Which upgrades are possible?

hey everyone,

I'm having a really hard time finding a non-custom
laptop providing everything i want, there-fore im probably
going to rely on upgrades and i have some questions

VIDEO card
- most laptops come with the intel gma 900, would I be
able to upgrade later to a dedicated card like the ati
radeons?
- how is the gma 900 compared to the ati radeon xpress
200m? is it possible to run new games like doom3/fear/
farcry/bf2 on the 200m?

HD
- im almost definitely going to upgrade the hd at some point
so are all hd pretty much the same? is the standart the
9.5mm? (cause thats what i saw on some online stores)


thanks

 

The video card on 99% of notebooks cannot be upgraded, the only one's that are the MXM and AXIOM video cards. The GMA900, 950 cannot be upgraded and they are at the very bottom for graphics. The 200m is a nice step up from purely integrated, but they should play, but at very low settings, it is not really a gaming card. You would probably need at least a 128 MB X700 card to play those games at good resolutions. The hard drive can be upgraded later and is 9.5 mm or 2.5" as stated.

Matt

 

only sure upgrades are HD and RAM + CDoption everything else will require a nerd in thick glasses waving an edsyn

 

Most video cards are NOT upgradable. So if you buy a GMA 900, then you are stuck with it for the life of the laptop. ONly very very few laptops have the ability to upgrade graphics cards and be able to use integrated as well dedicated graphics.

The GMA 900 is the low end graphics card. Its performance is nothing to brag about but it is fine for basic uses. If you want to play any of those games with decent frame rates, then forget the GMA 900 or even the 200m(widely considered to be the best integrated graphics card, but still is no match to dedicated cards). Get anthing above Nvidia 6600 or the ATi X700 if you are serious about gaming.

 

^^^^^
like he said dedicated cards can be switched in most instances but i havent realy herd a successful story with those outside of someone modifying the card to fit the laptop (on laptops cards are usualy made to fit the package and no one cares for backwards compatibility)

dont ever get an integrated card or youll regret it for as long as you own the laptop since they are true c**p as no one who makes them has anything outside of flasing a picture on the screen in mind

 

thanks for the reply guys
i truely appreciate it.