External Monitors on a Midrange Laptop - Is it a good idea?

[techfreak9356]

Hi! So I had this weird idea of using my old monitor from my desktop PC as a second monitor for my laptop. My desktop's motherboard just quit out on me and I can't buy a new one, especially with the processors and RAM that came with it, unless I'm doing an upgrade. Since it has no more use, I don't want it to just lay there and pick up a lot of dust so I had the idea of trying to use it as an external monitor for my laptop.

Obviously, since I don't have much of a budget, and I didn't have a choice in buying back then, my monitor and laptop just outright suck.
Monitor: AOC E1670sw monitor @ 1366 x 768
Laptop: Dell Inspiron 15 5570 (Core i5-8250U, 8GB DDR4-2400, Radeon 530) - resolution @ 1920 x 1080

So here's how I plan to do it:
My laptop is sort of like a desktop in my setup. It has a cooling pad that can't even blow much air, and also has 2/3 USB ports occupied (keyboard and mouse). Since using the 3rd port on my laptop as power source for the monitor, which is by the way, USB-powered, is causing me space constraints for my right hand and mouse, I decided to use a couple of old phone chargers, capable of outputting 5V 1A and 5V 1.5A respectively. Since the monitor uses VGA and my laptop has an HDMI port, I'll go buy an HDMI-VGA adapter later on.

The question is: Is it going to cause a massive performance drop on my laptop? I intend to use the other monitor as a secondary monitor just to keep my facebook/twitter accounts in check, while I'm gaming on the main monitor. I might as well play some YouTube while at it. I'm pretty concerned if it's going to deal a massive dip in performance due to the added monitor, since I know my laptop had some really bad specs.

[Guest]

No, it takes almost no processing power to have a second screen.

[techfreak9356]

Just now, Darpyface said:

No, it takes almost no processing power to have a second screen.

Does that still apply even though the external monitor is an extended display in my case?

[Froody129]

There is basically zero performance drop. Just plug it in and enjoy. Dual monitor is great

[Void Master]

11 minutes ago, techfreak9356 said:

Does that still apply even though the external monitor is an extended display in my case?

Yes, the performance impact is minimal.

[Kedohawyr]

6 minutes ago, techfreak9356 said:

Does that still apply even though the external monitor is an extended display in my case?

Yes. The performance cost of a second display for desktop use is basically nothing, especially for a mere 1366 x 768 display.

 

To give you an idea I was running an extended desktop all the way back on my Windows 98 laptop (Pentium III @ 800mhz, Ati Rage Pro graphics with a whopping 8MB of video ram) with no loss in performance.