upgrading video card

I don't know much about the guts of a notebook. I have built a desktop computer. Installing video cards is no big deal really. I just tried to look for notebook video cards. I guess they apparently attached to the motherboard because I can't find any. Is that the case? Video card goes bad and you have to get a new motherboard? Wanna upgrade you just have to buy a new laptop? Seems kinda strange.

 

Read: GPU Guide

 

That pretty much the way it is. Its difficult to design a system with upgradeable graphics, because you have to cater for both the heat output and power consumption of a more powerful graphics card. Some notebooks, those with MXM, do have upgradeable graphics cards, but graphics cards are difficult to find.

Dell and other manufacturers use some modified form facotrs, so that some of their notebooks have upgradeable graphics cards. For example, the E1705/9400 can house a Mobility X1400, but also a Go 7900 GS and a Go 7950 GTX. The notebook has been designed so that it can accomodate such cards. However, those cards cannot be interchanged between other notebooks.

 

Huh, I never thought I would hear that a dell has more upgrade options than others. Very strange. I've always been told the opposite (in the desktop world anyway). I believe it. It's just not what I thought I would hear.

 

For Dell, its an advantage to having interchangeable graphics cards, when it comes to notebooks. It simply means that they can adopt newer technologoes faster, and that when building a number of notebooks, they can easily change components and offer upgrades for the consumer. Its totally different in the desktop world, because they are largely constrained by power supplies not having the required power output.

 

There have been ThinkPads that have had upgradeable graphics within a specific series due to design. (GPU being part of a multi-tiered PC board arrangement above the CPU) However, those daughterboards were proprietary.