Upgrading a laptop video card

[Geoff]

I dont know a whole lot about laptops, so i was wondering, i've seen laptops that say "128MB X600 PCI-E video card" is this a special type of video card, or would you be able to pop in another PCI-E video card and it will work? ANd if you cant, is there any way to upgrade the video card?

 

[DCIScouts]

As long as the replacement card is a PCI-E card, then it should work fine (of course it needs to be a card that is designed for a laptop )

 

[kof2000]

MOST laptops you wont be able to upgrade anything other than the MEMORY and HARDRIVE. i do know that ALIENWARE laptops 's video cards are upgradable if they say so in the specs.

 

[ilovefishsticks]

i highly doubt that a laptop can have a PCI-E.

MOST laptops you wont be able to upgrade anything other than the MEMORY and HARDRIVE.

He's rite thats usualy all u can do. I have seen things online tho that change pcmcia slots in laptops to pci slots, so i was also thinking u mite be able to get that and buy a pci video card. But i still dont know how u would plug in the vga plug on the pci card. Any1 else have thoughts on that?

 

[Geoff]

I looked on eBay today and you can buy laptop motherboards, video cards, cpu's, and more. Of course the video cards are extremely expensive, its like $200 for an ATI 9200 128MB!!

 

[The_Other_One]

I'm not quite sure how easy it would be to actually change out a video card as most aren't user serviceable... I have heard of a few laptops that had removeable cards, I beleive the Dell XPS and the Alienware was another... However, who knows what form the card's actually in. Who knows if they will work with one another, or if furture cards will even fit...

 

[Geoff]

thats true, thats why im trying to find a laptop that has at least 64MB and is either ATI or nVidia (not shared memory). They should make a standard for them, like AGP and PCI-E for desktops.

 

[The_Other_One]

With PCIe going as it is, I suspect there will be a standard soon enough. The problem is so many computers(both laptop and desktop) are going to onboard with shared mem... I hate it, but I'm using a laptop right now with onboard video and shared ram... Hey, for what I do, it's plenty. I don't beleive in gamming on a laptop ;P

 

[Geoff]

I read a review of a laptop with shared memory, and it got a score of 59 on 3DMark03, now thats pathetic. And on one with a video card, it got 1500 or something. Only kind of gaming i will do is Age of Empires, Rainbow Six 3, Ut2004, counter strike, and i might try half life 2, although i doubt it will work.

 

[kof2000]

i highly doubt that a laptop can have a PCI-E. He's rite thats usualy all u can do. I have seen things online tho that change pcmcia slots in laptops to pci slots, so i was also thinking u mite be able to get that and buy a pci video card. But i still dont know how u would plug in the vga plug on the pci card. Any1 else have thoughts on that?

my lappy has PCI-E but of course is intergrated but the ram is not shared, but you can configure it to share but why? I DONT know if intergrated PCIE or non intergrated PCIe performs better though.