ati's swapable laptop video card?

[AMD inside all]

hi i have a dell inspiron 5100 and i need more then a 16mb video card and a 64mb for my model is 160$ on ebay and im wondering if theirs any other way to get a cheaper one and i remembered my friend saying that some new laptops have an ati video card that will work in practally anylaptop with the port.

so to get to the bottom line how do i find out if i have that type of ati video card

(and yes the video card i have now is ati)

thanks-tom

 

[hu_xu]

Well how old is your laptop?

I doubt you do though.

Why don't you tell us you GPU?

To my knowledge only laptops that support MXM or AXIOM (ATI) can upgrade their GPUs. Laptops with that support must also support PCI-E.

So if your laptop does not support PCI-E most likely you will have to buy a brand new laptop.

Maybe someone with more mobile GPU knowledge can answer your quesion clearer.

 

[AMD inside all]

i just found out that i have an

ati 7500 mobility if that helps

 

[hu_xu]

Being able to upgrade mobile GPUs is more contingent on the mobo than the GPU. Seeing that your GPU is a 7500 mobile I HIGHLY doubt your mobo supports MXM or AXIOM which is very new technology and is only compatible with PCI-E GPUs...I don't even think MXM is out yet. Is it? Can anyone verify that it is. MXM is being developed by Nvidia. The easiest way to tell if you can upgrade your GPU or not is whether or not your GPU is onboard. If it is then most likely you CANNOT. I'm pretty sure you can't.

 

[AMD inside all]

its not onboard because i can take the card out and swap it with another one i saw some 64mb ones on ebay but their 140$ for the cheapest i saw which is alot but 32 is only 20$ so im just looking to upgrade because i have to sell my main computer (dam parents) so i need to have my laptop do everything.