ASUS Creates Upgradeable Graphics Cards

[WangChung]

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/asu...card,5324.html

Taipei (Taiwan) - The vision of upgradeable graphic cards goes back to the late 1990s, when Micron Technology was experimenting with removable sockets. In 2006, both MSI and Gigabyte showcased upgradeable graphic cards, but their concepts, which were based on GeForce Go MXM boards, never took off. Earlier this year, Asus introduced a single board with three MXM slots for ATI Mobility Radeon 3850 or 3870 cards (upgradeable with future parts), and has now unveiled its single-MXM product.

Let the real games begin!

[BulldogPO]

All MXM cards for laptops are way too pricey, and hard to get

[chunkylover77]

I think thats an awesome idea. I specifically liked the part where it should be no problem to cross over to Nvidia if you wanted.

[Johnny Bravo]

Alas all cores point inwards so improving the cooling is gonna be something of a challenge

[Kai Robinson]

Brilliant idea if you ask me...would bring gfx parts down in cost even further!

[[XC] NetburstXE]

Awesome idea!

[bowman]

As long as someone will actually sell MXMs it's brilliant. Currently noone does, laptop manufacturers do not want anyone selling them as they'd allow people to upgrade their laptop rather than buy an entire new one..

[thenrz]

As long as someone will actually sell MXMs it's brilliant. Currently noone does, laptop manufacturers do not want anyone selling them as they'd allow people to upgrade their laptop rather than buy an entire new one..

Agreed. This puts way too much power in the hands of the consumer :P

[Seraphiel]

As long as someone will actually sell MXMs it's brilliant. Currently noone does, laptop manufacturers do not want anyone selling them as they'd allow people to upgrade their laptop rather than buy an entire new one..

They do sell MXM themselves (laptop manufacturers).

However, the prices are steep and requires a valid product ID. I personally upgraded my own DTR from "Go 6800 Ultra" to "Go 7800 GTX" without any problems, except for price (current exchange rates used):

~309 USD for upgrade service. If one doesn't pay for this, all guarantee is lost no matter the original guarantee service bought.

~929 USD for the upgrade or MXM card itself.

I didn't pay for the upgrade service, but only for the card itself. However, I can still buy the new MXM cards: 8800M GTS / GTX.

Also the staggering amount of money used is a little wrong, since the exchange rate between the USD and the DKK has changed by many tens of percentage since then.

However, I know that if I wanted a 8800M GTX today, it will cost me ~1000 USD.

If ASUS pulls this one off well, they could offer the MXM cards for the price they "should be". 8800M GTX cost would be ~450 USD from my sources. Still expensive, I know, but MXM and their mobile chips have the potential for quad SLI single cards.

[bowman]

Okay, well, my single core Dothan laptop is never going to get an upgrade other than having its keyboard vacuumed so I'd never know about the 'upgrade service'.

What I meant was, selling as in actual retail along with any other regular discrete graphics card.

[Seraphiel]

Okay, well, my single core Dothan laptop is never going to get an upgrade other than having its keyboard vacuumed so I'd never know about the 'upgrade service'.

What I meant was, selling as in actual retail along with any other regular discrete graphics card.

I have single core Dothan DTR as well (M780)

Oh, how I would love for the last you suggested

Being able to order them from several sellers (competition) would be excellent, except for the fact that not all OEM uses the MXM as it should (a standard):

Dell's MXM are not compatible with other OEM MXM, because of the heatsink design AFAIK.

[vengance_01]

I really like this idea, but we all know the PBC's are cheap and both ATI and Nvidia will not support this. They want us to buy new cards, and spend loads of $$$. I wish more manufactures look at this. Its a fantastic idea.

[conzymaher]

Its a good idea but horribly executed, that card scores less than a single "real 3850 in most games

For this upgradeable graphics card thing to take off it will take more than some lame Asus concept cards...

The GPU socket and vRAM sockets should be on the mainboard, then you buy whatever GPU you want and as much gDDR3 as you need, you could put decent CPU HSFs on the GPU also....

Of course this will never happen as Nvidia / Ati cant charge $600 every 6 months for a new card if this happened

[thephenom]

Meh, no use. Mobile graphics are a little too crippled for my taste. While it's cool to have this CPU-like GPU upgrade, I highly doubt it's save a whole lot of money.

[SoulsCollective]

Does anyone else remember really, really old cards where you could upgrade the onboard RAM?

[STEvil]

MXM's arent horribly expensive if you look around.

Paid $250 or something for an 8600M GT 512mb.... a year ago.

[adamsleath]

i saw this and i think it's a gimmick that will disappear unless it is done extremely well - which it wont be.

the design of the base module will be out of date by the time newer designs are brought out imo. as much as i like the idea of modularity.
if they build in a standard attach socket that is backward compatible with newer design refreshes with the equivalent of hybrid crossfire or somesuch...

but am i missing the point? what is the appeal/use of this?

you can have a 3850 + 4870 + 5850 on the one module???

Thanks to a modular design, you will be able to upgrade to upcoming MXM modules, including ATI’s RV770 and RV870 chips (Radeon HD 4800, 5800 series). Interestingly, there should be no issue to put a Nvidia-GPU based MXM module onto this card, since there is no limiting logic.

i'll believe this when i see it. when is 5800 series due out ?

not to mention the driver nightmares.

[madcho]

I want GPU on socket on the motherboard.

4 sockets 2 GPU 2 CPU ( MPU )

but i think this setup will be a bit slower for the memory ... :-(

[oohms]

I don't get it... an MxM card is basically a graphics card in itself.. it would make much more sense just to buy regular sized cards instead.

[mr_knowitall15]

what would be cool is if they came out with universal sockets for gfx boards. For example, you could buy some empty gfx board (much like youd buy a motherboard) with one or 2 core sockets, and up to a certain number of memory upgrade slots. Then you could choose the size of memory you wanted, and the core(s). and in the future, ditch the current core for a newer version without neccesarily having to change memory. A system like that (at least in theory) should lower gfx upgrade prices, as it could be as little as some more vram, or a just a new core rather than a new everything.

[[XC] Synthetickiller]

Does anyone else remember really, really old cards where you could upgrade the onboard RAM?

This came to mind immediately.

Imagine dropping in some high end ddr3 sticks, just two 512 sticks, thats all you need. Then upgrading the GPU (assuming it would be done better in practice than show here). That would be epic.

I thought upgrading video cards was over when companies stopped making ram slots on vid. cards. At least companies are trying new ideas.

Buy the high end card, get a low end gpu and when you can, upgrade just the gpu. Seems like a sweet deal and prolongs the life of cards and actually creates less waste.