Thinkpads Forum

Are there any newer faster/better 3D gaming cards that are compatible with the Advance Dock other than the X1300:

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-61232

http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. ... MIGR-67432

I'm not looking for any multi-monitor support, just better 3D gaming perfomance than the NV140 and FX570 available with the T61 series or even the ATI Mobility HD3650 and FireGL 5700 available with the new T500/W500 series. My T61 is always docked and used with an external monitor, KB and mouse .... I've idled my large tower desktop unit because it's too noisey (8 fans) and too hot (700W PS) plus the older single core P4-3.0 CPU, mobo and it's ATI X800XT GPU are much slower than my T61 on just about everything.

For instance, can I replace my Advanced Mini-dock with the Advanced Dock for my T61 (as described in my signature line below), and then throw in a faster 3D PCIe video card like an ATI 4600 series?

http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd4600/index.html

Or, am I better off simply buying a new 15.4" laptop if/when they come out with a faster GPU next year (1680x1050 is my preference)? BTW, I'm not interested in a 17" W700 so that's not going to be an option for me.

Thanks

I haven't used anything newer than the ATI X1300 and nVidia 7600 GT in the Advanced Dock, but one of the things to look out for in any card you put in the dock is its power consumption. As far as I know, anything that draws more than 50 watts will not work.
Also, even though the PCIe slot in the dock physically is x16, it only operates at x1 speed (at least that was the info displayed for the nVidia card).