Locating new graphics card/cards?

I have had my m17x since 2008 and it has never given me any problems. I moved away from pc gaming though for quite a while due to most friends migrating to consoles. I'm slowly starting to move back to pc gaming and feel the need to bring my m17x a little more up to date. I've been searching for days on this site about upgrading my GPU's. I see that they have nearly come obsolete. I must say I have read so much that I have become confused on the options that are available to me for upgrading at this point. I see by searching ebay most cards do not list the MXM platform, but fortunately I have been using the mxm-upgrade site to identify pin layouts. I know I need mxm 2.1 cards but most search results lead me no where. Is there a clear cut guide of what options I have to this day as far as upgrades go? Mine was originally configured with dual 512 mb 8700's in SLI. I see ATI cards might work but its my understanding the heat sinks and fans will not. What are your suggestions as to what I should be looking for? I'm not expecting newer laptop performance, I understand mine is dated. But I would like to keep mine going, I really have no other complaints with it. Thank you for your time.

 

AMD 4870/4850 or GTX 280 would be the best cards you could fit in there. Of course its all trial and error so just because a card fits does not mean it will work with your laptop. If you read my "4850 in a m5750" thread I go into more detail. If you have some $$ burning a hole in your pocket and are patient with ebay you should find some cards to try.

 

Awesome that helps me to start looking in the right direction. I may have misread this somewhere but I thought my cards where of the MXM 2.1 platform. After revisiting this MXM notebooks before 3.0 site they list the m17x as having the MXM IV platform. Upon removing my cards I do see the extra power tab pins on the end of the motherboard, unfortunately I do not have the computer with me to see if my graphics cards had this extra slot. Just want to make sure I'm looking for the correct platform cards as from what I can tell multiple platforms where built for certain cards. I'm unable to see pictures at work, but by looking at your thread it seems you may have modified the heat sinks to work. Did you use NVIDIA components or ATI components? Is the 4850 a sli or crossfire card? Or is the 4850 in a single gpu configuration sufficent? Sorry for all the questions. I have a lot of catching up to do.

Edit: I was also looking at the nVidia Quadro FX 3600M/8800m GTX. These are a little more readily available. Is this card an upgrade to the 8700m GT's? Where does it stand against the 4870/4850 and GTX 280M?

 

The 4850 in my laptop is a crossfire card though my M5750 only has 1 mxm slot so I am running it in a single card configuration. I have tested both AMD & Nvidia GPU's in my laptop and settled on a 4850 for no reason other than it's what I found on ebay and was compatible. Given it's one of the most powerful mxm 2.1 cards I stopped looking for other options.

I modified the heatsink because my laptop originally came with an x1800. The 4850 produces A LOT more heat and had coils in different locations on the pcb so I made modifications as needed. Because your laptop was meant to handle more powerful cards from the beginning it's heatsink may fit fine.

If you have a Type-IV (w/ the HE tab) then you can fit any Type I, II, III, or IV card in the socket though as I stated earlier, just because it fits doesn't mean it will be compatible. All trial and error buying and re-selling cards on ebay.

That said I did this as a labor of love, the 4850 can run the games I like to play on medium settings but for primary gaming I have a desktop I built. It's a lot easier to find parts that work and upgrade down the road.

 

Awesome this has been all great information and of much help. I did manage to find a Mobility Radeon HD 1gb all though the price is kinda high. Would this card be that much better than dual 8800m GTX in SLI considering it is about $300 and I can pick 8800's for about $70-$100 a piece? I have found an abundance of those.

 

What card did you find? $300 may be average for that card, I actually got a great deal at only $125 for my 4850 on ebay but finding something like that again may be hard.