Q&A: When buying laptop graphics cards bundled with a laptop purchase, what do you get?

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Question by : When buying laptop graphics cards bundled with a laptop purchase, what do you get?
I am buying an HP laptop, and chose an ATI Mobility HD 5370 graphics card as an option. The description says HDMI in it…does this mean the graphics card I chose will be integrated within the laptop, or is it something I have to plug into the HDMI port? Thanks.

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Answer by Fordry
There aren’t any normal laptops right now that have the ability to have a graphics card installed in them. the graphics chip is built right in to the system board. If you are doing a custom model, they have different boards with the different graphics chips and they put what you order in. The hdmi part just means it has an hdmi port that you can use to connect the laptop to a tv to display it on a tv. And just an fyi, lcd hdtv’s aren’t really any different than lcd computer monitors. So any 1080p lcd or plasma tv especially will have great resolution and perform really well as a computer monitor.

Edit – @William, have you ever opened up a laptop and seen how it is put together? Every single laptop from Dell, HP, Asus, Sony, Toshiba, etc……. has a system board that has the graphics chip built in, whether its a dedicated graphics chip with dedicated memory or an integrated graphics chip doesn’t matter, its still on the main system board. Integrated doesn’t have anything to do with being on the board, it means its built into the chipset instead of being a separate independant chip. There is no such thing as an expansion 3d graphics card in laptops except for a special setup Alienware tried to start a few years ago and a few crazy laptop models that are big enough that they actually house desktop cards in them.

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One thought on “Q&A: When buying laptop graphics cards bundled with a laptop purchase, what do you get?”

  1. ATI does not offer a model called a 5370. i think you meant to put 5470. and in that case it is a 512Mb dedicated graphics card. so it is not integrated into the motherboard. the 5470 is directx 11 (the newest version) capable which means it can run HD videos on it

    HDMI stands for High Definition Multimedia Interface. and when it says HDMI on it that usually means you have an HDMI out port located on the side or back of the computer. which you can buy an HDMI cable and use to plug into your TV(needs HDMI in) and you can view your computer screen on your HD TV. play videos and do whatever you want.

    if you want a full description of the 5470 you can go here

    http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5470.23698.0.html

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