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External Video Cards?

kavi

kavi

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 17, 2007
53
0
This may be an incredibly stupid question but here's the deal. I recently bought a macbook. the only real reason why I didn't get a macbook pro was because the macbook I bought plus the extra ram I bought and installed myself was something like $700 cheaper than the bottom line macbook pro (more to upgrade it to 4GB of ram myself). I couldn't really justify spending all that much extra for just a video card and a slightly bigger screen.

I recently started playing world of warcraft and it runs pretty well on my macbook however I recently saw a friend playing it on a macbook pro and I became envious of how smoothly and everything the game ran. the only real difference between my macbook and my friend's macbook pro seems to be the video card.

So here's my question, I know for like $150 I can buy a 320GB external hard drive so are there external video cards that I could connect to my macbook through a usb or firewire port? If such a thing existed it would have to be pretty cheap. So is it possible to get an external video card that's about as good as the video card in the bottom line macbook pro for a price that's not really much more than around $100?
 
you wont get the same power of the macbook pros graphics with an external video card for only $100

an internal graphics card isnt much cheaper than that

google is your friend
 
the information that I find when searching google doesn't make a lot of sense to me. most of the information that comes up involves multiple monitors and that's not what I'm looking for. I'm just looking for a relatively cheap external thing to plug into a usb or firewire port to make world of warcraft run smoother.

does such a thing exist?
 
kavi said:
the information that I find when searching google doesn't make a lot of sense to me. most of the information that comes up involves multiple monitors and that's not what I'm looking for. I'm just looking for a relatively cheap external thing to plug into a usb or firewire port to make world of warcraft run smoother.

does such a thing exist?
Click to expand...

What you're talking about is the Asus XG station, and its going to cost a ******** more then $100. The hardware its self will be at least $500 and a good graphics card to put in it will be at least $200.

It is not in production yet and there is no comparable product in existence already.

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/hands-on-with-the-asus-xg-station-external-gpu/
 
macbook external video cards

this is a similar to the OP but i have a white macbook. the only things i see on the side are the 2 usp slots, mini dvi, and firewire 800. now for me money dosent really matter (to an extent), what external vid cards would help me play a game like Left 4 Dead (on windows partition).

so far my specs are 2.2 GHz, 4 GB, and we know how terrible the GMA X3100 is.
so basically what i am trying to do here is at least get myself up to 30 FPS when i play L4D. So far with my current specs i get decent fps when im in closed corners and lookin at the ground, but when i look foreward in open areas, use the flashlight, shoot. my frames drop to 5 fps and it isnt pretty to watch. so if there is any external vid cards i can hook up to this thing it would be greatly appreciated.
 
well all i got is 500 bucks, if i had an extra 300 i could get a gamin tower
 
You cannot change the graphics card on a laptop.


External solutions are either one of two things:

1. Not in production
2. Only available on one laptop in the world.
 
To make it short and sweet, the answer is 'No, you cannot do anything to improve the graphic capabilities of your Macbook.'

If I were you, I'd be thankful that there's at least a decent card inside, and I didn't get shoved with some crap Intel integrated card like the previous generations did.

Hydroxs said:
You can on those with mxm slots.
Click to expand...

Even if Apple used MXM slots, they would solder the graphic card on anyway.

Even if they didn't, he would only have a MXM-I card slot. All other video cards that are MXM-I are equally as weak.

Even if he had a MXM-II or MXM-III card slot (which makes no sense), the video card will produce so much heat, it'd burn his entire freaking notebook.
 
sometimes i wish macs didnt shoot themselves in the foot by making it almost impossible to upgrade things like a videocard for the sake of "looking pretty"
 
egg88 said:
sometimes i wish macs didnt shoot themselves in the foot by making it almost impossible to upgrade things like a videocard for the sake of "looking pretty"
Click to expand...

show me a laptop that is reasonably mainstream that has a replaceable gfx card. i can't think of one let alone one that is reasonable priced.
apple is not shooting themselves in the foot here. if they did offer such a thing they would be blasting their toes off b/c it would be expensive, ugly, heavy and powersucking.
 
egg88 said:
sometimes i wish macs didnt shoot themselves in the foot by making it almost impossible to upgrade things like a videocard for the sake of "looking pretty"
Click to expand...

Nope. You yourself are shooting yourself in the foot because in the end, you have to buy a new Mac when yours is outdated.

rukus said:
show me a laptop that is reasonably mainstream that has a replaceable gfx card. i can't think of one let alone one that is reasonable priced.
apple is not shooting themselves in the foot here. if they did offer such a thing they would be blasting their toes off b/c it would be expensive, ugly, heavy and powersucking.
Click to expand...

http://uk.zepto.com/Shop/Notebook.aspx?notebookid=1079

Prices are pretty good now, especially since the value of the pound has dropped quite a bit. I believe all the notebooks of screen sizes 14" - 17" shown on that page use MXM graphics and can be upgraded.

And please, you're exagerating about the whole "expensive, ugly, heavy and powersucking" bit. I've seen notebooks smaller than the iMac that have more powerful graphic cards. It's not that expensive anyway. Apple just jacks up the prices.
 
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