Obsolete?

[TheTank123]

I made this post in the Video Card section, then I found this. I am trying to buy a notebook for school, but I also want it to play games very well. I currentl own and Alienware Thunderbird 800 with Geforce 2GTS, 128 Ram. It runs todays games ok, so I am looking for a big upgrade, but in notebook form. Is that possible? My first choice, as of now, is the Dell Inspiron 2.0 GHZ, 512 Ram, and the Geforce4GO 440. Is this thing going to suck in two years? Obviously it wont be able to play the games to their highest levels, but I dont want a computer that is going to make the next generations games look like my 9 year old nephew programmed them. Are there any cards coming out soon that will blow this one away? I know of Alienware, but Last time I bought from them I had horrible problems with the computer. It broke down three times for seemingly no reason, so I don't want to buy from them. Thanks

 

[lakedude]

IMO nothing you can buy today is going to be worth spit in 2 years. Moore's law has been roughly true since computers were first made and will continue to be true into the forseeable future. Right now vid card are running .15micron process and in 2 years they will be at .13 or .09. Intel is already close to having working .09 chips.

Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire.

 

[TheTank123]

Are there going to be any cards coming out any time soon that will blow the doors off this one? Also, is it possible to upgrade notebooks once they are already made? Obviously it is for desk tops, but Im new to the notebook area/

 

[Skull_Angel]

The next generation desktop video cards from the two top companies aren't due before Christmas of this year. Mobile GPU's are based on hardware that is about one generation behind the desktop solutions. The ATI 7500 and Geforce 4 Go were just released 4-6 months ago. About one year after the Geforce 2 Go became the top Video Card for laptops.
So I'd think it would be at least a year before a mobile Chipset comes out that will significantly outperform the latest mobile offerings from ATI or Nvidia. Could be wrong though.

It is possible to upgrade a mobile chipset in a laptop if you have the right motherboard. I've heard of people upgrading the Geforce 2 Go to a Geforce 4 Go in a Dell laptop but of course they voided the warranty. Generally upgrading the memory or the hard drive or optical drive is all you can hope for in a laptop right now.