Attach external Graphics Card to laptop?

TheGameNerd

TheGameNerd

TheGameNerd

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So, I have a Dell XPS L502X. It's got an i7 2670QM at 2.2ghz, a GT 540M and 8GB of RAM. I made the stupid decision back in 2011 to buy one for gaming, instead of buying a Gaming PC for cheaper. Fast forward to now, I want to upgrade it's performance when playing the newest games. The GT 540M can just about hold up on a few new games (On the lowest settings) like Saints Row The Third, but I'm looking to try and improve it without forking out £400+ for a new Gaming PC.

I've heard about attaching an external Graphics Card to a laptop, and I realised that I have a Radeon HD 4870 in my cupboard. If I could manage to attach it to my laptop, it should boost the performance, right?

So, I did my research, but was dismayed when many people said that I needed an ExpressCard or PCIe slot, which I cannot find on my laptop.

Now, my question is, is there any way to attach an external graphics card to my laptop without ExpressCard or PCIe, with HDMI, USB, or some sort of adapter for PCIe to HDMI, or something like that? Is there another way to attach it? If not... well... looks like I'm gonna' be saving up for a long time.

TL;DR: Laptop without ExpressCard or PCIe. Can I attach external GPU using other means - e.g. HDMI, USB, adapter etc.?

Thanks.
Will.
 
Sorry but your out of luck there are no expansion buses on that laptop with enough bandwidth to support a gaming grade GPU and the internal GPU is soldered to the mainboard.
 
TheGameNerd said:
Oh okay. I guess I'll just get to saving enough money to buy a budget gaming rig :(
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Sounds like you should maybe await the release of the new gen consoles and go that route.

To build a decent gaming PC from scratch, you will be looking at a minimum of 1500GBP. If you are only wanting to spend 400, then I would suggest that what you will have will not be up to scratch and become outdated in no time at all.

With the consoles, (still relatively not so great in terms of raw processing power), you get a lot more for your money and you know that no matter what, you will still be playing the latest games in 8 years time on your 8 year old console. Games on console also tend to be a hell of a lot better optimised than do their PC counterparts. The xbox is basically a X1900XT, 1GB RAM, and a triple core Athlon. I would like to see how such a configuration in PC form would handle the latest releases (even with gimped console textures and resolutions).
 
You can get 75-90% of the performance out of a GPU if it has mini PCI-E 2.0 expansion slot. Otherwise you're pretty much out of luck unless it has an internal GPU module or you want to solder directly to the PCI-E lanes on the motherboard :p
 
MatTheCat said:
Sounds like you should maybe await the release of the new gen consoles and go that route.

To build a decent gaming PC from scratch, you will be looking at a minimum of 1500GBP. If you are only wanting to spend 400, then I would suggest that what you will have will not be up to scratch and become outdated in no time at all.

With the consoles, (still relatively not so great in terms of raw processing power), you get a lot more for your money and you know that no matter what, you will still be playing the latest games in 8 years time on your 8 year old console. Games on console also tend to be a hell of a lot better optimised than do their PC counterparts. The xbox is basically a X1900XT, 1GB RAM, and a triple core Athlon. I would like to see how such a configuration in PC form would handle the latest releases (even with gimped console textures and resolutions).
Click to expand...

I would never pick consoles over PC. I used to play console a lot, but after using a PC for gaming, I couldn't go back to consoles. I can play them split screen or on racing games, etc, but for general gaming, no. I can see the low FPS and bad quality of the environment and it really puts me off the game.

The bit about £1500 for a good gaming rig? Nonsense. Completely. My friend recently bought a gaming rig from Overclockers for about £500 and it can run (almost) anything on ultra, no hassle.

Anyway, I have found a spare GPU and am planning to build a gaming PC very soon. Here are the specs:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i3-3220 3.30GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £92.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x ASRock B75 Pro3-M Intel B75 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £55.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £43.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA 6Gb/s 16MB Cache - OEM (ST500DM002) HDD £39.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 430W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020046-UK) £35.99
1 x Xigmatek Asgard Pro Gaming Case - Black £32.99
1 x OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £17.99
Total : £417.97 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Thanks for the input though ;)
 
Actually... while it's far from fast the mPCI slot on the laptop might allow you to hook up an external. Have a look at the eGPU thread on notebookreview. It's the same idea as the expresscard to PCIe bridge but runs from one of the internal mPCI slots (as used for the card based laptop SSD's or more usually the internal network card.
 
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snitcher said:
i doubt there will be any espansion buses on laptops.
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Well, the Dell XPS L502X definitely has the internal mpci card slot and the P4EH V3.2 plugs in via mpci OR expresscard.

My laptop has expresscard (as do a lot of others) which I'm sure is classed as an expansion bus last time I checked.

So... your wrong :p
 
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