Looking to Get a Better Graphics Card

[FoxtrotAnon]

I currently own a Dell Studio 1558 and it has an Intel i3 HD Graphics card, but it's just not packing as much as I want it to. I love my studio, as I've never had any issues with it whatsoever (I know some people would say otherwise, but it does exactly what I need it to). I'm definitely not going to go out and buy another laptop, as some may recommend, because my Studio wasn't exactly "cheap" in any way ($800), so I think it would be much more worth the money to just improve my current system. I don't want to spend a whole lot on the card itself, so that means an NVDIA GeForce is out of the picture, but I'm looking for something that will make Empire and Napoleon look much nicer than what I'm currently dealing with. I'm pretty good with computers, as I've done some modding to games before, but I'm not so good with the internal structure and that's why I'm looking for some advice on this subject. Thanks!

[Devilmaypoop]

You can't install new parts to a laptop, it would be insanely hard and probably wouldn't even work at all.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

i find it funny people think there laptops are upgradable ,

besides a pain in the ass to get a 100mhz clock bump from a new cpu
a new 2.5inch HDD / SSD
or some ram a laptop cant really get a new GPU,

there are a VERY VERY VERY select number of laptops that you can replace the GPU on they use the MXM standard but heres the kicker

in 2009 going from an MXM Nvidia 9700 to an MXM 9800 would cost you around $500-800 because MXM laptop gpus are nearly impossible to find.

basically put when you buy a laptop what you see is what you get.

a good example

an $800 laptop might have a Core 2 Duo P8600 in it
to upgrade to a P8700 which is a 100mhz clock speed increase would cost you around $280 for the CPU
ram is cheap so no issues there just get a kit of whatever ram your laptop supports example DDR2 SoDimm 2x2gb for 4gigs to replace in say a laptop with 2gigs, etc might cost you $40 so its a cheap upgrade
Hardrives are also a cheap upgrade, $50-70 can usually double your HDD space a reinstall of windows is necessary as is having all drivers on hand,
GPU again ONLY MXM gpus can be replaced, even then there are 2 types MXM I and MXM II you need the gpu you want to upgrade to to support the MXM standard your laptop uses, and again going from say a 9700 to a 9800 costs $500-800 for a 5-10% performance increase, even then for sake of argument at the time period a single 9800 GTX was still 100% - 150% faster.

laptops are not ment to be upgraded, there are ment to be used and replaced and made hard to upgrade and expensive so your more likely to replace it more often,

[FoxtrotAnonymous]

Gah, alright. Like I said, I have no clue on how to screw around with the internal parts of a computer. But thanks anyways.