Notebook Video Graphics Card Guide

(See the updated Notebook Video Graphics Card Guide 2006 by clicking here)

INTRODUCTION

I can say with absolute certainty that if there's one subject that's resulted in an obscene amount of confusion for notebook buyers, graphics are it. I remember the halcyon days of the desktop market where your options were ATI's Radeon 9200, 9600, 9800 or nVidia's GeForce FX 5200, 5600, or 5900. Unfortunately, those days are long gone, and worse, the confusion has spread alarmingly to the notebook sector.

ATI kicked off the true battle for notebook graphics when it released the revolutionary Mobility Radeon 9600, a chip which was able to provide desktop quality gaming performance in a notebook.

The fundamental problem with notebook graphics, though, is that it's virtually impossible to compare mobile GPUs against each other like you can with desktop cards. While a Radeon X800XL from five different distributors will produce roughly the same performance, notebook GPUs operate within a range of clock speeds, and the Mobility Radeon 9600 in one notebook will be running at different speeds than the Mobility Radeon 9600 in the other.

If that isn't bad enough, you have to take into account memory size, bus speed, and all kinds of otherfactores that quite frankly is going to make your head spin.

Because it's hard to produce genuinely comparable benchmarks for notebook GPUs (though we seem to keep trying), I'm not going to give you 3DMark scores or anything comparable. What I will tell you is the approximate level of performance you can expect from a given GPU (Graphics Processing Unit). While desktop users are interested in exactly what they're going to get, most notebook users seem to just want to make sure their favorite games will run well. That's what I'm after here.

I'll also give you a general assessment of each chip's performance, availability, and whatever other details may be of merit.

Later in the article, when I get to dissecting the individual GPUs, I'll divide them into four categories: Integrated, Low End, Mainstream, and High End. I suspect many of you will find some of my choices questionable, but it's important to understand that the current desktop mainstream offers an ungodly amount of performance, and those mobile chips produce nearly equally stellar performance uncommon in a notebook. For that reason, some chips that you may think should be in the mainstream section are going to be in the high end.

INTEGRATED VS. DEDICATED GRAPHICS CARDS

There's a very important primary distinction to make between GPUs: integrated and dedicated.

An integrated GPU is built into the motherboard. As a result, it will not have its own memory (excepting the Radeon Xpress 200M) and its performance is generally severely crippled. The chip itself will be short several features in order to properly fit into the northbridge of the motherboard, and it will have to borrow memory from the system RAM. This leeches some memory bandwidth from the system itself and can be a very minor detriment to overall system performance.

The flipside is that integrated GPUs run very cool and can substantially improve battery life. If you're not going to really be gaming on your notebook, these are usually preferable.

A dedicated GPU is separate from the motherboard and generally has its own memory (excepting odd variants that can share system memory - see the HyperMemory and TurboCache section below for details). These frequently offer superior gaming performance but at the cost of battery life.

HYPERMEMORY AND TURBOCACHE

With the advent of PCI Express, ATI and nVidia have developed technologies that allow the use of system memory as a buffer for graphics data, basically extending the memory of the dedicated GPU itself into system memory. The nice thing is that this can offer a healthy and very inexpensive performance boost for chips that would otherwise be painfully crippled.

The problem is that system memory is almost always slower than dedicated GPU memory, so it's no substitute for having dedicated memory.

Worse still, low-end parts that use this technology are frequently marketed in a misleading fashion. For example, newer Sony S-series notebooks use GeForce Go 6200s that list as having 128MB of video memory when in fact they only have 32; that 96 is shared. Likewise, there's been a lot of confusion regarding the amount of actual memory on the ATI X300s used in Dell notebooks.

It's my understanding that the major culprits of this are the GeForce Go 6200, 6400, and the X300. But while the X300 may be marketed as having HyperMemory, the GeForce Go parts tend to gloss over their use of TurboCache.

One great thing about HyperMemory over TurboCache is that it's almost entirely software, so most ATI cards, with some tweaking, can use it, though the performance improvement is largely minor.

CAPSULE INFORMATION

For most of the GPUs in this review, I'm going to list three key statistics. I'll explain those now.

DirectX Level:

This basically represents the level of graphical features the chip can render in hardware. The lowest level represented in notebooks is DirectX 7, while the highest is 9c. Most games being produced right now will run on a 7-class or greater card, but have features designed specifically for 9-class cards.

Pipelines:

The number of pixel pipelines (shaders) a given GPU has. What these do is generally esoteric; they essentially refer to the number of pixels that can be shaded per cycle in the chip. More is generally better, but the bare minimum is considered to be 4.

Memory Configurations (size / bus width):

GPUs don't come with a set amount of memory; some vendors will choose to use versions with more memory, some use versions with less. Essentially the GPU has its own RAM to work with and as always, the more the better. Bus width refers to how wide the bandwidth between the RAM and the GPU is. A bigger bus width allows more data from the RAM to be transferred at once. Bus width comes in 64-bit, 128-bit, and 256-bit, and generally 128-bit is the minimum you want. RAM usually comes in 32MB, 64MB, 128MB, and 256MB, and 64MB is the minimum for decent graphics performance.

NEED VS. WANT

The big question for me when I was notebook shopping was - how much performance did I actually need? If money is no object, then by all means, go for the nVidia GeForce Go 6800. But if it IS an issue - and for most of us it is - you're going to want to look more at the bare minimum. The GPU that won't run your games with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering turned on, but will run them comfortably.

Because notebook GPUs are by and large not upgradeable, once you pick a notebook, you're pretty much stuck with the GPU in it. Looking towards the future, my bare minimum was that my GPU had to run Doom 3. It didn't matter if it ran it at the lowest settings possible so long as it ran. I use Doom 3 as a measuring stick because it is currently one of the most demanding games on the market and is absolutely unforgiving to graphics hardware.

Some games like Half-Life 2 tend to be very flexible with your hardware, but Doom 3 is just punishing (and even more punishing on ATI hardware). Because of this, my yardstick for the bare minimum for the future is going to be the Mobility Radeon 9600 or GeForce FX Go 5700. Certain low end chips like the Go 6200/6400 or the X300 might do the job, but don't count on it.

Bottom line, if your GPU can run Doom 3 playably and semi-comfortably, you're going to be at least semi future-proof.

If you ARE a semi-serious gamer, remove the integrated parts from your consideration immediately. As of yet, none of them can play Doom 3 properly, which means their performance will be unimpressive in modern, more graphics-intensive games.

GRAPHICS CARD CLASSES AND INDIVIDUAL CARD BREAKDOWN

Integrated

Integrated cards include Intel Extreme Graphics, Intel Extreme Graphics 2, ATI 320M/340M IGP, S3 or SiS chips -- If you're not planning on doing any gaming, or not doing any gaming beyond Quake 3, these types of cards will be satisfactory. However, if you do plan on gaming, avoidintegrated cardsat all costs. For what it's worth, I had a dedicated S3 chip with 16MB of video RAM in an old notebook that struggled with Unreal Tournament. 1999.

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900/950:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 128-bit bus, uses memory shared with system

These get about as far as Unreal Tournament 2004, but the performance is still miserable and worse, while ATI's integrated parts will actually run pretty much any game out there (playability is another story entirely), Intel actually needs a compatibility list, as the GMA 900/950 won't properly run some games. Even though the GMA 900/950 also has more pipelines than the other IGP parts, it lacks some crucial modern features that chips like the X200M have, which explains its inferior performance to that part.

ATI Mobility Radeon 9000/9100 IGP:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 8.1
• Pipelines: 2 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 128-bits, shared with system

Not completely miserable but not stellar, either. These usually are only found on Pentium 4 notebooks, and if they're only found on Pentium 4 notebooks, chances are you won't ever be using them anyhow. For the curious, though, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Half-Life 2 on low settings will be about as far as you'll go.

ATI Radeon Xpress 200M:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 2 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: Width varies; 16MB, 32MB, and 128MB

Now we're talking. This is alternately the good stuff and the most confusing stuff. As far as IGPs go this is the best you can get. Some versions of this actually come with 128MB of dedicated memory, which is weird, because it's an IGP. The smaller versions of these actually use HyperMemory coupled with a small dedicated buffer (the 16MB and 32MB parts), while the large one (128MB) uses HyperMemory to boost its addressable RAM to a very impressive 256MB, even though the core itself can't really use more than 128MB. Compatibility of this part is flawless and it'll play most games available barring the super intense ones, even if at very low resolutions. The 128MB version is, of course, the most desirable one.

Low End Dedicated Cards

Low end dedicated cards include the ATI Mobility Radeon, ATI Mobility Radeon 7500, ATI Mobility Radeon 9000, ATI Mobility Radeon 9200, nVidia GeForce 4 Go Series, nVidia GeForce FX Go 5200 -- These parts have actually been virtually eclipsed performance-wise by modern IGP parts. The GMA 900/950 and the Radeon Xpress 200M can offer comparable performance to these older dedicated parts.

ATI Mobility Radeon X300:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 64-bit/128-bit; 32MB (w/ HyperMemory), 64MB, 128MB

Dell has this nasty habit of demanding Dell-specific GPUs from ATI, and this is no exception. Dell's will have different X300s than the norm. The X300 is a curiosity in that the Radeon Xpress 200M is a stripped down version of it, while the X300 is itself a stripped down version of the X600. These generally provide the best performance in the low-end (barring the GeForce Go 6400), and the 128MB versions achieve performance comparable to a Mobility Radeon 9600. The HyperMemory version won't hit Doom 3, but will be acceptable performance-wise for most older games.

nVidia GeForce Go 6200 and 6400:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9c
• Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations:64-bit width; 32MB (128MB after TurboCache) / 64MB (256MB after TurboCache)

These almost exclusively use TurboCache; I lumped them together because the 6400 is basically an overclocked 6200. These are passable in so much that they "play games," but their performance is less than stellar due to the lack of dedicated memory. Worse still, as I mentioned before, these are frequently mismarketed as having more video memory than they actually possess. While the Go 6400's performance is probably on par with an X300 with dedicated memory, the 6200 should generally be avoided.

Mainstream Cards

ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (9550) (Pro) (Turbo):

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 32MB (64-bit), 64MB (128-bit), 128MB (128-bit)

This was a revolutionary graphics chip in its day and ushered in an era of notebook gaming. The Pro and Pro Turbo simply noted differences in memory and core speeds (different, faster memory was used). The 9550, which appeared in some Gateway 74xx series notebooks, was just an underclocked 9600. The performance of the chip is still somewhat impressive, and it will run all modern games, albeit some on low settings. Antialiasing and anisotropic filtering can be enabled on older games while keeping playable framerates. A 64MB Mobility Radeon 9600 should be considered the bare minimum for the casual gamer.

ATI Mobility Radeon 9700:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 128-bit; 64MB, 128MB

At the time of its release, this was the fastest notebook GPU available. In actuality, it's merely an incremental increase in speed from the 9600. The best way to describe it is "it's a little faster than the 9600." It'll give you better framerates than the 9600 did, and possibly a bump in detail for some newer games, but antialiasing and anisotropic filtering still remain essentially confined to older games.

ATI Mobility Radeon X600:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 128-bit; 64MB, 128MB

The PCI Express version of the Mobility Radeon 9700, for modern notebooks. It is in some cases slower, in some cases faster, than the 9700, but is essentially comparable. For what it's worth, I've used a 64MB 9600 and a 128MB X600, and found the performance jump to be slight. Notable, but slight.

nVidia GeForce FX Go 5700:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 4 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 128-bit; 64MB, 128MB

The slowest of the mainstream parts, the Go 5700 can provide performance comparable to a Mobility Radeon 9600, but generally falters on newer games that make extensive use of DirectX 9 features. As a general rule, the FX series of chips should be avoided, as they usually provide inferior performance to their ATI counterparts.

High End Cards

ATI Mobility Radeon 9800:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9
• Pipelines: 8 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 256-bit; 128MB, 256MB

Sitting right around the middle of the pack in the high end game, the 9800 appears only in older Dell notebooks and offers performance comparable to a desktop 9800 Pro. The Mobility Radeon 9800 offers excellent performance and allows the use of antialiasing and anisotropic filtering on some recent games, and still performs well even on newer titles like FarCry, Doom 3, and F.E.A.R.

ATI Mobility Radeon X700:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9b
• Pipelines: 8 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 128-bit; 64MB, 128MB

The X700 is mainstream on desktops, but its performance is nearly comparable to the Mobility Radeon 9800. It is only marginally slower, but is still a very impressive performer and is one of the most ideal GPUs on 15.4" notebooks. Its performance is comparable to a desktop Radeon X700 Pro.

ATI Mobility Radeon X800 (XT):

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9b
• Pipelines: 12 Pipelines (16 Pipelines for the XT)
• Memory Configurations: 256-bit 256MB

At about the same level of performance as the GeForce Go 6800, the Mobility Radeon X800 is substantially harder to find and generally only appears in certain boutique notebooks. It offers performance comparable to a desktop Radeon X800 Pro, and will allow antialiasing and anisotropic filtering even in modern games with very playable performance. The XT version has been announced but, like the desktop XT PE editions, is virtually impossible to find.

nVidia GeForce Go 6600:

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9c
• Pipelines: 8 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 128-bit; 64MB, 128MB

The Go 6600's performance is comparable to a Mobility Radeon X700; the primary difference is the 6600 is more futureproof than the X700, supporting 9c as opposed to just 9b. As a result, some games, like Far Cry, will be able to turn on additional details as compared to the X700. For that reason, the 6600 is generally preferable. You can expect the 6600 to perform beautifully in all modern games, though you won't be able to run the extremely taxing games with antialiasing or anisotropic filtering at high resolutions. This is likely the most preferable GPU in the 15.4" range of notebooks.

nVidia GeForce Go 6800 (Ultra):

• DirectX Level: DirectX 9c
• Pipelines: 12 Pipelines
• Memory Configurations: 256-bit 256MB

Generally regarded as the best GPU you can buy in a notebook, barring the MIA Mobility Radeon X800XT. The Ultra version is simply a higher-clocked version of this GPU, which offers incredible performance. It allows for antialiasing and anisotropic filtering even in modern games and will run any game you throw at it extremely well.

POPULAR GAMES - WHAT GRAPHICS CARDS WILL RUN THEM

I'll list a few of the more popular titles here and about the level of GPU from the four classes here that you'll need to at least run the game.

HALF-LIFE 2: Should run even on the high-performance integrated parts (GMA 900, Radeon Xpress 200M), but really needs one of the mainstream DirectX 9 parts to show its true colors.

DOOM 3: Absolutely needs a mainstream GPU, bare minimum, and will usually run at around 800x600 Low Quality.

WORLD OF WARCRAFT: For what it's worth, this game even runs on my friend's desktop Radeon 7200. That in mind, will run on high-performance integrated parts onward. Again, to run the game beautifully, you'll want at least mainstream.

FAR CRY: Really needs a mainstream GPU. Will probably run at the low end, but won't look good.

F.E.A.R.: Like Doom 3, absolutely needs a mainstream GPU to run at all.

UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004: Will run on anything faster than the Intel Extreme Graphics 2 GPUs, but ideally wants at least a low-end GPU to run well.

QUAKE 3 ARENA: Quake 3's engine is still used for many games, and I would be remiss not to include it. Quake 3 itself will run even on Intel Extreme Graphics 2, but newer Quake 3 based games (Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Star Trek: Elite Force II) will need the high-end integrated parts at least.

THE SIMS 2: Should run on the low-end GPUs.

CONCLUSION

This guide must seem terribly vague at times; that's unfortunately part of the game. What's helpful, however, is that it's fairly easy to group these parts and get a general idea of about the level of performance you'll have with your games. For me, when I was shopping for a notebook, I was mainly concerned with "what games will run on this hardware?" As a notebook shopper, you're going to have to make some similar decisions. Hopefully this guide will have helped you in that direction.

Remember to focus not on "how pretty will this GPU render my favorite game" but "will this GPU render my favorite game." The GMA 900, while miserable, is actually pretty sufficient for older games and even a couple of newer titles. The Radeon Xpress 200M eclipses it. But if you're going to do any kind of serious gaming on your machine, again I stress that you'll want a GPU that is at least from the mainstream section. For what it's worth, the Mobility Radeon X600 that I run will play anything out there, usually at about medium settings.

I personally recommend avoiding notebooks with the low-end GPUs in them, as the performance is generally improved over integrated GPUs, but still not really suitable for any kind of serious gaming.

Note that the high-end GPUs outside of the Mobility Radeon X700 and GeForce Go 6600 almost never appear in notebooks under 17", so in the 15.4" class, these are your best choices, and I personally would recommend the Go 6600 over the X700.

One last point to make is about video RAM. One of the number one questions that shows up on the forumson this siteis "is a 128MB X600 faster than a 64MB 6600." No, it's not. While system RAM is the easiest way to boost the performance of a computer, video RAM doesn't work quite the same way. With GPUs, you're going to want a more powerful GPU instead of more video RAM in virtually all cases, with almost no exceptions. On the desktop, a Radeon 9600 with 64MB of video RAM will invariably slaughter a Radeon 9200 with 256MB of video RAM, and that's because the 9600 itself is a more powerful chip.

I hope this guide has been helpful to you, and you should check the forums for corrections or discussions about the information presented here.

 

Great guide. I think you've accurately compared most of the graphics adapters available at the moment.

 

A good article. If i may i'd like to throw some more info into an already confusing area!

Hypercache is by far an large a negative thing for consumers but in some cases it does help. Ironically in the middle area. X600 and x700 benefits in games that have large textures but relatively few calls fo the textures (such as farcry) but in games such as doom 3 it will hinder slightly. However in the new catalyst drivers you can enable/disable it so you could always suck it and see.

Also sometimes more memory > faster card (for similar placed cards such as a 128mb x600 vs 64mb x700). Again in games such as battlefield 2 or farcry greater memory is a must and will enable you to play at the native resolution of a notebook whereas a faster card with lower memory will resort to hitting the system memory in order to get a decent screen size. If yo dont mind running at a lower resolution then the faster card will be better but you want to use that gorgeous screen to its maximum right?

The performance delta that I am talkign about is for similar cards rather than extremes, i would take a 64mb x600 over a 1gb x300 anyday! But in similar brackets I would probably take the bigger memory and possibly turn shadows off in a game to bring the performance equal- in order to get the highest possible screen resolution.

I agree that notebook graphics isnt all cut and dried and sites like this will enable people to ASK other members!
:decision:

 

Great guide, really should help some people a lot in making their decisions. I really dislike the laptop discrete graphics cards naming schemes by ATI though, its so misleading for those of us used to the performance figures associated with different models of the desktop counterparts. Furthermore, so many manufacturers like to underclock the graphics core and memory speeds that its really hard to tell how the graphics will perform...

One question that bothers me though is does the mobility X700 draw signifcantly more power than the X600 when not gaming? I'd guess not since the cores should automatically underclock themselves....but anybody know for exact? It'd be great if there were a list of wattage drained by each of the graphics cores during load/idle~

 

Do you know if having a video card in a laptop adds to the weight of the laptop significantly? E.g. a Mobility Radeon X800.

Like how heavy are laptops with these chips in them? What kind of laptop do they come in generally? Portable, ultra-portable, desktop replacement etc?

Thanks.

 

Good article

A few things to add though!

What I like about your article is that its nice and balanced and that it does not concentrate on minor benchmark differences. On the basis of that, I find the evaluation of x700 and 6600 a bit unbalanced. The difference you mention is not significant enough to warrant choosing one over the other.

Generally the x700 mobility scores higher on "standard" specs. Additionally ATI has frequent driver opdates specifically for notebooks that not only improve performance, but helps overall "gameplay", by securing smooth operation on all newly arrived games.

conclusion: by the cheapest one (notebook).

 

Again, great overview on this topic. My question is what's really available and what is the real world tradeoff for notebook buyers - while it's easy to tradeoff graphics perfomance against price - the real world tradeoff that I've experience is graphics performance for size and weight of laptop. I have found it difficult to find a lightweight (4.5lbs or less) laptop with a higher end (X600 or better) graphics card. (BTW if anyone knows of one please let me know)

So ultimately the practical choice has been the size/weight to performance.

Any thoughts on this?

 

Great comparison, a lot of people need to read this so they can ask questions about running the high end games on a IGP or low end solution.

To Azsen, the graphics card does not add much weight to the notebook. However, it will add weight because it needs a larger cooling system. So a notebook with the Intel IGP will weigh less than the same notebook with a ATI X800. You will not find high end graphics cards like the ATI X800 in the smaller notebooks though. Most of the notebooks out there that have high end graphics cards are 17 inch notebooks so the additional weight that is added to cool the gpu is negligable when compared to the 17 inch LCD weight and all the other components.

To SanjayC, there is really a large assortment of graphics options for the average consumer. I was looking at Best Buy the other day and they had two notebooks running the ATI X200m, three notebooks running the ATI X600, and one notebook running the ATI X700. You are correct that size has a lot to do with the graphics card in a notebook. Most people purchasing 17 inch notebooks are looking for desktop replacements. Hence why there are high end cards in 17 inch notebooks and not in 15 inch or 12 inch notebooks. There is one notebook that Gateway makes, you can find it at Best Buy, and it runs the ATI X600 with 128MB of dedicated memory and expandable to 256MB of memory using the hypermemory feature. I don't know how much this notebook weighs but it is a 15.4 inch widescreen notebook and shouldn't weigh more than a few pounds more than 4.5lbs. I think that is the best solution for portability and wieght. If you want a true portable notebook then I don't think you can find one running what you want as most portables run the Intel GMA 900 IGP. If you want the graphical power of a desktop, then ultimately, you will have to buy a desktop replacement notebook.


Again, great review that many people need to read.

 

Very well written. For most people, mainstream GPUs should be good enough unless you are into heavy gaming. I am using 64MB + 64MB (Hypermemory) X600 and am very happy with it.

 

Very very well written. Does anyone know if this x800 XT mobility will be released at all?

 

Nice job Pulp. I enjoyed the article, and you said exactly what I would have said.

Nice job!

 

I'm really happy with the response this article has gotten, and am looking into doing a follow-up that answers the questions that have been posted here. If anyone has any other questions, please feel free to ask and try to I'll address them all in a small follow-up article.

Thank you, everyone!

 

Pulp, thanks for the excellent and informative review!

As a veteran software developer with 29 years doing so, I use computers only for work/research related tasks such as writing, programming, computing, and web research; I am a total non-gamer. All of these are pretty much text-based activities. As such, I have always been curious as to what effect different graphic card solutions have on overall text clarity and detail. Are ATI/NVIDIA cards sharper with text than the Intel cards? Any light you can shed on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks again!

 

Text clarity will not be affected by your choice of graphics card. Even the GMA900 can provide perfectly clear text.

To the original author: Excellent guide, far more detailed than mine. One point, though, is that the 6800 Ultra is more than just a "higher-clocked version of the Go6800" - it has 16 pixel pipelines, not 12, and therefore a higher 5.4 billion pixel/sec fill rate as opposed the the standard Go6800's 3.8 billion pixel/sec.

Also, there are 256MB versions of the Go6600 (Raptor makes a notebook with it), MR9700 (Dell 9100), MRx600 (HP zd800), and MRx700 (formerly available in Gateway NX850 [then M680XL], prior to the move to the Go6800) available.

 

My personal recommendation (and the setup I own) is a 15.4" laptop with a Geforce 6600 for people who like to game but still want portability. It games well and doesn't weigh much more than a similar laptop without the card in it.

That said, www.powernotebooks.com is where I got mine for around $1900 with a 2.1Ghz Pentium M and a gig of ram.

 

What type of graphics card is needed to run sporting game like madden 2006

 

Great article!

One think I can't quite figure out is if all the x300, x600 and x700 all utilise the pci-express slots? ie, in a laptop like the acer travelmate 4400. does that mean in the future at some point I could pull out the x700 and put in something better? or is that only possible on something like the fujitsu n3510, which uses a x300 but specifically says there is an upgradeable pci-express slot?

 

I'm have a notebook with a Radeon 9100 IGP and it runs sporting games in a low mode... not great but playable.

 

my x200 has the 128 vram dedicated, but it also has direct x 9c, not 9. Whats the difference between the two?

 

x = pci express


No you (meaning the manufactor) can only change it, if its on the Axiom interface.

Thats theoretical. Practically it isn't feasible. Cost to much, no market yet.

 

Another issue I'm interested on is widescreen (like 1280x800) versus classic (like 1024x768) monitors. What's your opinion? Some games, mostly the older ones, do work in classic resolutions (640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024 and so). Will they run OK in panoramic screens?

My desktop has a rotating monitor, and I find very convenient switching it to portrait mode to work on text files and internet. Portrait mode -> More lines per screen, Widescreen -> Less lines per screen.

Two reasons for me to avoid widescreen notebooks, but nowadays they are becoming more and more common.

What's your opinion?

And another question about graphics cards: it's common to hear/read that ATI's drivers are worse than nvidia's, and even worse under Linux. Is that true?

Thanks in advance.

 

some games support widescreen resolutions, like Unreal Tornament, CS, Warcraft III and the like. in my opinion widescreens are good for games and movies, that's entertainment, but not good for serious work, like running office or text based applications. ATI cards are more popular in laptops, while nvidia cards are more popular in desktops. personally i don't see any difference, its just that the higher price you pay the better a card you get. Like, if you get a ATI X800, of cos you cannot compare it with a nvidia 6200. While it is true that nvidia have the highest-end cards, mostly you don't spend that much money. For the linux question, it is true that linux used to have poor support for ati cards, but times are changing. I am now running a ati mobility radeon 9700 in suse 9.3 and have no problems

 

You are not alone. I also believe 15" is better for real WORK than 15.4", though I prefer the sharper 15" SXGA+ which are pricey and much harder to find locally than 15.4" WXGA. Hopefully the makers will soon bring these out at competitive prices to the 15.4".

The main reason PC makers came out with the 15.4" WXGA was for watching DVD movies, at the sacrifice of users who use their notebooks primarily to do business and internet work.

 

Hi, I dont know to much about Video Cards for my notebook, but I was told that my card isn't a very high end card for playing PC games. I was wondering if the card I have in my Toshiba Satelite P20 which is the Nvidia Geforce FX go5200 could be replaced with an upgraded video card or is this card alright, what would you suggest?thanks

 

Well, your Go5200FX isn't terrible, but it is low end and not suitable for high-end games.

Unfortunatley, it is not possible to upgrade your laptop's graphics card, as it is probably intergated into the motherboard.

If you want a better video card, well...you are probably looking at a new laptop.

 

I just CAN'T understand that strange obsession about watching DVDs in the notebook. I think very few people do that. Most people do have DVD payer and TV and home, and can't watch movies at work... So where are they supposed to do it?

I just disagree with market trends. I think I'm going to replace my old notebook now, before 4:3 screens become too hard to find...

 

I want the wide aspect screen and will be using it to watch DVDs. My wife and I will be traveling through New Mexico and Arizona for 3 months this winter and plan to use our new notebooks for communications and entertainment, as well as connecting to my associates here in Maine...so I can continue to make some money so I can continue to travel (-: I think notebooks are going to continue to fill more varied roles in our lives and the intrinsically pleasing 8X5 aspect ratio that works so well in architecture, cabinet making and other designs just plain looks good to a lot of people.

 

I recently ordered a Dell D810 laptop with X600 graphics card through work. I was curious how well it will do with some of my favorite video games, such as Guild Wars. This article was exactly what I was looking for! Thanks.

 

it's been bothering me for a while...get a laptop with X600 or X700.....so I've decided to place the decision on one game.....FEAR.....Can the X600 play that game? how well does it play?

 

The X600 is certainly capable of playing FEAR, just be prepared to run it at 800x600 on low - or something close to that. The X600 only has four parallel pixel pipelines and two vertex engines, so you won't be able to push the resolution or settings.

If your GPU only has 64MB of video RAM, you'll definitely have to keep the settings low. 64MB of memory is required - it is playable with a 64 meg card but doesn't look particularly good.

 

Time to update the main page. Sager top-line models are coming out with nVIDIA GeForce GO 7800 GTX with 256MB DDR3 Video Memory.

 

I'm wondering why you call the 6400Go a low end GPU, but you list the ATI X600 as mainstream when they get similar 3Dmark05 scores? Check out this list of Asus laptops -the 6200Go comes close to the high end of the X600...

 

I'm planning on purchasing an Insiron 6000 with the hi-res WUXGA (1920 x 1200) display and need help choosing the video card option.

As I understand it the 6000 comes with 3 video card options
Option 1: Integrated Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 900
Option 2: ATI MOBILE RADEON X300 64MB (which is pci-express with 32MB dedicated and upto 64MB shared memory)
Option 3: ATI MOBILE RADEON X300 128MB (which is pci-express with 128MB dedicated memory)

Note:
I don't: Game or require the video card to preform 3D operations
I do : Graphics work with Photoshop and video work

Question 1: Is option 1 adequate to run the WUXGA display at 1920 x 1200? If not which option should I choose?

Question 2: Which option is adequate to run the WUXGA display at 1920 x 1200 and a second CRT at 1920 x 1440? (I have gotten to used to using hi-res dual displays to not use them when I can)

Kyle

 

Well, if you use the GMA900 with a WUXGA resolution, it's going to use a good deal of memory...I would suggest one of the dedicated cards - the X300 64MB will be fine (BTW it's 64MB dedicated and 64 shared).

 

My HP business laptop (nc6230) comes with 64 dedicated with the x300, and I was wondering how to add on the shared memory that is a software deal. Is it a setting in their normally, or do you need to kinda mod the software with a patch to enable it?

 

If I am going to load it up with 2GB of ram will this be that much of an issue? Will I not get better battery life off the GMA900?

Basically if I would like to have longer battery life and ram isn't an issue is there a problem with using the GMA900?

I wasn't sure about this but I had found under the Inpirion 9300 tech specs if you choose display and Learn More it says
"64 MB ATI's MOBILITYTM RADEON® X300 HyperMemoryTM"
Memory: "64 MB DDR RAM" there is a superscript 1 to look below
Superscript 1: "ATI's MOBILITY RADEON® X300 HyperMemory includes 32MB discrete memory on the graphics card and up to 64MB of system memory allocated to the graphics card, depending upon system memory size and other factors."

 

Hm interesting. I thought it was 128MB...

Yeah, you'll get better battery life with the GMA900, plus it will be a bit cooler. All I'm saying is that the WUXGA will suck up a lot of RAM, but seeing that you have 2GB, you'll be fine.

 

First, fantastic job.
Second, some possibly-annoying questions:
1) Do dedicated cards always eat at the battery more - or is it only when pushed a little (for instance, do they take more when just using MS Word and Explorer/Firefox)?

2) Any idea how much that battery difference is (say, from what would otherwise be a 4-hour charge)?

3) Is there a general trend for for that depletion to increase along with the video card's RAM (e.g. between 64 and 128 MB)?

4) Besides taking some of the burden off of the computer’s RAM, does a dedicated video card have any other function? I assume it does, so I suppose the better question regards what else it does.

5) I've noticed -and it can be seen from the list and comments you provide - that the games that call for the highest miniumum specs are consistently FPS's. If I intend on mainly playing strategy games or slash-and-hack RPG's, is there need for anything besides an integrated card?

Thanks,
Howie

 

ChazMan421 Thank you for the fast replies

I had posted my original question here and the reply was "Go with the 128M X300. Better yet for intensive photo work would be a 9300 with the nVidia 6800 card." with no reasoning for why. I can see going to the 9300 for the 17" screen but the nVidia 6800 seems like overkill (the default card is a 128MB X300). I am almost certain the reply came from an employee of DELL.

1: Am I correct in assuming that the WUXGA will not use any more ram than I have configured as shared?
2: Since the GMA900 has 2 independant display pipelines am I correct in assuming that a dual monitor setup (Laptop screen + CRT @ 1920 x 1440) won't be a problem?
3: Do you have any suggestions on a laptop that I might want to look at if i want it:
-for photoshop use
-a hi-res display (1920 x 1200 or 1600 x 1200) (15 - 17" wide or standard)
-dual monitor support
-long battery life

Kyle

 

1) Yes - they always eat more because the battery must power the GPU's processor and memory.

2) Well, it can be up to an hour. I saw a review where one laptop with a GMA900 got 2:45 hours on battery, and then the same notebook using a Go6600 managed an hour and 50 mins. So, figure about an hour.

3) Not sure if there's more consumption in a 64meg card than in a 128. The video card most of the time would de-activate the inactive portions of the memory.

4) Well, it would provide superior image quality, and they are better for external displays.

5) If you mean wether or not you can use a GMA900, I'll say no - that GPU is terrible. the Xpress 200M isn't so bad, slightly under a Mobility Radeon X300. It can play most of the games out there today.

 

Letting you all know the Toshiba Satelite series has many interesting gaming possibilities. I don't know about the newer Satelites but the A60-S1662's and ones around that area have an old Radeon card in them. They also have 2.56mhz celeron. The Radeon is a IGP version of the 7000 but for whatever reason the frame buffer full supports a full 256mb ram (you need to do this from registry side, you can do 128mb in the frame buffer control by right clicking desktop) and can be overclocked. If your lucky you can get one of the newer ones thats 533 MHz CPU FSB and can be overclocked up to SAFELY! You can also get the celeron up to 2.7mhz without having any heating worries! Average STRESSED cpu temp is 56. A little on the high side but deffinetly stable.

79.2 fps on cs:s video stress test
1028 @ 65
settings on medium
no aa or vert sync or that stuff

When everything is put on low I can actually play on wireless internet in 64 person servers and as long as theres no smoke nades to mess up the poor Radeon's performance you can play the game lag free.

After fresh format and with no other programs running (I even killed svchost thing that governs the sound card) I could actually play a 20 person Avalanch server on DOD:S and maintaining 40-60 fps throughout gameplay.

I bought a Toshiba Satelite on ebay used for $350. I'm sure you can find one out there in the same price range, from my perspective its the best Cost erformance option out there today, desktops included.

3dmark05 2032!!!
(Everything end task'd that I could with the thing still running, windows options set to "adjust for best performance") check this!

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1665293,00.asp
shows relative 3dmark05 tests, 5950 with 64amd 3400 got lower score than my laptop!

Shows what celerons can do!
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/celeron-d_10.html

 

Hello guys
I hope you can help me...

What do you think is better for gaming, a laptop with 9700 128mb (1gb RAM DDR) or X600 64mb (1gb RAM DDR2)?
I don't know what to do!
In 3DMark03 the performance was better for X600.

Thank you in advance.

PS.: And sorry for my English...

 

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