Blog FeedUpgradable Laptop Graphics?
What exactly distinguishes a laptop from a desktop? The answer to that question would probably yield a number of replies, with ‘portability’ coming in at #1. Chances are that lack of upgradeability would not make the list. Indeed, since the conception of portable computers, most tech-savvy people haven’t even bothered to close their desktop cases while only the most adventurous have dared to open up their laptops. Want more RAM? Too bad, buy a new laptop. Upgrade your CPU? I don’t think so. Just buy a new laptop. New hard drive? You guessed it.
The last few years, however, things are starting to change. For a person who knows what he’s doing, filling up an empty slot with a fresh stick of RAM or upgrading your hard disk is no longer impossible. Some laptop manufacturers have even been kind enough to make their ‘motherboards’ socketed. While there is often very little information available concerning the motherboard’s, bios and thermal capabilities, upgrading CPU’s is now at least on the map.
Together with the movement for more modularity, the laptop has been able to close the performance gap with their desktop brethren a little at a time. Nvidia has vowed to launch the “Go” counterparts of their flagship GPU’s at the same time. Often clocked at lower speed then desktop parts, these mobile GPU’s do not offer the same performance but laptops are no longer generations behind. That is, for those with infinite money to spend. But swapping out graphics cards has been a dream that’s been shrugged off by enthusiasts as unreachable.
That of course is changing too. Almost unnoticed by the majority of the hardware community, Nvidia has launched a modular form factor based on the PCI Express interface as early as 2004. MXM, short for Mobile PCI Express Module has been defined in three flavors, representing three different mechanical sizes and thermal budgets, capable of fitting the fastest and most advanced GPU’s. While the architecture is open and high level enough for any GPU, ATI has decided to offer an alternative, Axiom. And then everything became silent. Why?
Well, basically, major laptop vendors have nothing to gain from this concept. A costumer that would come to them for a new laptop would now turn to the local electronics shop for a new Nvidia drop-in card, a transaction that brings them nothing. So, it would be naive to expect Dell, Toshiba and the likes to happily cot off their own crown jewels. While there’s a clear design advantage (one would only have to design their boards once for a laptop with graphics ranging from a 6600 through a 7800GTX) there are also some drawbacks. All high level abstraction efforts lead to increased mechanical and electrical overhead. A socketed processor is a bit higher and offers a bigger challenge for SI engineers then a CPU soldered on a Mobo. Same for DIM sockets. And same for MXM’s.
And yet, the first MXM products are starting to trickle through. Again, not from the major vendors. Some Taiwanese and Korean OEM’s that have been producing for Dell’s and HP over the years and still do, are trying to gain a market share of their own. Realizing that a simple price advantage would not be enough for costumers to abandon their trusted major brand laptops, some have now embraced the modularity trend. Laptops with 6600 MXM’s are now readily available, even though there’s still some uncertainty regarding actual upgradeability. Keep in mind that the insides of a laptop are far more complicated from a mechanical point of view then their desktop brothers due to the high-tech thermal interfacing required to keep dimensions down and heat out. Some 6800’s seem to be available too, but even more fog surrounds these.
While actual sales from these OEM’s are a bit marginal and are likely to stay so, the major brand companies are presumably monitoring this trend. By the time they notice this trend is picking up speed and they are likely to lose market share over it, they will presumably follow suit. I say presumably, because I am yet to see the first AMD CPU arrive in the Dell lineup.
And then there’s MSI. They have showcased a desktop PCI Express graphics card with two MXM’s fitted in SLI. There are no performance benchmarks available and it is rather unlikely this will pose a big threat to the 7800 and 1800 flagships, but it definitely highlights the fact that they are investigating the concept and have obvious plans for it. Is this the preparation for the launch of an MXM lineup? Perhaps they have a big partner for it? Imagine MSI and Toshiba making a joint announcement of the availability of a laptop with an MXM slot suited for MXM modules ranging from 6200 to 7800GTX…
Well I can dream, can’t I? But I say that in 10 years we’ll be swapping laptop GPU’s like we do in desktops and we’ll have forgotten it was once different.
30th January | Reply
More like the 7800 and 1900 flagships, at present.
Things are definitely looking up in the laptop segment. This past August at QuakeCon, Intel sponsored a couple build-your-own laptop presentations — certainly helpful for their presence considering the overwhelmingly AMD audience in attendance. I didn’t attend, though, and can’t speak for how useful it may or may not have been to a crowd of hardened DIY’ers, but it’s nice to know it was there and a major tech player was at least encouraging users to dabble around in the emerging market.
30th January | Reply
I’ve been a full-time laptop user for about 3-years now having come from desktops and here’s the thing - I’m not interested in upgrading. Upgrading, as far as I am concerned, is the most over-blown concept in PCs unless you plan on upgrading every other month. From experience, every time I came to “upgrade” I ended up having to replace most of the major components of my PC because sockets and buses had changed in the meantime. I think upgrading was more expensive than just buying a whole new computer.
As far as I am concerned, I’m quite happy with a laptop that is cutting-edge when I buy it and then I’ll replace the whole thing in 3-4 years time. I want the laptop to be fast, light, with a good battery life and some upgrading options, such as a reasonable RAM limit and an accessible hard drive. The processor and graphics card can be inaccessible if doing so will ensure that the main criteria are satisfied.
I am unsure of the concept of DIY laptops. I can see that DIY desktops is OK since you don’t actually have to touch the thing when its running, but with a laptop it is the complete computer, including the display and interfaces. Given this, I want the pros to build them since the margin for error is so much greater.
30th January | Reply
I do wonder how far it will go. I think better upgradability will be on the cards for sure, but there will definately be limitations to the DIY concept that we see on desktops. For instance, I don’t think we’ll be seeing clear cases with LED fans and UV-reactive cabling in our laptops. But hey, prove me wrong kids. Prove me wrong.
30th January | Reply
I always thought upgrading makes more sense for laptops then desktops, as you loose the LCD screen, keyboard, thermal interfacing etc when buying a new one.
I’m not sure what laptop you have, but are you honnestly not intersted in upgrading it to a 6800 GPU for, say, 150 or 200$?
I always steer clear from the very high end computers and go for the better deal and do a small upgrade mid-life. Works for me.
30th January | Reply
In Reply to #4: Well, this is the thing. I would be interested if it would work and not compromise the more important features of the laptop. As you note, features such as battery life, portability, display quality, etc. generally rank as more important features than the graphics card and I am not willing to compromise these. If you could simply plug-in a new card then that, of course, would be great but, as I noted earlier, the industry tends to move so fast that what you would want to plug-in is incompatible. Just look, for example, at how many different graphics buses have been created over the last few years, or RAM standards. It’s crazy. It’s for this reason that upgrading is, as far as I am concerned, a myth.
It’s a nice idea if there were standards that remained in place for long periods of time but there aren’t so I’m not interested. Given this I will be buying a MacBook Bitch (or whatever the Merom-based ones are called) later this year and will make no changes to it (beyond adding RAM and maybe replacing the internal hard drive) for another 3-years. At the end of the day the processor and graphics chipset delivered with the current MacBooks will be fine for many years so I’m going to feel OK with my investment. It’s not like, for example, I’m buying one to be a gaming machine or something. If I was interested in playing games then I’d buy a console and save myself a shitload of cash - PC gaming since university has at least taught me that it’s a bottomless money pit.
30th January | Reply
In Reply to #3: Not quite what you were looking for, I think, but check out these case designs. #4 is pretty cool but some of the others do suck, particularly the later ones.
31st January | Reply
I’d lean the same way in buying a ready-made laptop configuration to last me four years. But there are certainly a lot of enthusiasts who “upgrade” in the sense that they buy the current hardware without much reflection on the changing standards — that is, “upgrade” is tantamount to purchasing an entirely new system. I could very well see this laptop market blossoming with just that mindset. The purely visual enhancements of see-through acrylic or lighting are secondary to the surpreme ability of being master of your portable domain, interchanging entire motherboard/GPU/memory configurations. I’d certainly be partial to that level of control, coming from the highly hands-on world of desktops, and it might even prompt me to waylay any inhibitions I have towards battery life or portability.
31st January | Reply
In Reply to #2:
For a laptop which is going to have pretty poor gaming performance I pretty much agree with that Kelmon. Thing is for gaming I can’t afford the high end components, more than about 600 dollars splashes and I’m overtapping my savings for gaming. So I spend the 600 then in a year or two tacking on 200 dollars that let me scrape by is a great way to stay in the game a little while longer.
I don’t really think Upgrading makes that much sense on a laptop as to get any kind of gaming performance at all you’d need to spend huge sums of money in the first place. In that case you’d simply be better served with a new every two or 3 years as a gaming a laptop. For general purpose apps it’s even less of an issue as new every 4 is simply more sensible because of issues with battery life et al.
31st January | Reply
I just figured I’d toss in a few numbers: scraping some info together, I figured out a GF 6600 or X-700 128MB module goes for about 150$. Not too bad.
31st January | Reply
To be honest, it would be nice if the laptop can play games at a good rate but it’s not that important. I’m pretty happy at the moment playing Call of Duty 1 at 800 x 600 on my old PowerBook but it looks like the new MacBooks will be quite capable of throwing the likes of Doom 3 around and Worlds of Warcraft so I’m going to be very happy with one of those. Mind you, it won’t be a cheap purchase and I’m expecting to need to pony-up just over £2000. For that kind of money, however, I am expecting something close to cutting edge and that will last me for many more years. While I could certainly buy more power for a fraction of the cost with a desktop (even an Apple one) the combination of power and portability is absolutely critical for me and I am not in a position to buy both a laptop and desktop. If I did have the money then I buy this guy’s setup.
Upgrading is fine as long as accomodating it doesn’t compromise the rest of the system. I have no desire to buy a laptop with the dimensions of a brick like some of those desktop replacement systems but if they can achieve MacBook-thinness then I’d be happy with the idea.
31st January | Reply
Figured I’d add a few examples of MXM enabled laptops..
http://polywell.com/us/notebook/poly915p4.asp
http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/Resources/244/797616973.jpg
Not exactly bricks.
Picture of the Fujitsu:
http://www.argemmios.com/FS/fs15.jpg
31st January | Reply
In Reply to #11: It’s a bit hard to say whether they are all bricks since only the Polywell has specifications that I saw, but that one is definitely a brick. The problem starts with a P4 inside it which no doubt contributes to its 2-hour battery life, dimensions (2″ thick) and weight (MacBook (as a comparison) weighs 5.6lbs and is 1″ thick. While the battery life is yet to be officially confirmed, it is supposed to be as good as the current PowerBooks, so that’ll make it 4-hours or more.
As I’ve noted, I’m happy if they can make it upgradeable without making it either bulky or giving it a battery life barely long enough to boot it. I’d also want to be sure that when it comes time to upgrade that I can actually add something rather than finding out that the socket changed or something.
31st January | Reply
Sorry, I made a mess of my link to the MacBook specs. You can find them here.
31st January | Reply
I have MXM laptops on file that come in at 33mm. While still well above 1″, that hardly qualifies as a brick. I know the standard a bit and, if well designed, using MXM shouldn’t bring too many sacrifices with regards to bulk.
1st February | Reply
I have never had much interest in laptops because gaming is an integral part of my PC usage. While it would be great to have a portable computer doing things on the go (slow nights in the bar would be less boring) it is not a need that I can justify dumping $1500 on.
A friend of mine has an XPS dell gaming laptop. He says that he cannot play black and white 2 for over 1.5-2 hours before the laptop gets so hot it will burn your lap. So it appears, even with swappable graphics, laptops still have some way to go. To fully satisfy a gamer you need to handle 6 hour WoW raids and whatnot.
I personally enjoy PC upgrading and find I would spend the same amount of money upgrading as I would if I just bought a new system every 3 years. The big allure to it is every 2 or 3 months I have something fun to research, purchase, install and enjoy the performance boost/extra features. It also doesn’t make that once in a while purchase so critical. I don’t have to worry about “future proofing” anything.
1st February | Reply
In Reply to #15: Well, the question has to be asked, what was your friend doing with a laptop on his lap to begin with? It’s generally accepted that while laptops incorporate the term “lap” in their name, that you shouldn’t being using them on your lap for an extended period of time unless you have no option. If the machine gets hot enough that it can actually burn (as opposed to uncomfortably warm) then you’re probably looking at a design fault, such as not enough ventilation or Dell was trying to cram components in that run too hot. Given the specs and the curious lack of an expected battery life I rather suspect that its a hot sucker and as such is more of a desktop replacement. These things, it has to be noted, should only be used on your lap if you have no desire to have children later in life and are going for a DIY sterilisation.
Personally, I can’t imagine going back to a desktop again. While the price is higher for a laptop and the performance lower, the freedom to work where ever you want is well worth it. My only concern is that the system should be fast enough to handle the modern operating systems make proper use of the facilities available. Both Microsoft and Apple are employing graphic libraries that allow pro applications to make full use of the hardware available but you need a compliant graphics card to either use them at all or avoid taking a big performance hit. Gaming, overall, isn’t very important since I rather feel that I’ve pretty much seen it all these days, so splashing the cash for more of the same seems pretty pointless.
2nd February | Reply
Although it certainly qualifies in the “brick” segment of portable computers, Dell did have this to display at the recent CES. While pretty much a “solid state” (*wink*) offering in the hands of Dell, a concept of this kind with modular design or upgradeability in mind would certainly appeal to the DIY movement. In effect, this form of computer creates some middle ground between laptops and desktops. As far as desktop replacements go, I would certainly enjoy carrying this to events than my full-fledged desktop yet still retain the hands-on capability.
2nd February | Reply
In Reply to #17: In regards to the Dell, WTF? Is it me or is that seriously over-complicating the concept of a mobile computer? It kinda reminds me of the first portable computer that I saw about (I think) 18-years ago. The system was a “full” PC but was the size of a briefcase/suitcase and came will a full keyboard that you sort of folded out. The Dell is obviously much better but I don’t understand the point of it with the exception of the dual hard drives, which is pretty useful. A 20″ screen is nice but I don’t think the portable technology is ready for it yet and therefore it appears too bulky. This said, I am expecting screens that size on “regular” laptops in the next year or so, particularly given the advances in display technology.
3rd February | Reply
Heh, I really like that dell PC. I don’t know why, I just think it is kind of neat. When I was a kid I was always fascinated by those ‘briefcase cars’ they’d show on TLC and such.
Someone pointed out in that article that Samsung Has One as well. Samsung’s seems to make people happier too. Cute people.
3rd February | Reply
In Reply to #19: LOL! I have no idea what drugs are commonly available in Korea but I can only assume that the Samsung engineers had access to a reasonable quantity. A 19″ screen on a laptop is great but this one seems to be suffering from a few design flaws:
1. It weighs almost 10lb! That’s like double the weight of my current one and it’s not the lightweight system that it used to be, either.
2. They openly state that if the weight is too much then you can just detach the screen and carry the base unit and plug it into any TFT monitor. Question: doesn’t that defeat the objective of a portable computer? If I wanted to do that then I could buy a Mac Mini that’s both smaller and a fraction of the weight.
3. What’s the reasoning behind detaching the screen anyway?
4. It costs $4,000. Holy shit! That’s gotta be some kind of record, yes?
I’m all in favour of making laptops better but this one seems to be somewhat confused as to what it wants to be. The specifications aren’t great for it either considering the asking price, with the exception of the screen, of course.
Mental…
3rd February | Reply
4,000 is hardly unheard of. One can easily configure an Alienware notebook to top out well over that price. Sadly it’s roughly the same specs as a 2500 dollar desktop gaming box. I don’t know if i could be very happy with a laptop as a primary PC for anything less than about 2 grand sadly which conflicts with about 800 dollars for a desktop I’d be fairly happy with.
3rd February | Reply
In Reply to #21: Yeah, no kidding on the Alienware point. I had a brief trip over there to see how expensive one of their laptops can be and was disappearing through the $5000 mark when I got bored. What shocked me, however, was just how poorly their laptops are specified at before you start tweaking them. I started with the most expensive model (Aurora m7700) and while the processor looks OK (I am not familiar, I must note, with AMD processors these days), I was stunned that for the base price of $2199 you only get 256MB RAM, a GeForce Go 6800 and 40GB 5400 hard drive. That, as far as I am concerned, is positively criminal since you need to spend at least another $500 to bring its specs up to something competitive.
I can understand the issue with desktop vs. laptop since I can’t see laptops coming down to desktop prices and performance any time soon. For me, however, since I use my computer at home and at work a laptop is the only practical option but I do want it to have as close to desktop performance as I can.
4th February | Reply
I just checked on the m7700’s base processor and it has turned out to be the bare minimum currently available on the AMD side. Even if this setup were built for later improvements and system upgrading this opening price would destroy the will of most DIY’ers.
5th February | Reply
It’s very much off-topic but does anyone know where Alienware gets off on those prices? The PC market mocks Apple quite a lot for its high prices but this is quite incredible. I was talking with my wife about this and we compared Alienware to some restaurants that had been awarded their Michelin Star. Quite often you find that when they’ve got their Star that their quality/service goes south very quickly, typically because the chef has now gone off to found his own restaurant, the original one no longer feels that it needs to bother and they can hike their prices up.
This said, I believe that I owe Alienware a bit of an appology. I still think their prices are grossly excessive but, having speced a comparable system, at least their prices aren’t as bad as Falcon Northwest. The 2 systems aren’t 100% the same but are close enough yet I ended up with a system from Falcon that cost almost $1200 more. Yikes! The standard stuff in the Falcon is better than the Alienware rig (better processor, more RAM, etc.) but the starting price of the FragBook DR 6800A is $4747.68, although apparently you get a free T-Shirt so that makes it OK…
Voodoo, while still damned expensive, appears to offer better value than the other 2. The top of the line AMD system, the ENVY Heavyweight u:709 Notebook starts at $4300 but for that you at least get dual-core processors and a reasonable hard drive, although the RAM and Video need boosting for a modest price (just under $200).
Given that I am sure you can buy “standard” laptops with high-end graphics chipsets and processors for a much more modest price, I wonder how much difference these “gaming” systems really make.