Is the Larrabee going to be in laptops?

Not anytime soon right?

I've just been having trouble deciding when to buy a laptop...you know how technology is there's always something coming lol it makes your head wanna explode.

All I know for sure is, I don't want to get a laptop until at least the x4500 is out. From what I've read the x3100 can somewhat play games but not that great. so do you guys think the x4500 will be be able to play half life 2 source games good?

Problem is, I was gonna wait for the x4500 and now I see there's some new larrabee with multiple cores and I'm like "crap gotta wait for that" but then i'll never be able to get a laptop...

All I wanna know is, is the montevina x4500 going to be okay for Starcraft 2 and Half life 2? In good settings? Will x4500 be the one? And is the Larrabee going to be on laptops?

 

X4500 would probably be fine for those, but you can pick up a custom Dell or HP with dedicated graphics for a reasonable price right now, which would definitely outperform the X4500.

Details on Larabee are sketchy at this point, and while it's certainly likely Intel will port it to notebooks, I'd expect that to be a good nine months off at least, and more likely a year. The desktop one is still under cloak and dagger as it is.

If you wait for the next advance, you're always going to be waiting. You may as well pull the trigger and pick up a machine now.

 

Damn lol...that's a good point.

Well, I think ultimately now, I'm aiming towards the Montevina.

The reason why I want to wait is because I don't want to get dedicated graphics card. I'm probably not going to game intensively enough. I just want a decent integrated graphics card to lightly play games and it seems the like x4500 will be sufficient.

 

Can some one explain a little more about "Larabee"? Is it Intel's next gen CPU?

 

Oh yeah I heard someone said that Penryn were just released into most consumer laptops 3 weeks ago...? Damn, so how long was that since it's released.
How many months do I have to wait for Montevina to be released into most consumer laptops?

 

Get a Geforce 8400M GS in that case.

 

After some more reading...ah crap...

Now I don't know if I want to stick with the Montevina/Penryn or go with Nehalem?

Can anyone explain to me how much different they will be?

I just want to stop at a good point. (I know it's pointless lol technology keeps going) but I just want to know if Nehalem is a much bigger leap than Montevina/penryn that it's worth wait for that?

Edit: After reading again for a while, seems to me the Nehalem is raw power but I guess I'm trying to get all this stuff I don't really use. So looks like I'm back to Montevina since I want something that's somewhat power efficient too.

 

Look, man, you're splitting hairs and getting caught in the same silly trap.

The fact of the matter is with this mindset you're always going to be stuck waiting.

If battery life is what matters most to you - and it seems to be - a Penryn-equipped notebook will fit the bill for you nicely. My HP with the dedicated 8400M gets minimum three hours of battery life with the 6-cell battery, and I'm not even using a Penryn. A Penryn based one will get you close to another half hour on that.

You're getting hung up on performance that's just shades of "obscene." A 2GHz Merom like I have is a beast in and of itself; a Penryn is just gravy. Montevina isn't worth waiting for and neither is Nehalem.

 

I've said it in a previous post and I'll say it again... If you're waiting for a notebook that won't have hardware updated within 4-6 months you are going to be waiting FOREVER, because PC hardware just updates regularly. If you're too worried about new tech being released after you buy one then DON'T buy a laptop, period. I hear the abacus, however, has not been updated in a long time. Try one of those.

 

Haha, funny guy. Abacus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus

Well, it was hard but I'm hard set for Montevina. It seems with that it'll be good for me since it'll have the x4500 and it seems like a perfected Penryn.

I've concluded that Nehalem is way more powerful than I need currently so that's out of the picture.

 

Actually, there are now modern abacuses called calculators and they are updated every day.

 

Since we are talking about hair-splitting, I'll give my own version hair-splitting .

Larrabee you see, is discrete. Initially, it'll not be something that will be ported to laptops soon. From Intel presentation, it might even be bigger than Nehalem! Larrabee is Intel's answer to ATI/Nvidia's future plans with GPGPU(General Purpose GPU), and their first in line to make performance graphics, so its not an IGP.

This is much as I know so far about upcoming Intel IGPs.

Montevina platform with Penryn CPU and Cantiga chipset:
-X4500 IGP
-10 Execution Units(X3100 has 8)
-GM47 has 640MHz core clock and GM45 has 533MHz core clock(GM965 has 500MHz core clock)
-Up to DDR3-1066 Dual Channel(current Santa Rosa laptops only support DDR2-667)
-Hardware HD/Video engine
-The basic graphics architecture is off the X3000/X3100. It's just a updated part
-Coming in June 2008

Nehalem based IGP:
-X5500??
-12 Execution Units
-Integrated with the CPU
-DDR3-1333??
-12 Execution Units
-More Fixed Function units
-Coming in Q2 2009

 

you said you want light gaming and therefore an integrated graphics card. however, light gaming calls for a low end dedicated card. they really don't have much effect on battery life or cost. 8400m gs will outperform the x3100, x4500, and x5500, with ease. it downclocks into power save mode when not being used.

 

Ah, I think you're one of the few people that had the answer I was looking for...

So you are a sure a low end dedicated card like the 8400m gs will outperform the x4500 and x5500 and still not use too much power?

I always thought that any dedicated card would use more power all the even if it's idling.

 

One thing that I am sure of is that you need to just get the 8400m GS, don't get hung up on the small stuff. If you wait forever, you will never have a laptop.

Another thing, my laptop gets amazing battery life and mine has a better GPU than the 8400m GS.

 

well, dont wait for anything, since you are waiting for a x4500, i see that you are not a hardcore gamer, motivia or x4500 will not give you a noticable difference.
a 8400gs and a T7xxx is totally good enough, dont even worry about penryn

 

Soo, why didn't you actually ask that? Then more people might have given you useful answers, and you wouldn't have to write nasty little remarks about how "few" people had the answer you were looking for.

You didn't ask anything about power. Yes, it'll outperform them, and yes, it'll use more power. Not *a lot* of power, but more than integrated.

If power consumption is critical to you, perhaps you should, you know, have mentioned it when you asked. Otherwise, you shouldn't be too surprised at how "few" people manage to telepathically extract the actual question from your mind.

 

Well, sorry that I forgot it in my finitial post. I'm a newbie, sorry that I don't know everything.

But Jalf, you're telling me about nasty remarks? I didn't even mean that as an insulting remark...

I mean it really bothers me that you're telling me about nasty remarks when you yourself post in this thread trying to insult me with your own nasty remarks.

All your little subtle insults were really unnecessary. All you had to had to tell me was to be more specific. I happened to forget to include it in my first post, OMG damn sorry for making a mistake! I didn't mean the "you're one of the few people that answered my question" as some insult either.

Just telling you so next time so you can actually think about informing someone about a mistake they made without acting like a total douche bag. Don't take your bad day out on me or other posters for that matter.

Jeez, sorry that I forgot it in my first post. O_O

With that said, let's put this all behind us.

Alright, well thanks everybody. Yeah, I'll even thank you too Jalf.

 

I tryed 8400m gs VS x3100 without the electricity plugged.
There is no way you can use your laptop more than three hours with 8400m gs.
Just check the reviews which compare the same thing (same battery size and model).
Sure some will say that they can play more than two hours with a 8400m gs. But they won't tell you they have a big 12 or 9 cells while you do better with x3100 on a 4 cells!
Except if you like heavy battery and big screen when you move you should forget about dedicated graphic.

Sure you can put more eye candies on but the ratio perf/battery is more on intel side.
Also 9300m gs is a copy (smaller and consume a bit less) of 8400m gs while x4500 will reach the same pef for a better choice concerning form factor (10,12 maybe less!).
So yeah low Mw Perryn and x4500 is a very interesting addition to the laptop world. And worth to wait (June it's not that hard) Except if you want to use your machine in a hotel room or at home.
In this case the m15x or Zepto/Asus is the best option.

To sum up I believe it is as stupid to say you can play decently Crysis on x3100 than to play hours on a small laptop on 8400m gs.

x4500 is worth to wait.

 

Just a get a low-end dedicated card, it'll suck minimal power, even compared to Integrated graphics. Plus, you'll get much better performance.

Heck, just get an 8600m GT...I get decent battery life with that sucker...plus it is WAY better than ANY integrated anything.

LOL @ Jalf.

Don't worry Dracun, you just had a chance run-in with the resident grump of NBR.

 

Exactly. Get an 8600GT. It's low end, but will actually run games, and is still dirt cheap.

Integrated graphics and games do not mix.

There's no reason to wait for Monevina. All it adds is a faster front side bus, and given that you're talking about low end parts here, that's not going to help. It's irrelevant that it has updated integrated graphics, because you can't get integrated graphics if you're interested in using it for anything past basic Windows desktop usage.

It should be out of the picture because it's roughly a year away. There's really no reason to wait at this point if you need a system now. Just get something with a Geforce 8600GT or 9500GS and you'll be fine.

The 8400GS is 90 quadrillion times more powerful than Intel graphics, but still extremely outdated, and not worth the minuscule savings you'd get over an 8600GT.