Those of us that strongly rely on the use of laptops have always struggled with keeping up with the newest technologies, specifically in graphics power.  It seems within a matter of weeks after buying a graphics card or laptop, the technology becomes obsolete as there are faster, more powerful products coming out every day.  A few companies have taken the initiative to try and help us overcome this struggle by offering external graphics solutions which will nicely accommodate our newer laptops that are already becoming obsolete. 

NVIDIA’s notebook GPU department appears to be driving towards easier solutions for upgrading graphics cards in laptops and notebooks.  Earlier this month, a high ranking NVIDIA executive voiced his opinion on external graphics solutions for laptops saying he thinks it’s “a big opportunity” for NVIDIA.  Though no definite plans or ideas  were revealed, he also mentioned that one of the biggest problems would be the considerably higher prices than that of regular graphics solutions.

AMD/ATI also revealed a similar solution using their external graphics port (XGP) in 2008 introducing high performance graphics from a Radeon HD 3870 “box” that could be connected to a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo SA3650 or an Acer Aspire Ferrari One.  The AMD model is also capable of a multi-GPU configuration using CrossFireX to allow the external GPU to perform alongside your internal graphics card increasing graphics performance even more.  The external graphics platform connects to your laptop via a proprietary PCIe 2.0 connector with a speed of 4.0Gbps.

Another product featuring external graphics that could be making it’s way to the consumer world soon is the Gigabyte M1405 docking laptop.  Revealed recently at the 2010 Tapei Game Show, the 14-inch laptop features a 1366×768 resolution powered by an Intel GMA 4500MHD.  Once this baby’s docked, add the discrete power of a 1GB GeForce GT220 and you’ll have some mean graphics performance.  The laptop also features an Intel Core 2 Duo SU7300 and up to 4GB of memory.  No price or release date has been revealed yet, but it’s definitely worth keeping an eye out for.

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