Notebook builds
March 31, 2009 09:31 PM
What's the usuall price to build a notebook that's completely upgradable in the future? Mostly the CPU and GPU are the things I would upgrade.
1,256
March 31, 2009 10:02 PM
From what I understand, you usually can't upgrade those parts of a laptop.
April 02, 2009 03:46 PM
Well the cpu looks like it might be upgradeable. Is eBay a bad place to look?
200
April 02, 2009 04:06 PM
It's been so long since I bought a laptop that I don't know for sure, but it's not going to be cheap to buy an easily upgraded one. The CPU in most can be interchanged for similar models (always check before hand, usually this means only clock frequency changes, not much else).
The GPU from what I understand can't be upgraded in most laptops, even high end ones. It's apparently such a big deal to keep the thing cooled that very special attention is paid to the design of the case around it, and changing it would be bad. Not that it is impossible in some, I'd imagine that some models of laptop anyway share a few compatible mobile GPU chipsets and cards.
I guess the point I'm getting at here is that you probably shouldn't be looking for a long term upgradeable laptop. It's probably not going to be cost effective, if it's even really possible.
If you still insist, you can try places like eBay for second hand ones, but if you're feeling a little daring you can visit a place like www.avadirect.com and buy a barebones kit. Then you buy RAM, HDD and CPU to put in it. I did so with my last laptop, and it worked alright until it ate 10 HDDs...
The GPU from what I understand can't be upgraded in most laptops, even high end ones. It's apparently such a big deal to keep the thing cooled that very special attention is paid to the design of the case around it, and changing it would be bad. Not that it is impossible in some, I'd imagine that some models of laptop anyway share a few compatible mobile GPU chipsets and cards.
I guess the point I'm getting at here is that you probably shouldn't be looking for a long term upgradeable laptop. It's probably not going to be cost effective, if it's even really possible.
If you still insist, you can try places like eBay for second hand ones, but if you're feeling a little daring you can visit a place like www.avadirect.com and buy a barebones kit. Then you buy RAM, HDD and CPU to put in it. I did so with my last laptop, and it worked alright until it ate 10 HDDs...
Success requires no explanation. Failure allows none.
April 02, 2009 04:28 PM
Yeah the GPU wouldn't be that much of a problem of not being able to upgrade, if they all supported the future versions of D3D. And you didn't have to update GFX cards to be able to use the latest Direct3D stuff.
139
April 02, 2009 05:04 PM
Yes you do...if you want to use DirectX 10 then you need a DX 10 card. And it will be the same with DX 11 gets rolled out to the public. My GeForce 6xxx can't run DX 10 games no matter what drivers I have. I guess you can use the reference driver but you won't get any kind of performance out of that.
1,239
April 02, 2009 05:13 PM
A DirectX 10 graphics card will work with DirectX 11, you just won't get all of the DX11 features.
My advice is if you want a computer that you can upgrade piecemeal, get a desktop.
My advice is if you want a computer that you can upgrade piecemeal, get a desktop.
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