electronista
06/25/2008, 4:45pm, EDT
Wednesday, June 25thDell launches 8800M GTX upgrade card for notebook
Dell recently began offering the GeForce Dual 8800M GTX upgrade kit to users who purchased the company's XPS M1730 notebooks before the end of January. The chip can now be purchased separately and turns the portable PC into a more viable gaming and entertainment platform, with features such as smooth HD video playback, dual DVI ports, and a maximum 2560x1600 external resolution support. Before now, and since January, the only way to get the XPS M1730 with the 8800M GTX was to order it as an option in a new notebook.
The 8800M GTX cards are rated at 400MHz clock speeds, and up to a combined 1GB of GDDR3 video memory. The PCI Express 16x interface card also features an HDTV encoder for analog TV output up to 1080p resolution. Apart from the DVI outputs, also included are component, composite and S-video connections.
The stand-alone card is currently available via Dell's online store for nearly $1,100, while the card with an installation can be had for about $1,220.
Filed under: computers, industry, gaming, digital imaging, upgrades/storage
Other story tags: Dell, GeForce, XPS
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Need to do better Dell...
Sadly, Dell does not update the driver at all for this card. How can you expect consumers to fork over 1k for an upgrade yet not provide them with a current release driver?? The only driver for the 8800M GTX offered by Dell is from 2/2008 (v167.55). The only alternative is to use a third party hack driver from laptopvideo2go.
Dell claims nvidia has not submitted a new driver to them for testing. Yet the Quadro FX3600M driver (same chipset) was updated on 6/10/08 (v175.75).
Get it together Dell. Support your hardware.
overpriced
This GPU upgrade is severely overpriced. I could see if the customer was paying for a mobile Quadro FX GPU but not for a Geforce FX. Anyway, it would be nice to see Apple provide a GPU upgrade solution for the MacBook Pro.