Question about this laptop's video card.

http://tinyurl.com/4hd3l

Trust me, it's not spam, it was just a huge link.

Now, I'd love to buy this laptop, but there is one thing that bothers me: the x600 graphics card. However, I have read, that it would be possible to replace the videocard by another(I'd buy an x800 mobile card for that extra little juice). Is this possible? Otherwise I'd have to stick with this one, since it's a very good price/quality laptop(I would up the RAM to 1 gig, I think).

It's not that I play games that much, but I do enjoy the occasional game, not more than a few hours every week, on the LAN at my dorm. And since I'm going to need it for compiling/photoshop ect, I need this kind of heavy(for a laptop) processing power., battery life is not really an issue, it would just be handy to take it back home every few weeks without the hassle of lugging a desktop along on the train(wich is a real hell, really).
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The words in bold are not important.

 

Commonly it is impossible to change video systems in lap top's at all. They are hard wired and not changeable. The same with video grafics memory ammount.

There are lap's availabe with the option to change hard ware like you do in a PC. But ... not from Acer or other common manufacturers. And ... not for such low prices like Acer products.

The system you prefer (your link) is not really a good solution for gaming. The problem is ... no, not the grafics card ... the WXGA LCD. Because ist is a 17.4" wide screen, all games will be streched to the width of the screen. And this looks really very funny. [ !]

In WIN and applications it's really a great solution ... but for games it's a joke.

You should look for a Lap with 17" screen (not wide) only for gaming. And the grafics card should be an ATI x700 / 128 at min. or similar from NVIDIA. The ATI X600 is a litte bit to little.

I'am running in the same trap ... now I know, what I should not buy the next time. [ ]

So long
PinkFlower

 

Hi guys, I just wanted to add my little two cents to this discussion. I recently purchased a Compaq X6000 with a 17 in widescreen monitor, and the Radeon X600 video card.

I'm a little dissapointed with the performance, particularly my 3D mark 2005 score of 1325, especially when I noticed a similar system with a x800 performing four times as fast. But as far as games go I run half-life 2 at almost the highest settings very smoothly, and I run the battlefield 2 demo also at near the highest settings smoothly as well.

As far a widescreens being a problem, complete BS, all the games I have run look just fine with no stretching. The only thing I noticed was on Battlefield 1942 the text on screen looked a little funny but the gameplay was normal.

Anyway I would like to be able to upgrade to an X800, but that seems unlikely and I'm dissapointed. Then I realize I bought my computer from Hp and I paid $1000 less than exactly the same system from alienware, minus the X800, and I'm happy.