Fast video cards for LAPTOPS?!?

[Guest]

A few friends of mine insist that there is a way to get a laptop rigged with fast video card through a docking station. I have never seen this, but am interested. Who sells them; and what laptops are they compatible with. Do they work with agp cards? Any experience and knowledge would be useful. (My goal is to buy an ultraportable with a more than likely crappy video card, and then while the laptop is sitting on my desk use a fast video card)Thanks!

 

[Guest]

Unless they've made trememdous standardization progress since I bought my last laptop three years ago, I'd ask your friends for proof. The docking stations I've seen are all proprietary...specicific to the laptop. I can see a third-party making a docking station for some models of a specific vendor, say IBM. And they do have docking stations with PCI slots. I've never heard of one with and AGP slot.

If you come accross one, post it.

Mike

 

[kal326]

No docking station that I have every seen has included a AGP card or slot. The only way you are going to get a fast graphics card for a laptop is to have one internal. The best cards out for laptops now are from ATI and maybe Nvidia(if its made it to production yet). The ATI Rage Mobility is a 8, 16, or 32 meg card that has made its way into most of the upper end laptops. Im sure that this is the chip that dell uses in most of its laptops. Nvidia has the Geforce 2 Go that is suppost to be out early this year. I believe that Toshiba is suppost to be the first to get these cards. As for the Ultra portable laptop, they usually come with Ultra crappy peripherials. You cant have the power of a desktop in an Ultra portable. There just isnt the space for it all. Best guess if you want a power house thats portable go for a desktop replacement laptop. They arent Ultra portable, they arent Ultra cheap, but you cant have Ultra power, Ultra portability, and Ultra cheap right now.