Got another response (well outside of working hours, mind you), and damn if these guys aren't helpful:
My email:
Quote:
It doesn't sound like an upgrade to the 570M would be worth the cost, since even NVIDIA itself advertises only "up to 20%" improvement over the 400M series. I'm seeing that it may be possible to fudge things a little bit with cards beyond the 570M, but I'm not sure that it's worth the cost, difficulty or instability.
I practically treat my laptop as a desktop as things stand, so perhaps I'd be better off building a new desktop. If I were to do so, I'd like to recycle what I can from my laptop. I have two questions related to that:
1) If I were to transfer my hard drives (one SSD with the OS and one HDD with movies/games), what difficulties might I encounter with respect to existing software?
2) Is the i7 - 2630QM something I could reliably transfer to a desktop?
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Their response:
Quote:
Yes, you can install video cards beyond the 570M into your laptop, it’s just not recommended. I think the “up to 20%” increase is being very generous.
There are some cases where nVidia takes a certain model of its current generation, and re-releases it under a different name to allow it to fit into its next generation line-up. For example, the 570M is the same as the 670M and the 580M is the same as the 675M. Most of the time you are paying for the same card that has a newer firmware, which slightly boosts performance by over-clocking the card a tiny bit.
1) If you are talking about the OS, such as Windows, then you cannot simply move the SSDs/HDDs from one computer to another computer unless the hardware is the same. When Windows starts up, it tries to match drivers with the appropriate hardware and if they do not match up you will get the BSOD (Blue Scree of Death). Also, you could run into activation issues depending on whether or not you are using an OEM or Retail version of Windows.
2) I have not tried searching, but I am willing to bet that you will not be able to source a desktop motherboard that uses a mobile CPU. Also, you will find it difficult to find a motherboard that supports a 2nd Gen CPU in general. When new CPUs are released the first thing retailers do is get rid of the old stuff even if means taking a loss on it. Intel’s 5th Gen CPUs are expected to be released at the end of this year, just to give you an idea of how old the CPU in your laptop is.
If “upgradeability” is your deciding factor when buying a computer then going with a desktop is going to be your best bet, saying you don’t need the convenience and portability of a laptop.
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
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powernotebooks.com. Their support has been outstanding in the past, and they're giving me recommendations right now that almost certainly won't net them a profit from me directly.