Yart

Hello! My laptop is getting old, but I absolutely ADORE this thing and I'm not ready to move on yet, so I'm thinking about going the eGPU "life support" route. I'm rocking a Dell Latitude D830 with integrated Intel GMA 965, 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo T7100 (planning on upgrading to T7800 2.6GHz), 3GB of DDR2 RAM (planning on upgrading to 8GB), and I want to use Windows XP, but I'd move to Windows 7 if I absolutely had to. Either way, if I can have XP, I'll be dual booting with 7. The graphics card of choice is a GTX 690, simply because I want something powerful, but also older so it has drivers for my older operating system that I'm too stubborn to leave behind. I'd be using an eGPU by plugging it into my spare ExpressCard slot, and potentially my secondary Mini PCI-e slot that lays under the keyboard for higher bandwidth since the ExpressCard slot I believe is an earlier version that isn't too quick (version 1.0 I think). If it's possible to use both slots for extra bandwidth, I might even cut a hole in my case and put a female port for the second connection for a clean setup. Now, the main question... I keep hearing about this Intel Optimus or nVidia Optimus or whatever but I can't get a straight answer anywhere online whether or not my system supports this. I would guess it would considering that there's a second revision/version of my laptop model that has integrated nVidia Quadro NVS 140M video, which I would suspect would switch between the Intel GMA 965 and that depending on the application. Could that be left over with this model of laptop and come with the graphics card driver? Is it possible then, that my laptop can use the internal LCD monitor and get video from an external video card, without the use of an external monitor? Will my setup even work at all? Lastly, what eGPU dock thing do you guys recommend? The EXP GDC Beast looks promising but I'd like an opinion first, and unlike the PE4C V2.1, it only has one connector to ExpressCard/Mini PCI-e or whatever. Sorry for the lengthy post. Thanks!