Actually, laptops aren’t made for playing computer games – supposedly. But the ever-growing range of gaming laptops seems to indicate otherwise.
Such devices usually cost quickly more than 1000 € and are also less powerful compared to desktop PCs. So what to do if you want to get more graphics performance out of your own laptop?
Graphics card replacement – can’t be that hard after all?!
I can tell you right at the beginning that in most cases a Replacing the graphics card will not be possible or useful.
This is basically due to the fact that newer laptops in particular are increasingly rarely designed in such a way that components can be replaced. Mostly you can’t even buy them as an end user.
In order to find out if the graphics card is replaceable, you’ll have to put some energy into researching.
Even if it should be theoretically possible, a graphics card replacement on the laptop is in most cases not possible without special equipment like soldering stations. And even then a swap is only feasible in a few models at all.
These are often also very expensive, develop too much heat or don’t fit into the case.
The laptop’s soldered graphics unit
What are alternatives?
Meanwhile, improving the graphics performance, or the notebook’s performance at all, is much easier with other methods. Especially if your laptop uses a graphics unit integrated in the CPU.
Exchange of the CPU
Some laptops still have CPUs installed, which are not soldered. This allows you to use more powerful processors (depending on the socket of the mainboard, of course). You can find all the information about your installed CPU, including the socket, on Google.
How to find out which stronger CPUs fit on the same socket. Here you also have to make sure that the components are compatible and that the heat development is not higher.
A good starting point is to look for the CPU that was used in the same laptop at that time and then buy it second hand. Most of the time, these processors also contain a better graphics card integrated graphics unit which can improve the performance.
The exchangeable processor of the laptop (here an old AMD Athlon)
Replace the RAM
The RAM has a direct influence on the graphics performance of CPUs with integrated graphics (APU). In this case, the graphics unit uses a part of the built-in Working memory (RAM) as graphic memory. It’s kind of like giving your graphics card more and faster RAM.
As a rule, it is best to install a set of 2 with the same RAM size. You can either switch to a larger memory or choose a faster bandwidth (DDR1/2/3/4/5…>) the higher the number, the better).
The 2 swappable RAM bars
Last but not least – SSD is the magic word
By replacing the conventional hard disk with an SSD, you give your entire system a makeover. We have already explained why an SSD is always worthwhile in an earlier article.
An SSD can also drastically reduce loading times in games and thus provide a smoother gaming experience.
The hard disk bay – in our case easily accessible on the laptop’s underside (here without hard disk)