may be half-feasable in the workstation department where you can simply add more RAM to a CAD card, but modern video gaming cards.. I don't see it happening.
It may be half-feasable in the workstation department where you can simply add more RAM to a CAD card, but modern video gaming cards.. I don't see it happening.
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2001
Beast Of Blight said:
Relax a bit: if you think this thread isnt worth bothering with then dont read/reply to it. If you think it is that bad then contact a moderator.
Just because you have heard this discussed before doesnt mean that others havent. If you could dig out the link(s) to other thread(s) like this one then it may be useful to see if any interesting ideas were brought up in those threads.
Anyway, thread jack aside, i think this idea would only really be feasible for adding RAM to a card. But then, why would companies want enthusiasts adding another 64/128MB of RAM to the card when they can make them fork out for a new card. I myself have a 64MB Ti4200, I would like a faster card but I cant afford one. If a 64MB memory upgrade were available and not too expensive then I would probably go for it.
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I think the reasons against upgradability are as follows:
1) Companies want you to buy new cards - get more money out of you, instead of you buying a GPU/RAM
2) No market for it - the only upgradable ones in production now are the test beds for things like the R9900 or whatever - for validation purposes and error checking. Average joe pub probably doesn't even know how many pins his CPU has, so is he likely to buy a GPU upgrade? He'll just get another Dell
3) Advancement of technology - Technologies like DDRII and the change from surface mount to BGA RAM won't work if you use a backward slot to put them in. You could theoretically get higher speed chips/faster GPU but by that time technology would have progressed and a new board design will be needed for more memory bandwidth/bit interface. Also the power requirements are likely to be greater so more Vdd/ gpu core pins are needed to supply the juice.
1) Companies want you to buy new cards - get more money out of you, instead of you buying a GPU/RAM
2) No market for it - the only upgradable ones in production now are the test beds for things like the R9900 or whatever - for validation purposes and error checking. Average joe pub probably doesn't even know how many pins his CPU has, so is he likely to buy a GPU upgrade? He'll just get another Dell
3) Advancement of technology - Technologies like DDRII and the change from surface mount to BGA RAM won't work if you use a backward slot to put them in. You could theoretically get higher speed chips/faster GPU but by that time technology would have progressed and a new board design will be needed for more memory bandwidth/bit interface. Also the power requirements are likely to be greater so more Vdd/ gpu core pins are needed to supply the juice.
- Thread Starter
- #20
David said:
See, that is kind of my point. I think there may be a small (probably to small) number of buyers that like your self (and me) who do not want to fork out 400 dollars for a new card. But what if the company could get 100 dollars out of us for some RAM. Although I can see from a marketing point of view that they want you to buy a "Brand New" card.
