Dell Sales confirm 7800go gtx for XPS2 and I9300 - Page 3  

This is the sentiment I don't understand. Why is this considered screwing over?

I attempted to contact mobile technical support chat to see what they had to say and this is what was said in the chat.


The session has been accepted.

{Josh 11:46:42 AM} Thank you for contacting Dell Portable Hardware Chat Support, My name is Josh, May I have your name and telephone number registered with us please?
{CC 11:47:33 AM} I was wondering if the new graphics card....the 7800 will be compatible with the 9300.
{CC 11:47:51 AM} CC XXX-XXX-XXXX (Phone number edited out)
Josh 11:48:23 AM} Thank you for the confirmation,just give me a minute while I review your question and your system information
{CC 11:48:29 AM} ok
{Josh 11:50:20 AM} CC, Thank you for your patience
{CC 11:50:41 AM} no problem
{Josh 11:52:16 AM} I am working on this, Please give me 2 minutes.
{CC 11:53:02 AM} no problem
{Josh 11:57:04 AM} CC, I apologize. It took me a little longer to search than expected. I appreciate your patience.
{Josh 11:57:17 AM} I see that this system supports
ATI Mobility Radeon X300 - 64/128 MB
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 - 256 MB
video cards. However if you want to upgrade this, You will have to contact our spare parts department at
1-800-372-3355- Extn:69937
{CC 11:57:53 AM} well i have the 6800.........but i was wondering if when this new one is released.......will it work in this system........
{CC 11:58:04 AM} and will it work with the xps gen2 system
{Josh 11:59:00 AM} XPS GEN 2 uses NVIDIA GeForce Go 6800 Ultra again.
{CC 11:59:20 AM} right.........
{Josh 11:59:23 AM} So any upgrade can be checked in the spare part department and that will be replaced.
{CC 11:59:39 AM} so i shoudl contact them to see if it is upgradable?
{Josh 12:00:55 PM} Yes, You are right. The reason being, As we are from technical department, I have no information in the part is available or not and if this is upgradable. So they are the best people to check.
{CC 12:01:21 PM} ok sounds good........thanks for all your help
{Josh 12:01:30 PM} Do you consider the issue for which you contacted us tonight as answered ?
I hope you are satisfied by the quality of support over this chat.
{CC 12:01:54 PM} yes ........
{CC 12:01:56 PM} very good
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{CC 12:02:00 PM} thank you
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So I called that number and asked the same question. I was told that the 7800 will be compatible and offered as an upgrade for both the XPS Gen2 and the 9300. He did not have any information regarding release dates or price but said it would be on the website when it does become available. Again I will believe it when I see it but this is what I found out from calling.

Man I have to laugh at this... Some of you guys are pretty dense... You think Dell didnt learn for there previous mistake.. I hate to tell you the 7800 go gtx is a 65 watt card and is only for the xps G2 and M170.. Some times I have to wonder what people in this forum are smoking..

zRatt

o man I can't wait for this to come out... I'm gonna have to start making some extera money though cauz that's prolly gonna be about 300 bucks... It seems more and more that the rumors are true... after getting that card then there will be ABSOLUTELLY NO DIFFERENCE between my 9300 and an xps2... Ive allready heavily modded this thing and the video card is holding me back from XPS2 STATUS...

Interesting... I'm actually a little more hopeful that 9300's will get a possible upgrade IF the power requirements and existing architecture is compatible. It would definitely be a sound marketing decision because they would stand to make more money. Honestly, I don't see how deciding to upgrade one line of computers is going to behoove them in the long run. They are short on cash, and they need immediate infusion to get the numbers up. Offering the upgrade for 9300's along with XPS2's would double their profits I would think. If power requirements are the same, then R&D couldn't have been that much more in developing an upgrade for 9300 owners. What's more interesting... If the power requirements were the same as vanilla 6800 go, then I wonder if they spent more R&D on upgrading the XPS2 versus the 9300 with identical power requirements?

XPS2 owners need to get over it. Don't get so angry that the 9300 and XPS2 are so technically similar. It's Dell's fault. I always thought the XPS2 was a crazy marketing ploy at obsessive enthusiasts willing to pay anything for bleeding edge hardware and flashing lights. The more I compared the two machines on a technical level, the more I was left scratching my head over the several hundred dollar difference in price (that I faced at the time of my order...). After all the threads about 6800 ultra heat issues and downclocking while playing games, I'm even more glad I cancelled my order and went with a 9300.

However, Dell is more apt to guarantee an upgrade path for XPS2 owners because it is marketed as the "extreme gaming" notebook, so 9300 owners shouldn't be too upset if we aren't offered an upgrade path. Just enjoy the laptop. All the upcoming games are going to play just fine on either lappie. Quake 4 isn't even out yet and it uses Doom3 tech.

Incidentally, does anyone know how the 6800 go or 6800 go ultra's perform with this new generation of HL2 HDR lighting technology's? I couldn't find any benchmarks...

Just to throw in a couple cents worth of thoughts.

I won’t be hurt if the 9300 gets a better upgrade card than my 6800U.
I have been using my xps2 for over 6 months now and its still top of the line.
6 months is a long time and the 7800 is not available yet.

If its an easy drop in to the 9300 then there is no reason for dell NOT to offer it so they can be even further ahead of the competition in this little segment.
However, if it requires some R&D to make the 7800 fit into the 9300 then I doubt Dell would do it. They promised it to XPS2 users not to 9300 users. So they are not obligated. Upgraded video cards in laptops is a tiny market. I don’t know the numbers but I would bet that most of the 9300 sales have the X300 graphics card. And those owners don’t care about a new graphics card upgrade. For this reason, since Dell did miss their numbers then spending resources on a tiny market segment does not make sense.

On a different note, if the 7800 does have the standard go6800 power requirements that would mean that I could upgrade my graphics performance and my battery performance at the same. That would be nice.

My God. A 7800 inside a 9300 is nonsensical. Why would Dell sell two gaming PCs with basically similar configurations??? The only difference between the two would be the lights. Anyway, if I'm a 9300 user, I certainly would not hope for it just to be severely disappointed in the end.. :/

I could care lesss either way, if an upgrade is available for i9300 users, well good for us. If not, no big deal, didnt buy it for future upgrade ability. One thing that xps2 owners should take into account though is that your comp has been top of the line for 9 months, thats a long time and money well spent if it meant that much to you. I dont think Dell would be screwing you over if they offered the upgrade to both though because they kept their promise to you being top of th line and an upgrade in the future. Personally, even if Dell offered an upgrade for the i9300, I wouldnt pay the 300-450 it might cost, I'd rather be happy and buy a new lappie in a year when the new cpu dual-cores come out.

I just got this from an inside source at Dell:

The NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7800 Ultra is a member of the new GeForce 7 series of notebook graphics processing units (GPUs). This new generation of GPUs redefines the standards for high performance and low power. The NVIDIA GeForce Go 7800 Ultra is positioned as a high performance notebook GPU, and supports next generation Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0, high quality integrated video processing technology, and advanced power management capabilities with NVIDIA PowerMizer™ technology.

Key features include (Click term to view/hide description):
CineFX™ 3.0 Shading Architecture - A superscalar architecture with up to 8x shading performance over previous generations
- Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0
- 64-bit floating point texture filtering and blending to empower high dynamic range lighting effects Intellisample 3.0 Technology - Advanced 16x anisotropic filtering and rotated grid antialiasing algorithms provide a new level of graphics image quality.
- Fastest antialiasing and compression performance
- Support for advanced lossless compression algorithms for color, texture, and z-data at even higher resolutions and frame rates
- Fast z-clear
- High-resolution compression technology (HCT) increases performance at higher resolutions through advances in compression technology Advanced Engineering - Fast GDDR3 memory and a 256-bit memory interface deliver extremely fast frame rates at high resolutions and antialiasing/anisotropic (AA/AF) filtering settings.
- A native PCI-Express interface provides a full, bi-directional 4GB/sec. of bus bandwidth for both upstream and downstream data transfer.
- Advanced thermal management and thermal monitoring Advanced Video and Display Functionality - On-chip video processor for high-quality digital media encode/decode.
- Advanced adaptive de-interlacing
- High-quality video scaling and filtering
- Integrated NTSC/PAL TV encoder supporting resolutions up to 1280×768 without the need for panning with built-in Macrovision® copy protection
- Microsoft Video Mixing Renderer (VMR) supports multiple video windows with full video quality and features in each window
- Full NVIDIA nView™ multi-display technology capability NVIDIA Digital Vibrance Control™ (DVC) 3.0 Technology - Color controls
- Image sharpening controls
Field Installed Upgrade Option
In addition to this card being factory installed, a field upgrade may be offered for sale to Customers who purchased the lower performance video card with their new system. The field upgrade will include both the new card kit (Video Card, SW CD, Label and/or techsheet) and an onsite installation by an authorized Dell service provider. In no case can the customer purchase only the card and install it themselves. This would void their warranty. The driver details shown below are for the CD included in the upgrade kit. If the driver is obtained by web download or backup media, it may not have the user screens shown. The customer should be directed to dell.com (under XPS) or to S&P sales for information on purchasing the upgrade.

Edit:

I just got another email that confirms that it will be Sept 29th when it goes on sale.

I bolded a couple key words.

I just got off the phone with sales and one of the management said that he had been given the impression that they were going to be offered as upgrade options for both 9300 and XPS2, but that he couldn't give me a complete confirmation. He did say that the power requirements were the same for the 6800 go and the new 7800. Again though, you have to be careful with sales...

My 2 Cents on the matter

The likely hood is that the 9300 may receive a video upgrade in the form of a crippled version of what will be available. 7800 Go compared to a 7800 Ultra Go would be the natural choices if this were the case. Most people assume the same card will exist in both machines. This is extremely unlikely as Dell is trying to market the XPS170 as a hardcore gaming rig for enthusiasts who have the pocket change to afford such power. The 9300 is a budget alternative to the XPS2. In most cases the 9300 only achieves 50-65% of what the XPS2 can in games so its likely to assume that if we are indeed receiving any kind of performance adjustment with the 7800 then the same performance bracket will exist with the 9300s which is 50-65% otherwise this will cannabalize into dells sales of there higher priced notebooks. Many of you bring up the point that dell could get increased sales and revenue if they offered such a great card in there 9300 line up. This is untrue and sometimes can have undesired effects for the OEM like DELL. If Dell offered the card which will most likely retail for $400 not including on site installation then they will take a hit on profit margins they lose from the exclusivity of the card which they had planned for the XPSM170 that is unless they overcharge for the card for current 9300 owners.

These are just my thoughts and nothing official.

If Dell were to offer the 7800 card for the 9300 laptop, what is to stop them from providing the Dual 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX with SLI Technology in a 9100 desktop.

Because they would essentially kill the XPS brand

Good point, my apologies

My prediction is that DELL will not offer the 7800 as an option for the i9300. That would essentially eliminate the chief differentiator between the i9300 and their ultimate gaming machine notebook (i.e XPS GEN 2). However I also think that where there is a will there is often a way - and with some spare parts and/or hacked BIOS it may certainly be possible to update the i9300 to use the 7800.