Laptop Graphics Cards
Scuzzle - 2/8/13 at 11:57 PM
Anyone know anything about these, I recently got a really good deal on a gaming laptop. It's new but probably a couple of years old and would
usually be a couple of thousand but the company are defunct so there's no warranty so I got it for a few hundred instead.
It has an Nvidea 460 GTX with a dedicated 1.5 gig of memory installed (searching online most seem to have 1 gig or less) which is probably the lowest
spec part of the whole machine, it has space beside it for another card in sli mode so I'm not sure if it's a good idea to buy another one
as well as an sli cable and fit that along with it.
Would 2 of these cards be up to running modern games well enough and is it just a case of fitting the second one with the cable or is there BIOS
changes to be made as well. Been looking online for info but it's hard to tell exactly where this card fits in performance wise.
It's about £100 for a card and £12 for the cable, or am I better saving the pennies for an up to date card.
Cheers
snapper - 3/8/13 at 06:09 AM
As I understand it the cards won't work together
Better card and more system RAM
Slimy38 - 3/8/13 at 09:00 AM
quote:
Originally posted by snapper
As I understand it the cards won't work together
Better card and more system RAM
Why wouldn't the cards work together? If the laptop has been designed for SLi then it should be fine to put the same type of card in. There are
some issues with SLi, particularly around drivers, but I'd hope considering the age of the laptop the drivers would be sorted by now.
The GTX 460 was a decent card, but as with anything PC related it got quickly replaced. As a guide, I've just found a GTX 460 review that used
Crysis 1 as the benchmark.
Have a look at Toms Hardware, there's a benchmarking page on there were all graphics chips are compared. See what cards are available for your
laptop, then find where they are on the page. They suggest at least three jumps up the chart is required to make it worthwhile, so that will give a
guide on whether a change of card would make a difference.
Davey D - 3/8/13 at 09:34 AM
What model of laptop is it, and what revision of MXM is the card slot? was the laptop available with a higher model of card?
the 460m is getting on a bit now, so your only option might be to add a 2nd card for SLI.
My gaming laptop came with an ATI 5870m, but late last year i upgraded it to an ATI/AMD 7970m.
Also on my laptop i have upgraded the CPU to a quad core ,added more lower latency ram, and swapped both hdd for ssd drives.
It was a great machine before, but now it is awesome 
have a look at this ebay seller:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/upgrademonkey/Mobile-Graphic-Card-GPU-MXM-/_i.html?rt=nc&_fsub=3098447011&_sid=143957251&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14&
;_sop=2&_sc=1
they have the 460m, and 560 available.
Ive used them a few times before, and have been good to deal with
Scuzzle - 3/8/13 at 10:37 AM
It's a Rock Xtreme 850 laptop Davey which appears to be one of the many Clevo 8100 based machines. Checking online these machines look to be
around the £1,500 mark right up to 3K for the ones that come with the dual GPU cards. Since Rock are defunct and I have no warranty I got the laptop
for £400 which I thought was a good deal, it is brand new although it must have been sitting around somewhere for a while as everything I can find
online points to 2010 as it's manufacturing date. It's really difficult to spec it and price it up exactly as they appear to be custom
built so I can't find the exact same spec anywhere else to match it to.
Comes with an Intel quad core I7 processor, must be 2 year old architecture though, Q840 @ 1.87 GHz, which appears to hit 3.2 on Turbo Boost and 8 gig
of DDR3 RAM installed which is apparently the maximum according to what I can find online but Sysoft Sandra is telling me I have free slots for more.
I will need to open it up but it's nice and solid feeling and creak free so want to keep it that way.
I think I got a good deal, pricing up big screen laptops new ones with similar or lesser spec were costing more. I suppose I should really be
installing a graphically intensive game and seeing how I get on before looking to upgrade but the graphics card was the only part of this laptop I
felt was lacking.
Again looking online there are loads of cards this machine can take, both Nvidea and ATI (should accept a 7970M OK as well) sticking with Nvidea the
GTX 680M looks to me one of the more recent top end cards but it's expensive £400+ which is why I'm wondering if SLi ing another 460 for
£100 would give me what I need
I was thinking of an SSD or a Hydbid drive as well as an upgrade.
Peteff - 3/8/13 at 04:17 PM
In the olden days when Quake 2 and Duke Nukem 3D were cutting edge I ran two 32 meg Nvidia cards SLI in my desktop and it really altered the way they
looked, detail was higher and everything was smoother. Nowadays with quad core and gigabytes of graphics memory I bet you would be hard pushed to see
any visual improvement.
stevebubs - 3/8/13 at 04:38 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Peteff
In the olden days when Quake 2 and Duke Nukem 3D were cutting edge I ran two 32 meg Nvidia cards SLI in my desktop and it really altered the way they
looked, detail was higher and everything was smoother. Nowadays with quad core and gigabytes of graphics memory I bet you would be hard pushed to see
any visual improvement.
With modern games, you'd be surprised....
[Edited on 3/8/13 by stevebubs]
Davey D - 3/8/13 at 07:05 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Peteff
In the olden days when Quake 2 and Duke Nukem 3D were cutting edge I ran two 32 meg Nvidia cards SLI in my desktop and it really altered the way they
looked, detail was higher and everything was smoother. Nowadays with quad core and gigabytes of graphics memory I bet you would be hard pushed to see
any visual improvement.
most pc games have a massive scope for adjusting the graphics quality to suit the performance of your pc.
Scuzzle - 3/8/13 at 07:27 PM
Installed Crysis 2 and had a go at running it on Ultra settings, it runs fast and smooth enough, no apparent frame slowdown but there's ever so
slight blurring on edges when I move the mouse which goes away if I lower the detail. It's playing on high settings just fine.
Davey D - 3/8/13 at 10:30 PM
what resolution are you playing at?
Scuzzle - 3/8/13 at 10:36 PM
Can't remember, just the highest it would go.
Scuzzle - 4/8/13 at 12:35 AM
Just checked, it's 1920x1080, figured out if I turn off 'motion blur' it runs the Ultra high settings just fine. That's what the
blurry effects were when I moved the mouse.
Pretty pleased actually, it's running with everything up max far better than I thought it would for a mid range card.
Slimy38 - 4/8/13 at 08:13 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Scuzzle
Just checked, it's 1920x1080, figured out if I turn off 'motion blur' it runs the Ultra high settings just fine. That's what the
blurry effects were when I moved the mouse.
Pretty pleased actually, it's running with everything up max far better than I thought it would for a mid range card.
I seem to remember that Crysis 2 has a couple of settings that can cripple even the fastest graphics cards, yet adds virtually nothing to the
gameplay. If you've only had to turn off one setting to get it working, then you're doing really well. I doubt an upgrade will make a
worthwhile enough difference.
Scuzzle - 4/8/13 at 11:34 AM
I think even with the 'motion blur' on it's running as it should, I just found it a bit disconcerting and did not like it so prefer it
off. Can think about ordering Crysis 3 and Bioshock Infinite now.
[Edited on 4/8/13 by Scuzzle]
Davey D - 5/8/13 at 05:56 AM
try installing, and running FRAPS. it will then show you how many Frames per second you are getting in games, as i think crysis would look smoother
than most games do even at low FPS. Once you get further into the game, and in certain areas of high detail, and lots of enemy, then things can start
grinding to a halt as the graphics card starts to struggle