Not sure what GPU to pick

Well, my exchange is coming tomorrow, and it has a nvidia 3000m vs the m8900 that I had before. However since I have previous Dell repair experience through my company, I was giving the a-ok to swap the card if I want to go through route.

Now given the hassle of opening both laptops and moving the video cards around, I was wondering if I should just keep the nvidia card.

I have no knowledge of the 3000 other than benchmarks, so I was wondering from those who have the card how it performs.

This is what I plan to do with the laptop:

-Normal surfing
-Video editing (1080p 60fps)
-Maybe gaming (SC 2, Battlefield 3, COD)
-Graphics work (Adobe PS, etc)
-Dual, maybe three monitor setup

 

I think a gaming card will be fine. No need for quadros or the such. Grab a radeon for that eyefinity support.

 

Swap it. It's not that bad to tear down, just bear in mind the service manual doesn't call out a few screws when removing the palm rest. You may want to swap the gpu heatsink as well unless you plan on repasting while you're there. Take note of all the little gel like pieces when you remove the gpu heatsink, they can shift around if you aren't careful.

 

I took apart the other one while waiting for the other laptop to arrive and I have no choice but to take off the heatsink.

I have seen some bad thermal grease install before, but this one take the cake. Its on there thick and I would love to get a lot of it out, but I can't go between some of the resisters.

I saw the pads, and doing the exchange is not that bad. I have to run right now to pick up some AS 5 cause I ran out last week.

 

Install went well both ways - I am using the m8900 as the primary and sending back the 3000m.

I will post pictures sometime tomorrow.

 

I would be interested in some temps when the card is under load with the AS 5. I peak just above 80C when OC to 825/1100.

 

Around the same I believe since it still has some settling to do. For the life of me though, I can't figure out how to install the regular ATI drivers. Everytime I still a set, it still comes out as firepro - any suggestions?

 

For everything but gaming, the Intel HD3000 is actually pretty great.

For video editing Quick Sync is better than AMD's GPU assisted video encoding. Anandtech shows that it's faster and comes out with better quality. You have to have software that's Quick Sync aware.

http://software.intel.com/en-us/art...ia-sdk-and-intel-quick-sync-video-technology/

 

Except the M6600 is not capable of doing ATI Switchable graphics, meaning an ATI solution will never make the laptop able to utilize the HD 3000.

To answer the OP:

The Quadros 3000M is really a heavily VBIOS and slightly hardware modified GeForce GTX 560M, which is really a mid-tier GPU for gaming. Definitely don't expect it to run 1080p for BF3 on Ultra. Since it is a Quadros, it is good for everything you from it as a professional rendering machine (if you use the latest Quadros drivers from nVidia).

The M8900 is really a slightly VBIOS modded Radeon 6970M, a way better gaming card but ATI's drivers has been lackluster to make it be used a true CAD or Rendering Card. People like me use the ATI for Gaming and for Eyefinity with a hint of using our Precisions as code-rendering machines instead.

 

That I did not think of.