Video card upgrade?

I have a 15.4 inch notebook, dell inspiron 1501. I have the ati xpress 1150 chipset, its got onboard video. it has a pci express x16 expansion slot. does that mean i can add another video card if i turn off the onboard video? and if so, whats the best kind of video card i can get, im just wondering at the time because i want to wait for directx 10 cards to come out for notebooks.

 

You cannot add another video card in your notebook. Sorry, the integrated video cards are not upgradable.

Otherwise, there is something new called the Asus XG Station you can read about it here for future reference.

 

yes, i know integrated graphics card arent upgradable. But i have a pci express x16 expansion slot and i think u can add a video card into that if i turn off my onboard video in the bios. If i cant do that, is the expansion slot for lol

if i cant change the graphics card at all, i want to change the whole mainboard. I dont want to mess anything up internally, and i dont want it to take up too much room. I want to be able to put in a dx10 compatible video card when they come out, and i want to know if a 15.4 notebook could fit one. I know 15.4's cant fit anything higher then a GeForce 7700, but im not sure if theyre going to make dx10 cards smaller then the top of the market cards they have now for mobile.

 

no, you cant. it cant handle the heat or power requirements of a graphics card in that small a space. its for sound cards and wireless cards ect.

 

As tangent says, PCI expansion slots are for wireless and sound cards etc. It is a long time since pci slots (not to be mixed up with pci-express) have been able to handle top end graphics cards.

Furthermore, you will most likely not be able to replace the motherboard. It may be possib;le to get a 1505 one with a dedicated card but there's a good chance it won't be compatible.

To get more graphics power you will most likely have to buy a new laptop. Hopefully when MXM is more mainstream that may not be the case, but for now I'm afraid it is.

 

It's actually a PCI slot. And as mentioned already, it can't be done.

I'm not sure why you want to do this. You're trying to change a budget-level notebook into a high-end performance notebook. Even if it were possible, which it basically isn't--it would be very expensive to do so, and more importantly, take some serious skill and expertise to piece it all together.

That money would probably be better spent on a new notebook that has the capabilities that you want. You would also still have a working e1501 to use for basic things, rather than a heap of wasted components should the project fail.

This is the underlying truth to gaming with notebooks. Unfortunately MXM has not had much industry support, so we are seeing less and less of it as time goes on. And newer GPUs will always have different thermal and power consumption needs than older systems can provide for. If that Asus XG station does what we're all hoping for, it will be a nice option.

Please refer to the GPU guide for further information/discussion on this topic.