Buying an additional graphics card

[andreeak]

I just bought a new HP laptop (the G60 series) and it was intended for everyday use but my boyfriend wants to play Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 on it. He is noticing it is a little slow, should he get an updated graphics card and an extra gig or two? Or just forget the new COD and play the 4? Please help I bought the gift as a Christmas present.

 

[mfarrukh]

He can lower the resolution and details to play it

 

[uh_no]

he shouldn't be playing COD on that computer if he wan'ts good quality.....laptops all have integrated graphics anyway which you're not gonna be able to upgrade....assuming this is a decent buy, it has 4 GB of ram anyway....which means a) you're not gonna be able to put in any more b) any more won't do you any good anyway c) its a 32 bit os and you can't use anymore anyway......so tell him to use some other computer to get his fix

 

[JackNaylorPE]

The major marketers of laptops like HP don't actually make laptops. They buy them from ODM's (original design manufacturers). When making for mass market sales, the main "design criteria" is hitting a certain price point and the laptops are not designed for "upgrade-ability" as one of the major design points is they want you to buy a new laptop not upgrade the old one.

However, the people who build them for HP, recognize this and they also build laptops for the so called "boutique" market occupied by Alienware, VoodooPC, Falcon Northwest, Eurocom, WidowPC, etc. Contrary to the above, these do NOT have integrated graphics but mobile versions of desktop GPU's. For example the nVidia 280M compares to a desktop 4870 or 8800 GTX and will play games quite nicely. And you can upgrade both the RAM and GFX and I have done both myself....even added a TV tuner card.

This kind of hardware in a mobile form factor doesn't come cheap tho.....to pay the highest end games, you are looking at a $2k investment and about $800 on the entry level. At the minimum, you'd wanna start here:

http://www.pro-star.com/index.cfm?mainpage=product&filter=6

BTW, I'm jealous....all I got from my wife was a bag of $ 3 bag XMas candy and a $5 pair of gloves (left price tags on)