Notebook Video Cards -- Can You get One?Notebook video cards with dedicated memory are rare in the computers you will see on sale in electronics stores. The default now is integrated graphics on the main processing chip.The current mainstream processors from both Intel who claims the best processor for laptop computers and AMD with their new competitor the AMD Llano APUs have these integrated graphics. They are graphics accelerators-- laptop video cards that use shared system memory. Even though they are faster than most previous integrated graphics they still share the system memory. This type of graphics card can drastically reduce the performance of your computer. If you have an application that is graphic intensive open and you try to do anything else, there won't be enough system memory left to run the other application (program). Since the faster graphics are integrated into the main processor it is even rarer than before to see dedicated graphics cards in anything other than upper end laptops. Even Apple laptops at the lower end only feature integrated graphics. Discrete notebook laptop cards are almost never seen in Intel Celeron, Pentium or core i3 powered laptops. They are seen in some i5 powered laptops and are most common in Intel laptops with i7 chips. The only things you need a computer with the computing power of an i7 chip is for a specialized use like gaming or video editing were you want the additional graphics power too. AMD has more incentive to encourage additional discrete graphics cards in laptops using their chips. They purchased ATI and are now a major maker of these cards. Their new chips support asymmetrical crossfire which allows the power of the integrated chip to combine to increase the power of many dedicated cards. return to laptop-computers-wiz homepage |