Thinkpads Forum

I have a 3-month old T60 that is running a satisfactory performance for casual purposes such as net surfing and video watching. However, when it comes to gaming I'm not sure if my machine has enough performance to handle a lot of the newer, graphic-intensive games.

Therefore, I was thinking of upgrading my VGA which is currently a ATI Radeon Mobility X1300 (I was informed that this is only good enough for slides, presentations, etc) to a class higher.

Has anybody here ever attempted to upgrade their VGA before? How hard would it be to perform such an upgrade? And what about cost wise? Do you think it's worth the time, effort and $$ to upgrade it??

I'm a layman when it comes to computer knowledge. Therefore, any input will be appreciated. I would be very happy if I can get some suggestions on a good VGA card if that information sharing is not prohibited at all in this forum. Thanks in advance!

GPU is soldered into the Planar Card (motherboard), only way you can replace it is to swap out your entire motherboard with a board with more latest version of graphics card.

Alternatively, there is also a possibility of putting a compatible card in the advanced dock. This thread would give you some ideas and guidelines.

Is that the only way of upgrading my laptop's graphics capability?
I did a quick research into the cost of one of those advanced docks and the price was high enough for me to decide that it is simply not worth it. Thanks for your insight. You saved me hours of trolling the net. =)

onepieceht wrote:Is that the only way of upgrading my laptop's graphics capability?....snip

Yes, so far, infact on any laptop today.

Asus has been looking forward to manufacturing such laptops with the implementation of nVidia chipsets. More info. can be found here. I am not sure but I think the new Dell gaming laptop also comes with an option to upgrade graphics but again that machine can cost one a little fortune.