Lenovo Advanced Dock Station- Any PCI Express Card? [ Edited ]

[dvgeetar]

Hello Lenovo Community,

I'm thinking about getting the Advanced Dock Station so I can run my computer with a different graphics card via the PCI Express Card Capabilites in the Docking Station. Is the Docking Station compatible with absolutely every PCI Express Card on the market or are there limitations? If there are limitations, what are they? If you don't know about this docking station, here's a link: Lenovo Docking Station. I use Lenovo Thinkpad T500 laptop and run Windows Vista SP2.

Sidequestion: I want to be able to run the PC game Star Wars: The Old Republic on my Lenovo T500 laptop, with the docking station also. What PCI Express Cards would you reconmend to play this game?

Thanks,

Dvgeetar

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

The advanced dock supports very limited range of pci express card. You may want to look at the vidock4 or eGPU option for gaming purposes.

[dvgeetar]

Thanks for the Response!

I'm curious about the eGPU and kind of want to try it out.... I have some questions though:
1. Will my computer be able to run it? I'm running on the Vista OS
2. What do I need to buy in order to make it work?
3. How do I put it all together? Seems pretty complicated
4. What are some of the better inexpensive PCI Express Cards for this device?

Thanks
Dvgeetar

[TheDude]

AMD 5570 DDR card (not the one with GDR ram) is the fastest card that I am aware of that meets the power requirements in the Advanced Dock.  The new AMD 7750 MIGHT work as well - I'm not aware of anybody testing yet. It could take some clock-speed limiting to make it work.

[lead_org Microsoft MVP Contributor]

you can upgrade the PSU and get more powerful cards to function in the dock, there is a brief tutorial on it here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/445295-guide-getting-radeon-5770-working-advanced-dock.ht...