Changing components in a Laptop?

[James Fullard]

I am going to purchase a new gaming machine in the future and am curious about something. The last time I bought a laptop, you couldn't change parts in it but am now wondering with a nice laptop, can you upgrade stuff like Video Cards and other pieces that over time I would want to upgrade or am I still stuck with whats in the machine when I buy a laptop? If I cant I will probably just go with another desktop but being able to travel with a laptop is nice so just thought would ask.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

With the vast majority of laptops, even gaming laptops, the CPU and video card are non-upgradable. You can usually upgrade the ram and storage, that's it.

Unless you HAVE to have a gaming laptop, go desktops. Generally, a gaming laptop isn't really that portable anyhow since they are heavy and have poor battery life etc.

 

[lga1156_ftw]

Only some high end laptops you can still change gpu/ cpu etc but these are rare. Some older hardware have good upgradebility.

 

[hang-the-9]

I am going to purchase a new gaming machine in the future and am curious about something. The last time I bought a laptop, you couldn't change parts in it but am now wondering with a nice laptop, can you upgrade stuff like Video Cards and other pieces that over time I would want to upgrade or am I still stuck with whats in the machine when I buy a laptop? If I cant I will probably just go with another desktop but being able to travel with a laptop is nice so just thought would ask.

If you get a laptop with a thunderbolt connection you would be able to use an external video card dock to upgrade video cards. Of course that is not the same as actually upgrading the laptop card but will give you a mix of portable and stationary power. Not really worth it though unless you really want to have a portable gaming laptop vs a desktop for games and a standard laptop for travel.