Could someone give me a crash course in DX10 graphics cards please??

So I am not super compuer savvy or anything but have a fair bit of experience with hardware - I built my first C2D desktop with an ATI 256MB X1900GT Video card in october and my Dell D600 had a 32MB ATI 9000 pro video card. My desktop card is pretty decent and can run most games that I have played such as HL2, TW07 and NFS:MW on pretty high settings.

I am considering a new Santa Rosa laptop and have been seeing all this talk about 8400GS / 8600GT / 8600GS and rumorings on the interweb that these cards do not perform as solidly as the prev generation DX9 hardware - The Go6600 / X1900 / 7900GS /GT etc.

So my questions are

1. If I buy a nice shiny Asus or a Dell 1520 or a HP Dv6500t with some of these new graphics card will the performance when running Windows Vista with Aero / Light games such as Oblivion / HL2 / TW08 / Crysis be worse than my X1900 GT card?

2. Also can someone explain the food chain here -
8400 GS / GT ....... 8600 GS / GT ..... 8800 GT ???

3. And what is ATi's equivalent's? Any laptops sporting them?

4. I am seeing that a lot of laptops video cards have beefef up memory - 348MB for the HP and 512MB with MXIM (What the heck is that???) for the Asus C90 - I take it more memory does not = better performance now?

5. And, how do DX9 games work on DX10 cards? Software rendered?

6. Basically if someone could give me a good overview as to where DX10 cards are in relation to DX9 cards for laptops, that would be super helpful!

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

 

1. If I buy a nice shiny Asus or a Dell 1520 or a HP Dv6500t with some of these new graphics card will the performance when running Windows Vista with Aero / Light games such as Oblivion / HL2 / TW08 / Crysis be worse than my X1900 GT card?
Yes, the 8600M GT (and everything below) is noticeably less powerful than your x1900gt. The 8700M GT is probably roughly equivalent to it. Vista's Aero UI shouldn't be affected (pretty much any discrete graphics card can render it with ease), but you will definitely see the difference with games like Oblivion or Crysis.

2. Also can someone explain the food chain here -
8400 GS / GT ....... 8600 GS / GT ..... 8800 GT ???

Yup, 8400M GS < 8400M GT < 8600M GS < 8600M GT < 8700M GT
The 8800M-series is only rumored for now (it's only been mentioned in one article from the Inquirer); it might be released later this year (but the 8700M GT is coming in July/August).

3. And what is ATi's equivalent's? Any laptops sporting them?
I'm not too well-versed on ATI's new laptop cards. From what I understand the mobile HD 2600XT should be roughly equivalent to an 8600M GT.

4. I am seeing that a lot of laptops video cards have beefef up memory - 348MB for the HP and 512MB with MXIM (What the heck is that???) for the Asus C90 - I take it more memory does not = better performance now?
That's about right. The width of the memory bus is generally more important than how much memory it has. Even the high-mid range 8700M GT only has a 128-bit memory bus (compared to the 256-bit bus that most upper-end cards have, including your x1900gt), so a 512MB frame buffer is a bit of overkill for that card. With high-resolutions/high AA/High-res textures, its memory bus will be saturated before it has a chance to use that much memory.

5. And, how do DX9 games work on DX10 cards? Software rendered?
Nope, DX9 runs natively on DX10 cards. You'll have no problems at all running DX9 games with a DX10 card.

6. Basically if someone could give me a good overview as to where DX10 cards are in relation to DX9 cards for laptops, that would be super helpful!
The highest end laptop card continues to be the Go 7950 GTX. It's unknown at this time, but the 8700M GT will probably be a little behind that, especially at higher resolutions, because it's crippled by its 128-bit bus. From my understanding, the 8600M GT is supposed to be roughly equivalent to a Go 7900 GS.

 

1.) Im not sure how your desktop card will compare to a notebook card esp since its ATI vs Nvidia wich makes it even more confusing. The 8600gt is pretty close to the 7900m in performance right now.

Its doing really well in alot of games, check the Asus form section for alot of benchmarks with both the 8600gs and 8600gt cards.

2.) 8400 --> 8600gs --> 8600gt --> 8700m --> ?
Thats the nvidia line up, the 2600m just started appearing and we dont have benchmarks yet for it but I expect it to be around the 8600gt level..

3.) Yep see #2

4.) More memory still = more performance untill a certian point. the 512mb vs the 256 will clearly show some benifit. Also this is the reason why the 256mb version is showing significant gains when you add more system memory for turbo cache to emulate gpu memory.

5.) There is a DX9 embeded in DX10, forgot the actual API name but its fine dont worry about it

6.) I'll dig up a link for you soon as I can find it that shows all the notebook gpu's benchmark scores its a pretty good baseline to see how one card compares to another. Then for more specific details you probably need to google up reviews/benchmarks for that specific card and compare it to the other.

edit: here we go found the link with some handy search work

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile...rk-List.844.0.html?&or=&search=&sort=3dmark06

has the 2600 in there just above the 8600gt a few notches, if its like its desktop brother tho, the ati card performes incredibly well in benchmarks but in games its give and take on how well it performes. Using a super scaler setup the drivers make or break this card, so its easy for them to optimise drivers for 3dmark but hit or miss what games its going to beat the nvidia card at.

 

Thanks for the responses guys - this was very helpful. It seems to me that we have taken a step back in performance with the DX10 cards or have just not caught up to the top of the line DX9 cards. I have some serious thinking to do on what laptop and card to get now. The C90 is looking mighty interesting with an option to upgrade the video card in the future. hmmmm......

 

The thing is, you're not comparing the cards fairly. The 8600M-GT or any of the notebook DirectX 10 graphics cards right now do not compare to the Radeon X1950GT. The 8600/HD 2600 are not classified as 'high-end' cards like the X1950 is. It's like comparing the performance of a V6 (8600M/HD 2600) with a V8 (X1950). Yes the new V6 engines are a bit faster but they're still not going to touch a V8 in terms of power.

The 8600M-GT is the next step from the current Go7600/Go7700 - when compared to those two cards, the 8600M-GT does give a nice performance improvement. The same should be true for the ATI HD 2600 series vs. the current X1600/X1700.

 

Agreed, Chaz. Mobile performance cards shouldn't really be compared to high-end desktop cards, and the 8x00M series is definitely NOT a step back.