Comments on: ATi XGP - External graphics card for NoteBooks / Laptop

By: DarkTruth

DarkTruth — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:10:10 +0000

To Everyone Asking if they can use this to upgrade their laptop:

The very short answer is NO.

Longer answer coming up if you want it:

External Graphics interfaces have existed for a while, many were used for desktops in professional video editing or other high-end work. Current Desktops use the PCI-Express interface to add new graphics cards.

As far as laptops go:
There are several products which supply external graphics for laptops, the poster Manny mentioned some above.
All of these models, except for the ATI XGP discussed in this article, use an ExpressCard slot on your laptop to connect to the external graphics card. ExpressCard slots are the successor to PCMCIA card slots. They DO NOT have the bandwith (the amount of information going back and forth) as the PCI-Express slots that current graphics cards are designed to use.
ExpressCard slots can only send about 1/16th as much data as full PCI Express 16x cards can.

Now, while not all current graphics cards use ALL 16x (or even 8x) of that bandwith, they certainly use more than 1x.

In order to get a full 16x Graphics card experience on your laptop, you can’t use any of the ports or slots that are currently on it. They are just too slow.

There are some fast INTERNAL laptop graphics cards, but in general they are hot, power hungry, and for almost all intents and purposes can’t be upgraded.

This means to solve the problem ATI needed a special, BRAND SPANKIN NEW kind of slot to be manufactured on your laptop. This is the XGP connector. The “proprietary external PCI-Express interface” mentioned in the article.

If it didn’t come with the laptop when you bought it, you can’t add it later. Your laptop’s old motherboard wasn’t designed to take that much bandwith from any of the connectors it has.

Currently, I think the only laptop model out that has an XGP connector is the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Sa3650

If AMD can get this XGP connector on more laptops, maybe even on laptops that use Intel chips, the possibilities could be really fantastic.

By: Swapnil

Swapnil — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 04:53:34 +0000

I’ve compaq cq45-106au laptop it has amd turion rm70,2gb ram(800mhz),ati mobilty radeon hd 3200 with 256mb dedicated ddr3 memory,it has all slots,ports,jacks

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/in/en/ho/WF06b/321957-321957-3329742-89318-89318-3747524-3781151.html

this is the links hp’s specs page about my notebook

kindly tell the way it’s upgradable
also tell whether this external graphic card will work on it or not

waiting for ur reply

By: atish

atish — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:23:22 +0000

hello friends . i want to buy a graphics card for my toshiba laptop.what card i need to buy for playing high end games on my laptop

By: jai

jai — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 16:31:55 +0000

Hi,
i have a hp520 notebook it has Intel(R)core(TM)duoT2300@1.66ghz 980mhz processor with 512RAM.It has only inbuilt graphics.it is not enough to play high graphic games. what kind of external graphics card i can use. plssssssss reply….:-)

By: Nelson

Nelson — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 05:34:02 +0000

cani use this external graphic card to my laptop
the series goes like this
Lenovo 3000 wi fi (Model no 776136q)

By: Mick A

Mick A — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 22:33:35 +0000

I have a Toshiba A210 2GB ram 200GB HD with a really naff graphics card and didn’t realize this was a mistake when I bought it. I am now producing online programs on Second Life where we use this laptop together with a desktop 4GB ram, 350GB HD with Ati Sapphire 4870 512mb DDR5 graphics. This is to run 2 avatars at once using broadband. Problem is the Toshiba is tosh and just grumbles to a halt and usually crashes after 15 mins even though we are not using the lappie to move anything but rather accepting IM’s at the time of educational workshop. The sound card still works but the graphics freezes. I figured there might be something out on the market place where we could somehow enhance this graphics card or even swap it out for a different one, being re-soldered onto the motherboard. Is this possible or am I moving in the wrong direction? Does anyone have any ideas here please?

By: Choto Cheeta

Choto Cheeta — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 09:17:08 +0000

Hello Suraj,

Sorry to inform you, but your model wont support the external graphics card mentioned here.

Also you cant upgrade the laptop 8400 GS to any thing else without the help of your vendor Lenovo !!!

Thanks.

By: suraj

suraj — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 04:01:01 +0000

i m having laptop which has nvidia geforcce 8400 gs,
i want to upgrade so please help me out
my lapi model is lenovo3000 y410 mod:-775745Q

By: Varun

Varun — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 16:51:31 +0000

Hey guys
i brought Sony Vaio CR35G/R with Intel Core2Duo Processor T8100 2.10 Ghz 2Gb Ram but with only 128Mb ATI Radeon Graphics…i would like to know whether i can upgrade my graphics card?? plsssss reply

By: manny

manny — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:03:54 +0000

Looks like “expansion port 3″ is for a docking station or port replicator that is custom made for the dv6000. The card slot on the dv6000 is probably an ExpressCard slot. I didn’t look at all of the models, but HP is no longer supporting the PC card slot (aka, “PCMCIA” slot) in their latest consumer notebooks.
The only way that I can say with confidence that a specific ExpressCard product will work with a notebook PC is if they are listed as compliant on PCMCIA’s ExpressCard web site (www.expresscard.org). The dv6000 is not listed, nor are any of the graphics modules. That’s not to say that they will not work - just that they have not been submitted for testing.

Manny