Crasher Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 To upgrade a laptop without buying a new one? Such as installing a superior graphics card, etc. My friend said it's almost impossible, but i'd love more opinions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mew Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 A friend of mine upgraded the parts of his laptop cause he wanted to see if it would work or not and the parts are more expensive and some of the parts for latops are hard to find also Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators JoeDirt Posted July 19, 2011 Administrators Share Posted July 19, 2011 You can buy an external vid card holder. For example http://sewelldirect.com/ViDock-4.asp there are others on the market. You can obviosly upgrade the ram and the cpu ( make sure to do research first, chances are someone has already done the legwork figuring out which cpu works with your laptop. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolf Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Your friend is right, it is almost impossible. For some laptops, there has been the ability to upgrade your GPU, however this is only for very specific laptops and the price for (high end) GPU's is quite high. For CPU's, upgrading is most often possible, but don't expect you can put a twice as fast CPU in it, depending on your original CPU only up to ~25% I would guess. Note that for these two upgrades, you can't do too much; you don't have the space to upgrade the cooling too, which limits your options quite hard. The only two things you actually could upgrade, are memory and HDD. Depending a bit on the laptop, that can be done within 5 minutes and there aren't that many limitations. What is your current laptop? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krzys Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Upgrade? It's too expensive imo. Better choice is new laptop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LA_Kings_Fan Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Upgrade? It's too expensive imo. Better choice is new desktop tower properly armed to the teeth for gaming !!! and EASY ability to upgrade in the future! I it for you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crasher Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 What is your current laptop? Dell XPS 2005 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolf Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Dell XPS 2005 is not a type. On the bottom of your laptop is sticker with a so-called service tag of 7 characters. Mine is, for example, J7W443J (Dell Latitude D430). What is yours? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crasher Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 F5KGR91 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolf Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 In that case, yes you may be able to upgrade your GPU. There were to option, a 6800Ultra and a 7800GTX. The 6800GTX was in the M1710, but that laptop was relabeled to M170 (which you have) after the option to choose the 7800GTX. I guess you have, since it's from 2005, a 6800 Ultra in it (you can check with GPU-z). You might be able to upgrade it to a 7800 GTX, but Dell doesn't offer it (anymore). You can check on Ebay, but the prices are high. The 7800GTX is approximately 20% faster than the 6800 Ultra, a bit more on more recent games, a bit less on older games (most likely because the 7800 GTX has twice the amount of memory, which is more usefull in recent games), but it isn't that much a difference. Moreover, a recent 'not highend' GPU outperforms the 7800 GTX already. In terms of CPU upgrade, you have an Intel Pentium M processor. You can see a list here (ignore the prices), and I guess you have a "Dothan" CPU since you laptop is from 2005 (you can check with CPU-z. I guess you already have a quite fast CPU in it (750, 760, 770 or 780), so also for this, the upgrade is not worth it. No, you can't put a different CPU in it. As I said, that leaves pretty much the options to upgrade the HDD or memory. HDD isn't that important (and easy to upgrade, only check if you have IDE/PATA or SATA), memory can only be upgraded up to 2GB (DDR2, 533MHz). The memory might be worth it, if you run `heavy' programs or Windows Vista/7, but it won't influence your gaming performance a lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crasher Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 Thanks, rolf. It appears my father had previously upgraded the graphics card to the Nvidia Geforce Go 7800 GTX already. But you're right about my other specs, one of my other friends said that the processor I have may be slowing my computer down because of it's age (that it's an old model) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolf Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 The processor isn't that slow actually. It isn't fast, but it's probably in line with your GPU (except for some games, e.g. GTA4, then every CPU is too slow). And indeed, the processor is an old model and it would be great if you'd be able to upgrade it to a dualcore, but that isn't an option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TulsaGeoff Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 Not really helpful advice, but this is why I recommend people wanting to play games always go with a desktop. They typically last longer due to running cooler, faster - since the same part in a desktop typically can be overclocked and comes faster, and you can upgrade them overtime part by part to stay current. Laptops are great to have, but if you only have 1 PC make sure you have a GOOD reason to buy a laptop over a desktop. I once bought a super expensive gaming laptop, after two years it was completely outdated and there was nothing that could be done to upgrade it. I only buy cheaper non-HP (Terrible brand) laptops now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crasher Posted July 20, 2011 Author Share Posted July 20, 2011 I have a desktop but uh...it's a personal reason why I can't use it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dworkin Posted July 20, 2011 Share Posted July 20, 2011 I have a desktop but uh...it's a personal reason why I can't use it. Keyboard's all sticky from watching too much internet pron? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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