Mobility Radeon X1600 (128MB)

Hi. I'm want to buy a MacBook Pro Core duo of 2,16Ghz. That one comes with the Mobility ATI Radeon X1600 of 128MB GDDR3...

but i've got these doubts... Is that one bettere than de Geforce go 7400?
Can i share memory to expand the video card capacity?
Is it also in the rank of "performance video card" or it's another Middle ranged?

Hope that you'll answer that... THX

 

Please take a look at the GPU guide.

It is indeed better than the go7400, but the 128MB memory size does limit its performance somewhat.

 

Check out the bus width before you buy. It may be a 64bit bus---I know I didn't want to believe it either---and that'll bottleneck the hell outta the card whenever you do something memory intensive. Which in graphics is like, always.

 

Well the X1600 on the MBP has the full 128-bits. A stock 2.16GHz T7200, 1GB, 120GB HDD, 128MB X1600 MacBook Pro gets about 3700 in 3DMark05 so it's performing as it should. Going to 2GB, a faster 160GB HDD, and newer drivers should get you an extra 200 points.

 

Having 128 MB of grahics RAM will limit you. Is it not possible to get the 256 MB version. Even if you cannot, the Mobility X1600 is much faster than the 7400 and is still a capable card with 128 MB. I think that some cards can take a bit of memory from the system RAM, however i'm not sure if this is the case with Macbook Pro.

 

Its definitely faster than a Go7400. The 128MB x1600 is more of a low-highend card were as the Go7400 is kinda a mid level card. Both are decent but the X1600 is a little better. If you want to talk about performance GPUs you would have to look at something like a Go7900 or x1800. Like I said the Go7400 and x1600 are good cards. For examples look hear: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=92443
A lot just depends what you will be doing with it.

 

An X1600 w/ 128 MB of GDDR3 on a 128 bit memory bus is liveable. I'd rather have that than my GPU and it's configuration (GeForce Go 7200 on a 64 bit memory bus with 64 MB dedicated + 192 MB shared ). If you can find software, you could probably tweak your system to allow 128 MB of your system RAM for use as video, which would definetly help for some games like BF2/2142, and other games that are so texture memory intensive.

 

LOL, thats pretty good(OCd Go7200). What kinda 3D mark do you get?

 

I haven't 3D Mark'ed it yet. Even overclocked from 450 MHz to 600 MHz, it's still a pretty weak solution, but it's helped alot in many games like Counter Strike Source, Call of Duty 2, and Far Cry. FEAR didn't have much improvement though(which pains me ).

 

oh thanks for the fast replies.. but i've got another question (perhaps it's off topic) but... if you have the pci express port in a Notebook, can you put a better Gcard on it? (i'm thinking about it as i'll have to live with this computer for about 4 years, cos i'm going to university and i wanna spend some free time with brand new games).
I mean, the heat problem is what worries me, i'm not planning to use my computer without having it conected to an energy source.

 

PCI is just a bus interface. The only chance you could change it is if there is a module for the GPU, not being a part of the motherboard. It's possible that the X1600 is a module, but you'll have to look into finding out. If it is an AXIOM module, you're possibly in luck, you'll just have to go about the task of actually finding a better MXM module to purchase, which is very difficult.

 

Sorry your out of luck, I read that the Mac x1600 is soldered to the Motherboard. You may want to consider just getting a good PC notebook as you can get much better performance that way. Look into something like the Asus w3j, it has a much more powerful GPU does not get as hot as the Mac and looks just as good if not better.

 

That's not an option, it'll be a gift..anyway, do you know if it comes wit Hypermemory?
And Lasst butnot least, how is it vs a Quadro NVS 300?

 

The Quadro NVS 300 is a business-line of graphics cards, comparable to the Geforce 7600GS/ATI X1600.

Ultimately the NVS 300 may end up being a bit faster because of the limitations of graphics memory that your card has. Of course, tiny performances in graphics processing (0-10%) shouldn't influence what laptop you buy.

I hate Mac's though.