Is the G1s still the best gaming notebook for 15in or smaller?

I just sold my G1. I wanted to get another gaming notebook in a 15in or smaller. Is the G1s still my best choice?
Whats sad is I bought my G1 in Nov I think, and I'm pretty sure the G1s came out like 2-3 weeks after I bought my G1. And now its that time of year again.. I jsut know I'm gonna get bitten. lol

Anyways, what do you think? The g1s is a whole step up from the G1 as far as gaming is concerned, right? If not, what is better in a 15in or smaller? I had the Sony SZ series before the G1 and that rocked for a 14in. It had the best card for something that small. But the G1 was way better. I just hated the 50% increase in weight. lol.

 

How about a macbook pro? Those are even slimmer than the G1s, and they have the same performance.

 

Yes...BUT its alot hotter (I had one of the original dual core versions) and its missing windows keys that I use on the keyboard layout.

 

Really? I have one myself, and i'm experiencing no problems.

 

get the G1S-B1, the updated versions, they have better CPU's

 

Don't the C90s come with GDDR3 now? Perhaps that could be an alternative.

 

G1s-B1? What do you mean upgraded CPU? The 2.2Ghz?

 

C90 is the most powerful 15.4 inch.

 

you can also try the lenovo t61p or the hp 8510w. I believe those run cooler than the g1s but have the same gaming performance. I have no clue why g1s' gpu temps regularly reach 95-100c, but at least they seem to have a higher threshold for heat.

 

Oh now I see the difference in the B1,wow. Where can I get it? www.newegg.com doesnt have it.

G1S-B1

Operating System
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium
Processor & Cache Memory
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T7700 2.4 GHz, 800 FSB, 4MB L2 Cache
Main Memory
2048MB DDR2 667Mhz (1GBx2) up to 4GB w/ Turbo Memory 1G
Hard Drive
200G 7200R SATA


I looked at the IBM t61p, but too much delays and I hear too much issues, more than the g1,which lucky for me I didn't have any. I didnt check the HP 8510w.

 

I like my G1. at first i thought the design was pretty bad but when i opened the box and saw all the shininess i liked it a lot, and now i like it more and more everyday and couldn't imagine myself sitting in front of another notebook

I don't think going from T7500 to T7700 is worth it at all. When I play FEAR on max settings and log the CPU usage it shows that I used somewhere between 20% to 50% CPU resources normally (both cores), and spiked to 100% for instants only occasionally. I'd save the money and buy some accessories for the notebook or something, but T7700 is a waste of money in my opinion. The bottleneck's most definately not the CPU, in fact, I suspect the CPU is the fastest part of the entire system (of course, taking into account what each thing is supposed to do)

 

You have the G1s. I HAD the G1. Which had the slower processor and what now appears to be a much slower video card (7700go 512mb). So I would see a bigger difference than you if I get the g1s-b1.

 

yes, but you won't see any difference if you buy the t7500 vs the t7700 proc. Min is right, the t7700 isn't really worth it, processors are hardly the bottleneck these days. the biggest improvement would be the 200gb 7200rpm hard drive which improves load times. Don't expect higher fps because of higher processing power -- Maybe you'll get an fps or two, but overall, no real world gaming difference btw t7500 and the t7700 (although youll probably get a higher 3dmark score, which doesn't really mean anything).
Yes you'd see a big difference with the g1s b1, but youll see a big difference regardless of what g1s you buy.

 

Right. But from 2Ghz to a 2.4Ghz thats about 20% improvement. It'll help some. What matters more for me is the GFX processor upgrade from the g1 to the g1s. The upgrade as you say from the g1s-a1 to b1 is minor but I might as well get that upgraded one because for me, the g1 to g1s-b1 will be the best bang for the money

 

The new c90s with the GDDR3 memory in the gpu is the fastest/strongest 15" notebook by a good margin, and cheaper than the rest too!

I personally have been playing with alot of older games instead of new ones latley with emulators and that stuff is all cpu driven and gpu ram based, the c90 is playing everying so well with the full fledged desktop cpu, I am very glad I got this notebook and not one of the alternatives.

The G1S does have a few advantages tho, longer battery life, can use 4gb of ram, and thats about it tho.

The MBP is a good piece of hardware, but any of the mac guys will tell you not to get it if gaming is your goal and windows is your primary OS choice, it still has alot of flaws via bootcamp to use windows and your paying alot of extra money for nothing realy.

 

Whats a ASUS V1S-B1? I found it and it looks good. none of the gadget lights of the g1s, but looks like it has the same horsepower behind it?

 

nah, it has the dddr2 version of the 8600gt. Freaking asus, if only they'd use the nvidia 570m line of gpu's for their business class notebooks it would be one of the best thing in the market right now.

 

Its still a good card, but yeah not on par with the faster GDDR3 one, however its a very sharp notebook and I would prefer it to the G1 for ascetics by a large amount.

 

Err. how much of a difference is ddr2 to ddr3? Like going from 7700go to 8600gt? Nothing that big,right? maybe.. a 100-200pt in something like 3dmark06?

 

My G1S with GDDR3 gets roughly 3800-3900 in 3dmark06.
The Dell Inspiron E1520 with GDDR2 gets roughly 2900-3000.

 

mine2209- Wow, can't be right. The ram made the difference? It wasn't that they had the GS video card and you have the GT? Thats the kind if difference I would exspect.

 

GDDR3 allow for running the 8600 GT at significantly higher clock speeds. GDDR2 can't keep up and needs slower clock speeds.

Ira

 

Between the C90S with the GDDR2 and the DDR2 memory on the GPU shows about 800 points different. 3200 vs 4000ish.

Sure you think its a huge deal, but 3dmark is NOT a game, and different games react different ways with the gpu. The DDR2 model has 512mb of ram while the GDDR3 has 256. 3dmark takes great advantage of the speed of the ram for its points score, but in a real game, it may very well take better advantage of the extra memory. This is also stock scores. The DDR2 version has shown it has alot of headroom to overclock bringing it very close to the GDDR3 scores, while the GDDR3 card may have room for overclocking, from what few reports we have so far, it looks like you wont be able too due to heat problems unless your going to bring a cooling pad into the mix.

 

Thanks for all the help. I went and ordered the G1s-B1. Mainly because I found a safe place to order it and it was in stock. Since I'm not planning on OCing the unit, this should be a good deal for me.
Btw, I used the pts from 3dmark06 only becuase its "static" for most systems. And easy to compair. I would use games, but its harder to get people to test it the same from one computer to another. Yeah 256mb ram seems very small when most of my games say it'll use more. But I think this system uses system memory also.

 

Actually, I think GDDR3 version tend to perform even better in games than in 3Dmark06 - 3Dmark is never known for its bandwidth requirement - if anything, it is shader/fillrate intensive. On the other hand, the merit of having 512mb of ram would be marginal at best. Sure, it helps when running in higher resolution and with AA, but these exact settings are also taxing on bandwidth, which GDDR2 lacks anyway. The difference between 320MB/640MB 8800GTS is non-existent outside high AA/high res situations, and there is no way 8600 can utilize these settings without becoming a slideshow.

BTW, 8600GT cores on Dell Inspiron are slightly underclocked (450 vs 475).

 

Mostly true, but as we speak I am playing some older games via emulation, and all the emulation tasks for advanced filtering and ect ect are vram based not speed of the ram but amount of it. Having 512mb is actully NEEDED to use the settings I am using currently. the 256mb card probably can do it with the shared system memory tho .

I am not arguing the fact the GDDR3 card is better, I just wanted to make it known that 3dmark is not a great thing to go by all the time.

 

Dell does not offer the 8600M GS card. The card I mentioned was GT.

I must agree that the G1S might actually be short on graphics memory. I remember when one of the dealers here did some gaming tests in FEAR with the G1S and F3SV, where the G1S with its 8600M GT 256mb GDDR3 performed almost twice as well as the F3SV with its 8600M GS 256mb GDDR2, however, going from 2GB to 3GB memory on the F3SV doubled its FPS and brought it over the G1S at stock, however, going from 2gb to 3gb memory on the G1S doubled its FPS as well. Seems the extra GB of memory made a huge difference. That's probably an indication that a large quantity of video memory was used, though, i find that very interesting - I don't think the 8600M GT is even capable of using that much..

 

So once I get the new laptop, I should up the memory to 3GB? wont I loose the dual channel?

 

Depends on the laptop, with a G1 or a c90 you wont lose dual channel. Thats a very small loss even if you did.

 

Agree... for the next year i think