ATI MOBILITY? RADEON or intel 950 integrated

is the 256MB ATI MOBILITY™ RADEON® X1400 HyperMemory graphics card integrated? is it that much better then the integrated 950 intel. im trying to decide if its worth the upgrade on my e1505. but im not sure if its still an integrated card.

 

It is MUCH better than the GMA-950 if you want to do any gaming or 3D stuff whatsoever. The GMA-950 is basically unusable for modern games while the X1400 is a low-end card suitable for playing modern games at low to medium levels of detail and resolution.

If you are not going to do any gaming or 3D work on your laptop, just planning on using it for business purposes, the X1400 is a waste of money.

 

I think it's dedicated. It's definetly worth the upgrade if you're going to be playing games such as World of Warcraft on Medium settings.

 

i dont think ill be playing any games, but would it help much in general computer performance compared to a computer of same stats but with an integrated 950

 

If you aren't going to be playing any games or doing any 3D stuff (such as 3D work or running MS Vista), it is a complete waste of money for you to go with the X1400.

Your benchmarks will be lower with the GMA-950 but only those benchmarks that test functionality you won't use.

 

No, it wouldnt help much in a general computer. If you're just going to do basic tasks such as e-mail, surfing the web, etc., then you would be fine without the ATI Mobility Radeon. Otherwise if you're into graphic design or something related to that as well as computer games then I would go with the ATI Mobility Radeon.

 

The X1400 is a dedicated graphics card, but I believe it still shares memory w/ your RAM.

I was able to run Windows Vista 2 w/ Aero, just fine on my E1405 (GMA 950 w/ 2GB RAM).

So if you don't plan an doing anything that requires a lot of memory for graphics, it makes more sense to go w/ the GMA 950. I believe battery life is also slightly better w/ this option.

 

Just make sure that you get the 667 MHz memory if going with the GMA 950, as you'll need the extra bandwidth for the memory shared with the video.

 

The X1400 is dedicated, but shares half of it's reported size with the RAM. That is, if it's advertised as a 256 MB card, then it is 128 on the card, 128 from RAM. Same with the X1300, it's a 128 card, 64 from card, 64 from RAM.

 

If you can afford it, then just get the x1400. I have the GMA 950(bought my E1505 before the ati cards were an option) and I wish I would have gotten a better graphics card. I don't play games either.

 

why if u dont play games? whats wrong with the integrated for u

 

integrated = poor 3d performance, less heat, better battery life

dedicated = good 3d performance, more heat, less battery life

that's your tradeoff

if you don't play 3d games or work with 3d modeling/animation software, you won't notice a difference except that you'll run cooler and get better battery life.

 

I am a bit confused. Unfortunately, I have no experience with Vista. I am not sure how intensive the 3D tasks are in Vista (considering that I will be using the AERO feature). I will not use the laptop for gaming, but I really hate the delays caused by a poor graphic card that eats up my RAM and demands lots of CPU resources.
I am going to buy the following laptop. Do you think:
1- I will be fine using a Intel 950? Other than sharing 64MB of system mem, does it also consume lots of CPU resources?
2- Does it perform as fast as X1400 in accessing the data from the shared portion of memory?
3- Does the HyperMemory feature outperform Inte 950 greatly?

E1405
CPU T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667 MHz FSB)
RAM 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHZ, 2 DIMM

Thanks

 

I am not sure if the GMA 950 would support the aero feature but I can certainly tell you that the x1400 runs great with vista with no problems watsover and it also runs aero feature with no stutters or chopinness at all

 

GMA950 supports Aero.

You may want to wait a month or so for the new chipset, the integrated graphics on that is supposed to be on par with the x1400 or so...or at least from that preview it stated that because HL2 was playable.

 

GMA is going to share your ram so you'll have 224MB less from a gig of ram. A slight performance impact as GMA eats your ram and share the same pipelines to run the graphics on your laptop. So if you can afford it, get a dedicated card.

 

GMA sucks even for 2D display. I noticed how intel cards can't even display ClearType in its whole glory, it looks way different on intel than on nvidia or ati.

Beside 3D gaming, dedicated cards feature hardware decoding for most video formats, which is very useful for very demanding ones ( H.264 for example).

 

If you're planing on using Vista to it's full potential then I would suggest the ATI X1400.

I have the X1400 on XP Pro and never regretted it. It runs games smoothly (though of course not the latest hardcore ones) and with the 9cell batteries I get a decent 3:15h runtime.

 

its 128 built into the card and it can take another 128MB from your system ram

 

Just remember, you can never upgrade a graphics card on a laptop without spending a lot of money, and knowing how to do it, it's always best to buy the very best you can afford, so the laptop is future proof for the longest time possible.

 

True, if part of ur usage is 3D based. But if all he does is email, internet, etc. then getting the x1400 won't make his computer any more future proof than the gma950. He could use that money he saved and put it towards a faster hard drive, or more ram, which will improve his performance more for what he does, and will make his computer more future proof for what he does.