Is it worth upgrading my video card?

natsfan99

Junior Member
Feb 13, 2011
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I am an avid online gamer and want to make sure my machine can run any new games.

I currently have a
HP pavilion HDX9300 Notebook pc about 3 years old.
My current video card is a NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS.

Is it time to upgrade my card? Thanks.
 

Dice144

Senior member
Oct 22, 2010
654
1
81
After the 8000's Gen Nvidia had the 9000's then gts/gtx 200's then 400's now they are on the 500's series. Granted depending on what card not a huge leap from one to another.

But the 8800 is pretty old. Without cheating and using google say 3-4 years old in notebooks.
 

Blitz KriegeR

Senior member
Jan 30, 2005
261
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I'm sorry, and please don't mistake this for trolling, but I think that is a bit of an oxymoron.

Notebooks generally don't do games well enough to be considered for use by 99% of gamers. I think you'll find that a desktop, even a mATX one if you are concered about size, will offer a HUGE boost in your gaming. I looked into this myself a few years ago and was looking at $1600 books just to come close to 70% of what a desktop worth $1000 could do.

Also, as Dice144 mentioned, you can't just drop in a new GPU like you can in a desktop. Besides the interchangability issue there is also power draw to consider. Notebooks don't play well with high power requirments. Kind of kills the point, not to mention small-form-factor heat dissipation issues. Then you have to consider if the rest of you system is capable of feeding a new GPU without running into a bottleneck.

Either A) I'd look into a new SB based book with the option to use the CPU's onboard GPU for low power situations, and a dedicated GPU (perhaps even an external one) for power use. Or, B) Look into a small form factor desktop. I think one of the Anandtech reviwers did this about a year back and built a bangin' mATX system. I'd look into his results and don't forget to factor in modern components.

"The clarkdale experiment" by Loyd Case
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2924

Feel free to post questions / feedback!

Cheers!
 

cusideabelincoln

Diamond Member
Aug 3, 2008
3,275
46
91
Looks like your card is probably equivalent to a modern day discrete GT240-DDR3, perhaps a bit slower. This isn't a great card but it's capable of playing newer games, just not at maximum settings.