In most cases, when you buy a laptop, you're stuck with the video card that comes with the machine. It made me think...since most laptops already have a mini-pci slot for wireless cards and such....wouldn't it be nice to have something similar, but using PCI express x16? Have the option of using the onboard video, or plugging in a standard mini-pci express x16 video card into the bottom of your laptop...just like a mini-pci card does right now.

Has anyone heard of anything like that in the works?

The main problem with a laptop is they are pretty much 'AS-IS' when you buy them. By the time the graphics card is out of date, you usually find the CPU chip, Motherboard and Operating system are also out of date.

Laptops have never really been made to be maintained to keep up with the current technology, they are really bought for the duration of time you own them and usually keep their price quiet well in the Secondary market.

If your laptop has go unbearable in the sense that it's behind the times then perhaps you are best selling the one you have and purchasing a new one.

As for Moving the GPU processing to a PCI, you have to look at the Architecture of the motherboard the GPU's are usually directly set into a laptop MB unlike PC towers. For the overall mapping of the Bus to be redirected it would generate delays and therefore cause more problems than solutions *IF* of course was possible, unfortunately I don't think it is.

Thanks, Stryder.

Thats what I was wondering...if there were any hardware issues that would prevent feasibility..the extend of my knowledge of internal architecture is limited.

But I can still dream about plugging a 8800gtx into the bottom of my laptop...or better yet...a pcmcia card! A great..big..honkin' card that would make your machine lean heavy to the left...with little fans that sound like jet engines....I tell you what..that bad boy would eat through an 8 hour battery in about 10 minutes....machine gets so hot..you gotta get a couple of those heat shield tiles off the bottom of the space shuttle and attach them to the palmrest to prevent 3rd degree burns. :)

I know the feeling, I've kind of got some concepts of designs however I can't go into details *just in case* ;)

Since were on the subject of video cards...What is the Nvidia "quadro" series used for? I see them at work, and I know there used in workstations..and I know they cost alot..but what job are they designed to do? and what makes them cost so much?