Need Guru Video Card Upgrade Help

I have a Dell 6400/e1505 with Ati X1400 w/256mb (128mb hypermemory)

I wanted to know if anybody know any replacement part numbers of a better video card that I could replace that one with.

Swapping it out wouldn't be hard I don't believe, I am just concerned about power consumption and form factor.

Also if anybody happens to know the exact part number of the part and the cost I would be interested to know.

When I ordered mine I had the choice of x1300, x1400, and some Geforce card, and from what I could tell the x1400 was the best, albeit low end. I really wanna beef it up and I am willing to pay.

My rig has 2gb of ram and Dual Core 2 Duo 1.83ghz.

 

U can't upgrade anything. cause ATI X1400 is the best option, there's no other better card for E1505 right now.

 

he's right, 2 rules to change video cards in dell books if 1)you MUST start with a dedicated card, 2) it must be a card offerd for your particular system, ie you cant put 7900 in an e1505, and dell doesnt offer 7600's or 1600's at all, there are slight exceptions to rule 2, I've read where people have gone from a 7800 to a 7800gtx, but they could not run the gtx at full speed, making the upgrade, well, not really worth it

 

Overclock it. That is what I did in my x300 in my Inspriron 6000.

 

Omega Drivers FTW!

Yeah, the lack of an X1600 option is not good on Dell's part.

In my poll, over 90% would have paid extra for an X1600 if the pricing structure was somthing like

Integrated $0
X1300 $50
X1400 $100
X1600 $175

With Vista coming out and the pace of change in general, not offering an X1600 as an option is exceptionally weak on Dell's part.

I feel even more slighted by the lack of 10/100/1000 ethernet. What would that have cost, like $20?

 

Just like everyone suggested, you are stuck with what you got. Most laptops do not have upgradeable graphics card, but Dell does. The only catch is that you must have a dedicated card and you can only upgrade to cards that are specifically offered for your laptop. If you have the highest model gpu offered by Dell, then the only thing you can do is pray that Dell upgrades to a better card soon.

If you try to upgrade to another card, your laptop will not work because the BIOS does not support that specific card.

 

that and higher end cards are usually larger, so it might not even fit, and it will produce a significant amout of extra heat, wich your system was not engineered to handle. A lot of thought and planning goes into laptop designs, so there are very few things the end user can just change at will, its gotten a lot better than it used to be, but there will always be major limiations to upgrading a notebook, and you should still look at all core components as what you see is what you get