Dell Vostro 1500 Screen and Battery "Upgrade"

Ah, gotcha. To be honest, it's perfectly good. Last time I had a dedicated graphics card, it was a GF4 Ti4200. That was back in 2002... chances are the X3100 has around the same level of horsepower - high resolutions on the GF4 weren't an issue.

Don't get sucked into all the marketing. Nobody needs a million megahertz and 500gb of RAM to come on here whilst playing music...

Intel GMA X3100 review from TechRadar UK's expert reviews of Graphics cards

You'd not really enjoy playing modern games on it, but it's overkill for day to day use.

 

Fom a Softpedia article (only one I could find still talking about this)

August, 2008

"Nvidia looks like in a launch spree lately, as another card is stated for release in the weeks to come, the GeForce 9400GS. The card is said to be a less efficient version of GeForce 9500GT graphics board, and will not be available for the retail market, but only for OEMs and System integrators.

The card will be cheaper than 9500GT, since it will feature a lower clocked core and less impressing performance. History seems to repeat itself, as the graphics chips manufacturer did the same last year with the quite successful GeForce 8500GT which was launched for retail, followed by the 8400GS for OEMs and system integrators."

Nvidia Preps GeForce 9400GS and Nvision 2008 - While the card is merely a slower 9500GT, Nvision should become a mega-event of the visual computing area - Softpedia

I think the dell 17 had the OEM GS Version. I think the Sony's had them too.

Bronsky

 

Notice the lack of "M"... there was the 9300M GS, and the 9500M GS, but no 9400M GS.

Edit - added link...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geforce_9#GeForce_9M_Series