G73 Doubts

Question #1:

Well as some of you know, powernotebooks.com offers 2 different video cards for your G73 configuration.

I've looked some info about and i've found that the Ati 5870 with 1 gb ddr5 has better performance that the nvidia 460m with 1.5 gb ddr5...

is that right?

Question #2:

What improvements do you get when you upgrade your wifi card?

 

Lies. They perform pretty much the same ingame. The GTX 460M ATM may be a little behind, as drivers for it haven't matured fully yet, but they pretty much trade blows. For future games including DX11 the GTX 460M is pretty much guaranteed to be better.

A better wi-fi card will mean better transfer speeds, better range, overall better performance across the board. Likely to be less latency too, if you aren't restricted by your modem or router.

Personally, I'd go for the NVIDIA card (G73JW). Even if at this moment in time it has slightly worse performance in DX10 and DX9 games, it will perform much better in DX11 games. Plus you get the added insurance of no GSOD's, and you get CUDA, PhysX, and the multitude of other useful features if you go with NVIDIA. Trust me, CUDA is an extremely useful. And PhysX is a rather nice add on.

 

I guess it depends on your needs. If you are using the G73 more as a portable design machine then different cards would serve different purpose. Say for example for one doing more video sort of work, the nvidia would do better where else if one were to do 3d work such as 3ds max or maya, the ati card would be better as it is able to be softmodded. As for games i can't help you there. Personally i will be getting a desktop GTX460 within a month or two.

 

Well... For the record, every animation studio I've worked at has used nvidia cards. Ati have always had a poor reputation for their OpenGL drivers when it comes to apps like Maya/xsi/houdini.

The 460m is the primary reason I'm looking at the g73jw as a portable gfx workstation.

 

Well, lets see. Other than the other benefits the JW has like USB3:

- generally speaking they perform the same on games. Meaning in some games the Ati will be the winner and in other the NVidia;
- NVidia sponsored games will definitely run better on the NVidia;
- NVidia has much better drivers;
- NVidia has much better power options.
- games that use tessellation will run much better on the NVidia

I have been an NVidia user for years. I have a laptop with a 7950GTX. I have had the 6800, 7950 and 8800GT for the desktop. I still have 3 desktops at home with a 260GTX Core 216, 275GTX and a 285GTX.

Since the G73JH I have an AMD GPU again and my personal opinion is that NVidia has it's drivers and power saving down clocking a lot better than AMD does. Apart from the GSOD the G73JH has had because of the video BIOS, AMD has had problems with GSOD since the 4 series cards. Both for desktops and laptops. Mostly power option related and also driver related.

 

Why not you go for something with a proper workstation card. A geforce card won't give you the performance of a work station card just because studio's use quadro's

I did run specview perf 10 on a desktop quadro fx1800 at work and it scored around 50+ for 3dsmax04. Where else my softmodded mobility 5870 scored 40+. At stock it scored 17 and my friend's mobility gts250 scored less then 10. Both laptops were using i7-720 and the desktop a i7-980 extreme. Well what i'm saying is if you are using it as a work station, wouldn't it be better getting a laptop that has a work station card instead? I mean thats if you don't play games.

 

Heh, having done this for 10 years, regular nvidia cards run just fine thanks.

 

And I should ignore the memory capacity? i mean 1 gb Ati's against 1.5 gb Nvidia's ? I would use the G73 for gaming...

 

Yeah the video memory differences mean nothing...

More video memory would come into play if you were running some insane resolutions while gaming and with Anti aliasing on but these cards cant handle any of that so more VRAM will mean squat...