I recently purchased a Toshiba Satellite p775-s7215 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2387918,00.as... When I was on the toshiba direct website, they have the same model but with a better video card http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cdetland.to?po... Everything is pretty much the same except for the graphics card. I want to know i there is something better that will fit my laptop or if that is the best video card my laptop can handle. I already went ahead and upgraded my ram to 8GB. I wanted to buy the laptop from the toshiba website because it is on sale for 885, 35 dollars more than what i paid for my website but unfortunately I couldnt get the payment plan from them and could only get it from best buy. I know I am going to have to pay more the video card but I have no other choice. Can someone tell me the different options for upgrading my video card? Or what should I be looking for? Please help me. Thank you
Answers & Comments
Laptop graphics are soldered onto the motherboard and are not replaceable. Only a very few, very expensive, high end gaming laptops have graphic cards in MXM sockets that can be upgraded.
EDIT: even discrete video cards are usually soldered directly to the motherboard. A big reason for that is heat dissipation. Laptop heat sinks & fans are very limited by size, and aren't rated to handle much more powerful video chips that can throw off as much as 65W of heat.
Laptops, with very few exceptions, at the instant are not meant for top-end gaming. those that are value $3000 and up (like Alienware). you won't be able to enhance the video hardware on laptops.
laptop video cards are 'integrated' (soldered) on the motherboard itself, so they cannot be upgraded like PC. you've to replace the whole motherboard or break and redo the soldering, that'd be way very expensive.
i suggest live with it. or return the toshiba piece and ask them for the higher laptop.