what's this new upgradeable video feature I'm seeing in laptops?

[iskim86]

they seem interesting... what's it about? is it available only to computers with nVidia graphics? what companies offer them?

 

[EeyoreX]

I guess it's all about giving the consumer options regarding upgrading their laptop graphics should they feel the need. AFAIK you won't be able to walk into a store and buy the upgrades, but will have to go to the company and get one for your laptop model, assuming it supports this. So far I have only heard Alienware has this as an option with some of their laptops, though there may be others that offer/will offer this in the future.

\Dan

 

[jdogg707]

Ya, I believe the high-end Alienware laptop is the only one with it right now...seems interesting, but I don't really see it lasting, since the gaming laptop market is pretty small and those add-in boards are going to be not only expensive, but limited to the manufacturer...meaning proprietary....which always sucks...

 

[dnuggett]

As with most anything new in the computer business, this is an expensive option now. As time goes on more and more vendors will be requiring the ODP's to build these types of options. It's all about economics here, the more are manufactured the lower the cost of production per unit. I believe once the manufacturer's can reach scalability, this is here to stay and in time will be an affordable option.

 

[Matthias99]

It's also a better move for laptop manufacturers, since if you're going to offer multiple video configurations, it's easier to have a plug-in riser card than a chip built into the motherboard. This should help to bring down the prices of high-end laptops.

And while I'd love to see a real open standard for this (which may happen in the next few years as everything moves to PCI Express), a proprietary solution is better than nothing. As it is, a laptop from more than a year ago just can't offer any sort of meaningful gaming graphics capability.