xps 1530 graphics card

Not on that model - the video chip is soldered to the system board and there'll never be an upgrade for it.

Asus are supposed to be developing an express card that allows you to connect any desktop graphics card to your laptop and then output to a desktop monitor. It's not a portable solution but it means you can connect a top end graphics card like the Nvidia GTX to a standard laptop and desktop monitor and play games on high detail.

Not sure when it's due out and can't remember the name off the top of my head.

With laptops there's rarely a graphics upgrade path so you really have to pick one you'll be happy with from the outset.

I was tempted by the xps 1730 due to it's 2 powerful graphics cards and Aegia physics card but the battery life and size of it put me off. I believe Nvidia have now made the 8800 for laptops so should start seeing those soon and I hopefully by the time I upgrade they'll be in systems with decent battery life and with 15" screens or less.

My 1530 had 2gigs of ram but Vista automatically assigned 750mb of my system ram to the graphics card so it had a gig but this made system performance on just the 1 remaining gig poorer than I'd hoped. I got a 2gig readyboost ready memory stick (from Argos was on sale for £17) and performance has improved a lot. It's more stable - don't get the turning circle and pauses when opening new folders or apps and games run slightly better. Seeing as you have 3gig of ram you might not need this but every little helps and for £17 it's a nice cheap upgrade.

The main problem I have with the Dell laptops is the Ram. There is no option to upgrade it to faster than the standard 667mhz. With other companies you can get 1ghz+ ram which makes a significant difference. My windows vista experience score confirms my suspicion when it showed my ram as being the weakest component on my system scoring 4.8 compared to the 5.5 and 5.9 my graphics card gets (3D/2D).

Likely not, on the processor upgrade; as for the ASUS XG Station, they've been promising it for almost a year now, and so far it's vaporware.

It doesn't upgrade your video - it basically turns your notebook into a desktop system with an external video card.

I doubt the first run of 8800 notebook cards will fit into slim chassis like the 1530 - just as there were no machines of this size to take any of the 7950 cards, etc. They simply consume too much power and produce too much heat for a slimline chassis.

Message Edited by ejn63 on 01-04-2008 04:04 PM

If you can find a way to connect one, not as long as whatever it's in, can handle it. As noted, ASUS announced the XG Station a year ago and has yet to ship it

http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=5369

so they're clearly having engineering issues with such a device (or have concluded the market is too small to warrant further development - rumor had it that it was going to cost about $600 with a reasonably low-end video card -- the market for a $1,000 upgrade device using an 8800 card is probably smaller than warrants the cost of development of the device).

Where I work reviews hardware and gadgets and usually gets them way before they come out and so far not a sniff from Asus about getting hold of this.

I'll ask them to chase Asus for an expected release date when I get in on Monday. It would be great as I could then finally sell/get rid off my desktop.

I'd be curious to hear what ASUS has in store as well - given that it's been a year since this was announced, I suspect it has been cancelled.