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zylstra · Oct 22, 2013, 06:25 PM

Does a 4K external video card for laptops exist?

Scleros · Oct 25, 2013, 09:54 AM

4K what? I have never seen an external video card for a modern computer, so I'm going to lean toward "no" for any common laptop. One of the difficulties with such a thing is the laptop would need a high-bandwidth interface to connect the card to, either a proprietary interface or an external multi-lane PCI-E interface using current interface technology. Even in current desktops the graphic interface is one or more specific PCI-E slots. The inability to upgrade is one of the limitations of gaming on a laptop.

Update: Googling, I found How to make an external laptop graphics adaptor, so the answer is technically "yes".

If you want a portable gaming platform with more widespread hardware support, look into mini-ITX motherboards and cases. Some can accommodate full size video cards.

zylstra · Oct 25, 2013, 10:34 AM

Great! Thanks for the info. Perhaps I should have said "graphics adapter" rather than "video card".

Check out 4K monitors. They're the next evolution of monitors.

Scleros · Oct 27, 2013, 07:59 AM

Yeah, upconverting typical laptop resolutions to 4K doesn't really gain anything, and may look worse, instead of using a video card that can output native 4K resolution. 4K has 3840x2160=8,294,400 pixels. A full HD laptop has 1920x1080=2,073,600 pixels or 2,073,600/8,294,400=25% of the pixels of a 4K display. Therefore any upconversion will be fabricating 75% (3 of every 4) of the pixels displayed at 4K resolution. If the laptop has a lower resolution than HD the scaling ratio is even higher.