Laptop vid cars... any input?

flaagan

So I'm lookin to get a new laptop soon, and after browsing the selection at Fry's (not ordering one, gonna get one through Fry's), I noticed the three common vid cards that didn't suck were:
- ATI Radeon Xpress 200M
- ATI Mobility Radeon x1400
- Nvidia Geforce Go 7600

Personally I'm leaning towards the nvidia card, but it is the priciest of the pick. I don't think I'd mind goin with an ATI, but their brand's not my first choice.

Just curious what comparison there is to make between these three cards. Is the 1400 anything close to the 7600.. and how good / bad is that 200M?

sonic

First, you have to tell us what you need it for! The 200m is pretty bad, not much better than the GMA900/950. The x1400 is decent, plays things like HL2 pretty well, but the 7600 will be by far the best bet. What's the price difference?

flaagan

Gamin' and artin'. If I recall correctly, one of the nvidias was around 1400 or so, most of the 1400's were around 1200 or so. I'll be shootin for the nvidia, but good to know the ati's not half bad either.

sonic

What games do you play? I personally have my desktop for hardcore gaming (oblivion, fear, etc), and my laptop for the games I actually enjoy (CS, DoD, ragdoll kungfu, warcraft3, guild wars, etc).

Let me just say the 200m is better than the GMA900, and on my GMA900 (i have a gb of ram, and i dedicated 128 to the video) I can play all those "fun games" i just listed at perfect fps. Photoshop, 3dsmax, etc all work perfectly awesome too

hawken

best not to touch the nvidea card unless it's one that can be removed.

in general, if you can find one that isn't part of the motherboard and can be replaced, you'll have a much nicer future relationship.

flaagan

sonic.. well, i expect the system to be roughly on par with my desktop, which the nvidia ones should be (6800oc in my tower). Overkill's never a bad thing when it comes to laptops, unless it's overkill on the price as well. The price of the nvidia's should be within the range I'm workin at.

hawken... replaceable laptop vid cards... news to me. could care less if it can be removed, honestly. i'll be getting a 5 yr warranty through fry's on the system, so.. yah

low odor

I've got an ATI Mobility Radeon x1400... and it works really well...my last laptop had intergrated Intel, and it was frustrating because it didnt have dot3 support..So I had to port files to my desktop if I wanted to see normal maps rendered in real time...

flaagan

Yah, my previous laptop was a Dell I got about midway through college. It was top of the line at the time.. right before laptops came with vid cards that supported normal maps. When the grunt of the system no longer supported the 3d work I was doing I migrated back to a tower. Now I'd like a system that'll last a while (yeah, I know vista and all that's around the corner, not too concerned about that) so that I've got an all around good portable system to match my home system.

notman

Look up the drivers for anything you're considering. One thing I found is ATI doesn't support my x600 video in my laptop. They tell me that HP handles it, but HP doesn't have squat. Not that the current drivers don't work, but I'd like to know that improvements could exist, especially as new OS's come out.

And yeah, like Hawken mentioned, they are supposed to be introducing laptops with replacable video cards, but I have yet to see one in the regular market. I've heard of them for about a year now

I think with either brand, you'll get a decent card now. Neither are reaching the quality of most desktops still, but that's just my opinion (and I don't mean HIGH end desktops).

hawken

My personal experience is that geforce cards require huge fans and suck battery, where as ati cards don't appear to require such fannage... in fact I am running an ati card and my fans never kick in even with HL2 at it's highest settings.

oh that and a Geforce "GO" card melted my laptop. Which HP couldn't fix.

I think more attractive options to laptop buyers are:

1. battery
2. heat
3. fans

Basically I'd recommend looking for a laptop that uses a core 2 duo intel (vast energy saving improvements) with an ati card (won't melt your legs or desk, or it's self)

PfhorRunner

I'm with hawken on this one. While nvidia has good graphics cards, I'll be one of the first to admit that if you want it to be fully mobile, you should look into an ATi solution. I've had two e1705's from Dell (inspirons) in my house for a couple months, and the one with the 7900GS heats up the room, you can't hold it on your lap without feeling mighty toasty, and just generally sucks battery. The ATi x1400 keeps mighty cool, and when running the same games (the radeon isn't quite at the overkill stage of FPS like the geforce, but still) the radeon keeps a lot cooler.

flaagan

The one thing that really concerns me with ATI cards in laptops is every person I've known that uses XSI and has gotten a laptop with an ATI card had to return the laptop because the ATI cards refused to work happily with XSI.

Stopped by Fry's again today. The Nvidia chipset comps were pretty much the same price as the ATI's and had better options all around.

9 times out of 10 I wont be using the system unplugged anywhere I'd work. Also, I never work with it on my lap seeing as I dislike using the touchpad instead of a mouse. On the road trip I may be keeping the system on while driving to use the GPS map software I've got, but I can always set up a low power mode for that if need be. I'm generally not someone to plop down a laptop at some random location (such as a park), I'd usually be working on it in or around an office-like environ. I look at it more as a portable workstation than anything else.

If the x1400 and 7600 are close enough together, then it'll come down to price and other options the system offers.

Robert Headley

Flaagan, removeable laptop videocards is something alienware came up with, to keep you buying components from them.. heh he
its supported by Nvida and I think, ATI, not sure. Maybe some other manufacturers support it, but its far from standard.

Slayerjerman

I just got a HP dv 6045nr with a GF7200 GO...definitely gets warm and drains the battery playing titan quest...

but was in my budget....the ATI 200M's didnt seem that great. I actully had bought one with a GF6150 GO and it was pretty shitty that I returned the laptop for the better model.

Because you cant upgrade the beast, i recommend getting the best one you can, so go for the GF7600 and make sure its got 2gigs of ram since I believe the video does share half it's memory with the system ;-)

IceWolve

If you order from dell, you can get a laptop with a 7900gs with 256 ram for a pretty good price.

ElysiumGX

[ QUOTE ]
because the ATI cards refused to work happily with XSI

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to know what was wrong with them.

I'm looking around for a laptop as well, but anything that would work for gaming still seems a bit pricey.

IceWolve

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
because the ATI cards refused to work happily with XSI

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to know what was wrong with them.

I'm looking around for a laptop as well, but anything that would work for gaming still seems a bit pricey.

[/ QUOTE ]Yup, if you get a small screen piece of crap, its usualy lots cheaper. I think you can get a shity one for around 500-600 dollars, but anything for graphics and gaming is like 1200 and up.

sonic

[ QUOTE ]
If you order from dell, you can get a laptop with a 7900gs with 256 ram for a pretty good price.

[/ QUOTE ]

Don't order from Dell! I don't form my opinion of how shitty dells are by what I read on the internet, I worked at a computer repair shop for a long time, and TRUST me, dells are terrible.

IceWolve

I have a few friends who have dell inspiron laptops, they have never had any problems, and they seem to handle games pretty well with the nvidia cards.

Maybe the ones you got in just had bad luck :P