8600m GT, HD 3650, or 9500m GS

Hello, I am in a bit of a pickle. I have found several laptops of the same price but with different video cards, either the Geforce 8600m GT, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650, or the Geforce 9500m GS. I have found reviews for the 8600m gt and the 9500m gs but none for the HD 3650. I am just wondering which of the three cards is most powerful for gaming. So far, I am leaning towards the HD 3650 but I'm not sure. Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

 

This would be interesting to know. Waiting for an actual reply

EDIT Turns out this was my 100th post!

 

HD 3650 slightly > 9500m GS = 8600m GT

 

Is there any chart that could prove that the Mobility HD 3650 is better?

I did find a comparison between the 8600 GT and the non-Mobile HD 3650 and it showed that the 3650 provided better framerates in all the games tested. However these 2 videocards tested were again the "desktop" videocards not the mobile ones. I heard however that the HD3650 for desktops is nearly identical to the Mobile 3650 which is good.

 

I know you're new here, but I am proof.

 

I'd leave out the 8600m GT and choose between the other two because they are newer and in similar product ranges.

I suppose I'd lean slightly toward the 3650 because it might perform with a tiny little edge over the other two. Then again, that might just be because I wanted an ATI card this GEN but not even the mobile 2000 series had been released yet!

 

Gotta love the confidence. He is right though.

 

http://www.notebookjournal.de/storage/show/image/image47fce472088ca

here , they are comparing it against NVs.

looks like NV8600GT with GDDR3 wins.

if any one can translate it , it 'd be great since google translation sucks.

 

Of course thats 3DMark06 only. Would be good to see actual game benches.

To me, I would decide on which has better driver support. Even though nVidia doesn't officially release mobile drivers regularly, sites like laptopvideo2go does very frequently, and improves performance on a regular basis.

Not sure about ATI. Haven't had an ATI since the X800 Pro.

 

go to their main page , they have all kinds of game benches but it is written in German.

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/484/2

 

They close the same, it comes down amd(ati) vs. nvidia and then older gpu vs. newer gpu.
On the 9500m gs I just don't like the gs end

 

Ok, I'll briefly summarize it.

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/484/2

-the 3650 chip architecture is based on the old HD-2000 series
-RV635 Chip means DirectX 10.1, PC-Express 2.0 support und better power consumption management: voltage, clockrate are reduced and parts of the chip are switched off when idle
-55nm and vram ranging from DDR2 (16GB/s) to GDDR4 (25,6GB/s)
-the benchmarks are based on a 1024mb ddr2 3650.
-altogether the speed is between the hd2600xt and the 9500m gs, but they are saying that they'll test a 256mb gddr3 notebook soon (Toshiba Satallite A300-18K).

But the don't mention, wether it beats the 8600m gt ddr3. There is only a Crysis benchmark, where it scored 22 fps. The 8600mgtddr3 scored 20 fps.


I also read that the 3670 will lauch as a "xt" version of the 3650.

 

I guess another thing to look at is the fact that the laptop (toshiba A305-s6845) with the HD 3650 has a 2.1 ghz intel core duo processor while the one with the 9500m GS ( ASUS M51 Series M51Sn-B1 ) has only a 1.83 ghz processor. Would that be a huge difference then? Here is the link to those 2 laptops.

ASUS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220317

Toshiba http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...173T-_-Notebooks-_-Toshiba+America-_-34114473

 

Also I checked on Notebookcheck.com a benchmark list. If you scroll down to #26, 27, and 29. You'll find the 3 cards. How can you interpret which is better from this list?

The link is here: http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

Only 3300 3dmarks? That weak, that's less than what I get with my 8600m gt at stock speed...

 

Oops, dunno if this is a repost.

According to the chart in the link, the 3dmark for the 8600m gt is 3299, on par with the hd 3650 yet it ranked the 3650 i think 3 slots higher. So, i'm still truly confused as to which is better.

I think I have pinpointed it down to a 9500 gs and a hd 3650. However the ASUS with the 9500 gs has a 1.83 ghz t5550 processor while the hd3650 on the toshiba has a 2.1 ghz processor. Would that affect gaming performance?

 

Thank you , really appreciate it. I am interested in the Toshiba so I will wait for the test.

Actually in my area the M305 has the same GPU ATI HD3650 with 256mb gddr3 , so I can guess how this will compare to the ASUS M51 SA with the same GPU with 1024mb GDDR2.

 

There really wont be a great difference between those two processors because you are still going to be GPU bound no matter what you use.

Still, you will see maybe a 5% increase using the faster processor, which is about the percentage it is fast in clockspeed.

I really want you to get the 3850 just because I want someone here to review it. I haven't heard how ATI is doing the mobile market for awhile.

I use the 8600m GT DDR3 model, which I assume performs about the same as the 3850.

 

Actually, the German site tested the ASUS with T9300.

 

I just checked another thread and one person said he got better benchmark scores for the HD 3650 than the 9500m GS. He seemed pretty happy with his HD 3650.

 

The 9500gs = 8600GT assuming the same clock speeds are used. The 9500gs and HD3650 are about as even as they come so your not going to get a significant performance difference unless clock speeds differ. The edge goes to the HD3650 because its fabrication process is smaller and it supports dx10.1. What I would really look for though is which of those cards comes with GDDR3, and only purchase one of those.

 

Nvida vs AMD (ATI for those who still call it that ) has always been give and take.

If you do a wide range of benchmarks you will always find a few games that the ATI card will do better in, and then a few that Nvidia will do better in.

Usually benchmarks like 3dmark06 are in the ATI's favor they put alot of driver effort into there cards for 3dmark06 because they know how important that is to the public eye.

I consider the cards nearly equal on desktops, the last year or so has been give and take with each revision of cards. the 8800gtx was Nvidias king and much cooler running and using less energy than ATIs 2900XT, but then ATI counter attacked and had a die shrink and did some revisions and there card was the better one.

Its gone back and forth from there, in the end the final conclusion is that the cards are basically equal.

There is one big difference in the laptop world tho that the desktop world doesn't have.

If the cards are nearly equal on a hardware level what is going to make or break each one is the drivers. On a desktop your free to upgrade to new drivers all the time and have your choice of many. In laptops tho your pretty much stuck with what comes with your laptop and updates from there are far and few between.

This became a big enough issue that laptopvideo2go was created who mods the desktop drivers for laptop use, and belive me having these new drivers makes a HUGE difference sometimes especially with newly released games. To my knowledge there is no ATI equivalent to laptopvideo2go and that means being stuck with old drivers and that to me personally really hurts the idea of using an ATI card in a laptop.

 

Omega Drivers for ATI anyone?

 

No, omegadrivers for ATi + Vista as of yet. It is planned, but only for Vista 32bit.

 

true...its been a while since i went to the person's site. but i'm sure they'll pwn.

 

Not really.

If you compare the benchmarks and not just 3Dmarks, the GF8600 and 9500 trade blows as usual. As an example Gothic3, Call of Juarez, World in Conflict and Crysis go to the HD3850 & HD2600XT ; Colin McRae and COD4 goes to the GF9500/GF8600 ; and Aquamark is split up/down but it's very CPU dependant of course.

Seems to perform comparably to the HD2600XT according to those benchies which would put above the GF9500GS/GF8600GT as Lithus mentioned. But there is a caveat, just like the GF8600 v HD2600 it depends alot on the type/speed of memory used which usually comes wih a similarly clocked core (as in faster or slower than avg).

Now the surprising thing is that German review is the 256MB model with GDDR3 whereas most like the ASUS are the models with 1GB of DDR2. First benchies I've seen with a GDDR3 model. Now if they would just do a GDDR4 model.

 

That doesn't really follow the history of 3Dmark 'floptimizations'. As for which one 3Dmark was ever built to favour, you need only look into the DST issue to see which that would be.
In reality 3Dmark just plain sucks as a predictor of performance elsewhere, it is only good as a stress test and tweak check tool, and only relatable to similar architectures and drivers. And checking some features within the same architecture, which is more about the sub tests like fill rates than final scores.

Actually there's no equivalent from nV that lets you direct download the XP drivers either (see the driver section at NBR), so it depends on your platform/preferences. For the beta moded driver crowd, you have Omega for XP and then for Vista there's the DH moder tool which has been around for a long time even while Omegadrive was out of commission there for a while;
http://www.driverheaven.net/modtool.php

Reality is both IHVs are very similar in their poor driver support (which is something that is just ridiculous in this day & age of more mobile users) and also very similar in the performance of their relative products. The only major difference right now is in the high end where there is the GF8800M and then only the promise/hope of the Mobility HD38xx from ATi/AMD.

 

Just one question:

I found two laptops in model, but sell in different video card (9500 GS 512mb vs HD 3650 1gb). Their resolution is different, 1440 x 900 and 1280 x 800, will I notice the difference in resolution? Also, since they are really similar in performance, is it better to invest in the higher resolution model?

 

I read someplace on the forums that the 9500GS is a tad faster than the HD3650, but they are very similar in terms of performance.

The difference between 1440 x 900 and 1280 x 800 is noticeable, but not greatly. Some would say that the lower resolution is better in terms of gaming becasue your laptop's video card would be able to handle many current and future games at the lower resolution with no problems. Others would say that 1280 x 800 is too little workspace to work with on the desktop. I personally think that 1440 x 900 is a prefect resolution to a 15.4" widescreen laptop.

If you can somehow get your hands on two laptops with the 2 different resolutions then that would be your best bet in deciding which is the right resolution for your eyes.

 

Thanks for your input! My local store only has the 1440x900 and I'll probably go with that one.

As for the 512mb extra for the HD 3650, will it make a difference in terms of performance? Or it's more of a breathing room for the video card? I ask this because the HD 3650 is only offered in the smaller resolution, but has the 512mb advantage over the 9500 GS which has the bigger resolution but only 512mb.

 

Thanks , but is there any GDDR4 GFX?

 

you should also consider a WSXGA+ and WUXGA+, I think they are much more useful than a WXGA+.

 

I believe the 8600m GT GDDR3 is the best in this case. The NotebookCheck chart isn't completely accurate for the 8600m GT GDDR3 because it includes the GDDR2 and 128mb versions as well. According to the indvidual 3DMark06 scores here, the 256mb 8600m GT GDDR3 scores 3900+.

 

According to Wiki, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WUXGA, WUXGA is only offered in 1920x1200. So 1440x900 is only offered in WXGA+, which is the resolution that the laptop offers.

 

WUXGA = 1920x1200. Not offered as. Equals. You can't call any other resolution WUXGA. WXGA = 1280x800, WXGA+ = 1440x900, WSXGA+ + 1680x1060.

 

Anyone know where to buy any of those as mxm spares? I know that you can get the 8600m gt mxm module as an asus c90 spare part somewhere but what about the 3650?

 

yeah,WUXGA is 1920 by 1200 and so it is much better than WXGA+(desk top become wider). I think the WXGA+ may not be good enough for some but the WSXGA+ or WUXGA are usually good enough for most of people ,even those who need really wide desktop view. WXGA+ is not much different in desktop view from regular WXGA , I compared them so long at a store before I order WSXGA+.

of course, WUXGA is better but more expensive and only thinkpad T61p offers it and I can't afford it or I dont want to spend that much for a laptop which I am sure I will replace in a year.

I hope all company offer WSXGA+ or WUXGA as regular screen resolution for their 15.4 or 14.1, I have great eyes and so the higher resolution lcd panel ,the better it is for me always.

 

Err.. the GDDR3 and GDDR2 versions of the 8600M GT differ by as much as 800 3dmark06 points (3200 vs 4000)... so... which version are we talking about here? The GDDR3 version should beat the GDDR2 versions of the 9500GS and HD3650 easily.

 

Sure, in desktop, nothing in laptop yet, but the ATi mobile chips support it so it is possible, although not currently used.