benefits of a discreet video card...

[ricka01]

I'm getting a new (or used) laptop for a backup/travel machine. My uses are stock charting/trading, web page viewing, and Microsoft Excel, Powerpoint, and Word. The screen will be high resolution. What benefits will a discreet video card give to me, if any, over an integrated card? I'm looking at the new T400/T500, or a used T60/T61.

Thanks

[ZaZ]

Given the usage, there's little to no benefit. The X3100 or X4500 should have no trouble running a high resolution screen. Plus a discrete card runs hotter and has less battery life. On the T400/500 the only penalty is cost because the GPU is switchable between integrated and discrete. You can do it right in Vista, but in the BIOS if you're running XP. If you're opting for a T61 I'd stay away from the nVidia cards. There's a good chance at some point the card will fail and the only fix for it is to replace the motherboard with another faulty GPU.

[ssd_thinkpad]

When connected to a dock, the discrete thinkpads can only output dvi with the discrete gpu enabled. The non-discrete thinkpads can output dvi when connected to the dock.