Upgradeable Laptop Video Card - Here's the Answer!

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Upgradeable Laptop Video Card - Here's the Answer!

400 points posted to Monitors and Displays by captainsensible 05/08/07

A company called Magma though is now selling an easy to use device that will allow most ‘desktop-only’ PCI Express cards to be used with a laptop.

The ExpressBox1 is like an external drive enclosure except that it’s designed to hold a PCI-E graphics card. There’s a smaller version that supports cards up to 6.6 inches in length and a pro version for cards up to 12.28 inches in length. They connect to a laptop via the ExpressCard/34 module and a PCI-E cable and Magma claims there is no latency in the connection since there’s a theoretical maximum throughput of 2000Mbps (or 250 MegaBytes per second) in each direction. At the moment the ExpressBox1 is only designed for single-width video cards needing a maximum of 55 watts of power. However double-width cards that require auxillary power will be supported later this year.

Of course performance has never come cheap in the PC world. The standard version ExpressBox1 is available on the Magma website for $729 (that’s without a graphics card) while the Pro version is available for $749.

from OhGizmo.com

captainsensible 05/08/07	I've seen a LOT of posts asking for something like this. Now it's a reality. But is it worth $729? Think I'm going to wait for the next version.
premcv 05/08/07	Same here. I'll wait for the next version too!
hjwasson 05/08/07	As other manufacturers catch on and offer their own products, and as sales volume increases, we'll see prices for this solution come down. Good find, captainsensible! If anyone finds an independent review on this product, please post the link!
bobpaul 05/08/07	Neat idea, but way to expensive. Would be great as if dell sold a docking station that accepted a PCIe x16 slot for graphics, though
hjwasson 05/08/07	Dell only sells docking stations for their Latitudes, although when I look at the layout of the Inspiron XPS M1710, it looks like it has a docking port on the bottom. Does anyone know whether the M1710 can be used with the Latitude docking stations? It's not well documented if it can. In any case, I'm sure that the Latitude docking station (D-Port?) does not accept PCIe x16 at this time - but one can hope that future iterations could.
bennish 05/08/07	yea i'm excited about rthis one. a shame it's only 1x, but it should still be plenty for most things. and it's upgradable! i'd rather take a 1x that i can change than a 16x that becomes obsolete.
hjwasson 05/09/07	I'd forgotten that ExpressCard is only 1x! This won't do it all for hardcore gamers (who should be the primary target for this concept)! http://www.expresscard.org/web/site/standardsummary.jsp I know that 1x video works fine for business applications. Belkin and Targus both have ExpressCard universal docking stations that have video output to external monitors, and initial reviews show them to be far better than the USB ones ever were. http://www.belkin.com/highspeeddock/ http://www.targus.com/us/product_details.asp?sku=ACP60US Since ExpressCard is a new standard, we can expect that as needs increase we can see a new specification that might address the need for higher bandwidth.
captainsensible 05/09/07	Built into a dock would be cool :)
hjwasson 05/09/07	Hey, I just found this product announcement from ASUS! http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=5369 I'm sure it will be a fine product, but it will still be limited by the PCIe 1x specification of the ExpressCard slot. Let's all hope for an ExpressCard2 specification not too far down the road, that will upgrade the slot to 16x bandwidth, yet will remain backwards compatible with existing ExpressCard components.
captainsensible 05/09/07	wow.. that one looks cool... I'd pay $729 for it if it made Star Trek noises when you turn the knob..
hjwasson 05/09/07	LOL! I haven't seen pricing announcements for the ASUS version yet - but I can't imagine why anyone thinks they can charge $700 for an empty box (like the Magma)! If it were in the $200 - $300 range (which I still consider to be too high for what it is) it would sell far better.
jervis961 05/09/07	I just wouldn't want to lug the thing around. I'd rather be able to get a better video card installed.
hjwasson 05/09/07	Agreed, jervis, but if the user-upgradable notebook video graphics never comes to light, this could someday be an alternative for some users. Granted, it would most likely sit at home as the home docking station, but then frugal users wouldn't need to supplement their notebook with a home gaming desktop. On the other hand, for the money that Magma is asking for this thing, you could get a nice desktop computer with an PCIe x16 slot, and have truly accelerated gaming graphics. This concept really will only grow legs if the price drops, and the ExpressCard standard is increased to allow accelerated graphics. Thoughts?
bennish 05/10/07	i don't think (at least for me) it's the sort of thing you'd lug around. it'd be a bit like a dock on your desk... you'd only do the serious gaming at home, after all, not on the train. at least that's how i'd see the use for it. maybe whatever's after express card will have 16x? seems such a waste.
tnpcrepair 05/30/07	Better yet, even if it is proprietary to only Dell notebooks, have a universal socket for video card upgrades. I would have gladly paid a little extra to upgrade my old Inspiron's video card to something better, instead of having to buy another system, just to get a video card with more VRAM because the card it had was the highest offered when the system shipped. As of right now, when Dell starts selling notebooks with the 8xxx series nVidia cards, I am expecting that I will have to buy another 17" system & ebay this 3 month old fully loaded system.
bennish 05/30/07	ok, if targus or something could combine this with their expresscard dock (http://www.targus.com/au/product_details.asp?sku=ACP60AU) i will slap my money down on the table right now. slip that baby in, docks all your mediacenter stuff, automatically goes up to full high speed graphics... unplug it, smoooooth low power intel 950... mmmm now that's a full solution

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