Questions regarding VPC-EB and its integrated Mobility Radeon HD : eGPU feasible / worth it ?

Hello,


I've been reading lots of stuff here but none that pertains to my specific hardware, so I'm left with a few questions :

I have a Sony VAIO VPC-EB1M1E (full specs below) with integrated ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 and an expresscard slot.

Can I benefit from Optimus driver ?

I'm not sure whether I have an Intel HD iGPU or not. Nothing appears in the device manager, only the Radeon 5650 dGPU but the chipset seems to have an integrated GPU Intel GMA HD 3150.
[source: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Sony-Vaio-VPCEB1M1E-BJ.29905.0.html]

Anyway the dGPU isn't switchable, nor is there a BIOS option for turning it off. There's almost no options in my BIOS anyway


If I can't benefit from Optimus drivers will I be, in any other way, able to use the eGPU with my laptop LCD ?

And will I see a performance boost using an eGPU setup without Optimus drivers ? Though the HD 5650 isn't sufficient for recent games, it is still a decent dGPU.


Another thing : how can I tell if I have an ExpressCard 2.0 or 1.0 ?


Oh and one last thing : do I NEED to buy Setup 1.x ? Reading this it seems I might run into TOLUD issues.


Thanks for reading or replying,
Biales



Full specs of my laptop :

Sony VAIO VPC-EB1M1E

Core i3 330M @2.13Ghz (2 cores, 4 threads)
Chipset Intel HM55
4GB DDR3 (2x2) @1066Mhz
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 dedicated GPU (1GB)
Intel GMA HD 3150 integrated GPU (or not ????)
ExpressCard/34

[more details here :
Sony Vaio VPC-EB1M1E/T [VPCEB1M1E/T]: specificaties, reviews, aanbiedingen en meer | Hardware.Info Nederland ]

 

And here is my Resources by connection screenshot :




By the way I'm using Windows Server 2008 R2 (free Windows 7 for students), hope that won't conflict with anything.