About to buy a 9300....i think

So after a few weeks of debating whether i could justify buying a new laptop i think ive settled on the 9300. The only thing im still on the fence about is the graphics card. is the nvidia really worth the extra duckets and if so why? im not a major gamer now because my current computer can't handle most new games id like to play but with a shiny new 'puter i could see myself getting into casual gaming when time allows. Also im worried about the upgradability of a laptop, which makes me lean towards the nvidia as opposed to the 128 ATI but my little voice is saying save the money as i am not currently made of it. suggestions would be appreciated. sorry if this question has already been covered...im new and i didn't see any thread that cover this issue explicitly. Thanks.

 

If your going to be doing gaming, don't get the X300. The X300 can't really handle anythin. It would be good to upgrade to the 6600. But, if you aren't going to be doing and demanding games, the X300 will be fine. It probably is going to be hard to upgrade though.

 

So would i be better off upgrading to the 1.73 GHz processor or upgrading to the 256 graphics card?

 

The Nvidia 6800option is so much better ( at least 4X) at games that there is no contest for that purpose. But it will cost more and create more heat, the fans will be running more, you will have reduces battery life, and until Longhorn comes out next May it won't be of much benefit when using the OS and 2D apps. If you only play the occasional game, and undemanding ones, the x300 is still pretty handy compared to a few years ago: just a little down on the mobile ATI 9600. Hey, I only have a 64 meg ATI Radeon 7500 on my old 8100 and can run plenty of older games just fine; but it is nowhere near the 9600 in speed! If you want to spend a lot of time on running new games you will spend the money on the Nvdia. If you are mostly doing word processing and internet you may be wasting your money on a system that pays for the graphics grunt in other ways.

 

On the contrary, I have the 128 Mb x300 and it does fine. I agree that the 6800 is probably much better and faster, but the x300 handles even most high end games very well. I loaded Doom 3 last week and it runs great in slightly reduced resolution (I think one notch below full res), I did get some jitters when I ran it in full res, but then I only have 512 Mb RAM too. Also, Sims 2 runs fine.

I'm not a huge gamer, so I can't speak for some of the other new games out there, but please don't let this guy think he'd be getting an inferior machine if he went with the x300. It really does depend the demands of the game you are playing, but I'm guessing that it will do fine on almost ANY game, given that you may have to play with slightly reduced graphics.

If $$ were not a consideration, definitely opt for the 6800.

 

the x300 w/ dedicated memory is just as fast, if not slightly faster than the 9600. the x300 is slightly slower than the mobility 9700 thou.

The only reason why u would want the Go6800 is for games, Longhorn yeah yeah, blah blah blah, I highly doubt you need the power of a 6800 to run Longhorn -- unless u really want to run it at 300fps... lol

cheers,

yass

 

bdub, I think you should listen to yassarian and flyrooster. They are very happy with their x300 cards for gaming. So it depends whether you really need a card several times quicker than a 9600 (to me a pretty fast card!) and on your budget. yassarian and flyrooster, your positive posts on the x300 were very reassuring!

 

Thanks alot guys. All the opinions were incredibly helpful. I was leaning toward the 128 card before i posted but wasn't 100% sure about it. the positive comments from yassarian and flyrooster gave me piece of mind about the ATI card. I ordered it this morning and can't wait for its arrival. thanks again.

Heres the specs, hope im happy with it when it arrives

Inspiron 9300 Intel® Pentium® M Processor 740 (1.73 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB)
Display 17 inch UltraSharp™ Wide Screen XGA+ Display
Memory 1GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz 2 Dimm
Video Card 128MB ATIs™ Mobility Radeon™ X300
Hard Drive 80GB Hard Drive

Sub-Total $1,361.00

 

More info. Check out this review here:
http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041222/vga_charts-09.html

Depending on which resolution you run, the X300 can be half as fast as the 6800 or 1/10th as fast. Running at higher resolutions...like these LCD screens support, really works the GPU.

 

Depends on what games you are considering running and how concerned you are with future games which will only get more GPU intensive. The X300 is somewhere between the ATI 9500 and 9600. The Geforce 6800 is about 4 times faster. The Geforce also uses a bit more juice. I can play HalfLife2 at full resolution with the 6800. This isn't possible with the X300 unless you severely knock down the quality. HalfLife3 will be even more intense when it release later this year. You will get more bang for your buck for the $200 dollars you pay for the 6800 than you will for the $100 you pay for the 128Mb X300. In fact, if you decide to go with the X300 you might as well stick with the 64Mb version.

 

If money is a concern, you might want to wait for a good dell coupon. They just had some really nice ones so it might be awhile.