What advantages are there to adding a graphics card to my laptop?

[cyrusfox]

I have found out recently that my Acer Aspire 7720 can be upgraded in a couple departments(processor, additional HD, graphics card)

I recently found the complete service manual and it talks about the VGA Board and VGA thermal module. Whether this laptop has one or not, I won't know till I tear it apart. This laptop has the Mobile Intel® GL960/GM965 Express Chipset with integrated 3D graphics, featuring Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100.

So my big 2 questions
Can I upgrade the graphics card?
If I can upgrade it, should I?

Also I have seen other set ups of this laptop that have been fitted by the manufacturer with
ATI Mobility™ Radeon® HD 2300
or
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 (found this going for $25 on ebay)

A little background onmy computer use, a bit of media, playback, h.264, lots of multi-tasking but no crazy heavy graphic programs. I won't be encoding or doing any sort editing. Normal office suite apps, I'm still in college. The computer runs quite speedy already, and I just put Windows 7 64 bit on it(thank you MSDNAA) I just sort of have the upgrade bug at the moment.

Thanks for any input, this is my first post.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

If your laptop came with only the GMA, then it is unlikely that it was fitted with any of the hardware to support MXM modules, and considering that the other option is relatively low power HD2300, then there is a possibility that it's a direct surface mounted HD2300, without any MXM hardware at all and that the mini-board is mounted directly to the PCB of the mainboard.

 

[mindless728]

^+1

you are usually very lucky to have any upgrade option for a laptop at all in terms of GPU's