DELL Precision 7*30 motherboard photo outflow: graphics card heterotypic

To be clear, by choosing to create our own graphics card we are no longer bound by MXM design limitations. Our systems have had the thermal and performance headroom for more powerful graphics cards for a while now but we were limited in the past due to the MXM limits. (The graphics vendors would design the cards to the least capable performer) By having our own DGFF, Dell Graphics Form Factor, graphics cards we are able to design the graphics cards to our own limits for our systems. Hope this helps answer some questions.

 

The DGFF card looks like a better design and use of space than the old MXM standard. I wonder if the new form factor of the card will become a Dell standard. In other words, will a 7730 be able to use a future 7740 or 7750 graphics card? If so, I don't see a problem and looks good.

 

Questions I'd love to have answered but suspect you can't answer...

* Any chance that these DGFF cards will be cross-compatible between this and future generations of Precision laptops?
* Any chance of DGFF showing up in other Dell products, or is this going to be Precision-only?

In the end I think that the benefits greatly outweigh the drawbacks for this shift... It does allow the system to be slimmer (no longer have two PCBs stacked), while at the same time improving thermal performance, and honestly, the population of people who are willing to go through the trouble of sourcing and replacing the dGPU (and thus see this as a negative) is just a tiny fraction of the total Precision sales.

(With the Thunderbolt-attached GPU market and OS/driver support for this maturing, it's probably cheaper to go that route for a laptop graphics card upgrade anyway...)

 

What MXM design limitations? I expect Dell could still use MXM design and offer external power delivery as the other OEM's. A full proprietary graphics design unlike all the others is not much better than offering welded on graphics (remember Asus who prefered similar?). How easy is it to upgrade aka to obtain new or used graphics? And for what a price ? Dell/Alienware wasn't forced to leave tne MXM design.

 

Unfortunately, that's exactly how I feel. I had high hopes for 7x30 series.

I don't care that a new model will be a few millimeters slimmer, it is not an ultrabook at the end of the day. This again reminds me Apple and their decision to drop 3.5mm in favor for a few saved millimeters. What are the next planned "improvements" - touchpad without physical buttons, non removable/replaceable components (RAM, SSD, battery etc.)?

 

The only limitations from MXM are profits for the OEM. As long as Alienware (and others) sell systems with BGA crap, nobody can upgrade or repair their broken stuff. It is cost prohibitive, with motherboards typically ranging in cost from 50-75% of the original system purchase price, so they sell more new laptops by implementing that self-serving design. And, they can mass produce cookie-cutter motherboards that fit two or three laptops regardless of chassis size. For the end user, MXM is superior in every measurable way. There is no advantage whatsoever to purchasing or owning a system with the CPU and GPU welded to the PCB. There are plenty of reasons, having nothing to do with performance, that justify rejecting BGA as an acceptable product design. For sub-$500 trashbooks, BGA is fine. They are too cheap to bother fixing them anyway.

 

I was under the impression, on the CPU side anyway, that the transition to BGA was more or less a directive from Intel with the 6th gen Core series, and that OEMs have pretty much no choice but to follow suit. Am I wrong here? Are there manufacturers that offer socketed CPUs in laptops (with a decent range of CPU choices / not desktop parts)?

 

Exactly. See bolded text. If you remember first gen Alienware's with soldered hardware (the Aw models called "Echo", released early 2015). Alienware DELL re-used aka put in exactly same Motherboard for both the 15,6 and 17,3 inches Alienware models. The motherboard was already fitted with space for 4 piece M.2 ssd slots. You could access all 4 slots in the bigger Aw 17 model, but the smaller 15,6 model who already contained same 4 ssd slots you could only use two of them. People can live with that the OEM re-use same Motherboard for same chassis size, but use same same MB for the bigger models in smaller chassis, or opposite... Ain't pretty!!


This due how Dell design and re-use same motherboard for more than one notebook chassis (GO THE CHEAP ROUTE). If you modded the chassis by yourself (of course lose your warranty), you could use all 4 ssd slots. You could even use same firmware for both models and as usual Dell screwed up the Service tag. Many owners open up CPU-Z and was shocked to see wrong info about their model aka if they purchased AW17 models, all they could see was info about Aw 15. Or the opposite. A big mess!!

When they re-use same motheboard for different models, They will put in firmware who fits the cooling. Not what they have put in of hardware . See this thread…
How Dell cripple performance explained by Notebookcheck.net

Alienware R17R2 (4 m.2 ssd slots)


Same Motherboard used for the bigger model, but put into the smaller Alienware 15R1 chassis (2 x M.2 ssd slots).

 

Clevo offers laptops with socketed desktop CPUs that are the modern functional equivalent of the mobile Extreme processors of days gone by. The last of the decent notebook CPUs was the 4930MX. (I do not count 4940MX because they were all pretty much worthless garbage. I guess Intel just got sloppy on the last socketed mobile Extreme CPU model made.)

There was no directive from Intel, they just stopped making mobile CPUs that are not BGA. Ultimately, it is up to the ODM to choose what components to use to build their laptops and decide whether to produce good products or chintzy crapbooks. Equally perplexing and truly despicable, NVIDIA stopped supporting MXM standards, leaving MSI and Clevo as the only two companies making any effort to do the right thing on GPUs. So, every OEM/ODM except Clevo have gone half-assed on the CPU and the GPU and MSI has only half-assed the CPU part.

Apart from that, pretty much all of them do everything half-assed on firmware and cooling systems. All any of them (including Clevo and MSI) know how to do is product cancer firmware.

 

What could be stopping Dell from manufacturing MXM boards itself?