Not a Gamer - Should I Bother Getting a Dedicated Graphics Card?

Thanks! I can't wait for it to get here, though I don't have much choice as I won't get it until next week.

 

If you have the money, get the best graphics card you can. Running vista on my old laptop without a dedicated graphics card didn't work. Vista is not that bad btw with sp1

 

Congratulations with the order of your new laptop

A nice machine you got put together there, specially for the use you descriped Having some nice graphics power laying around when needed is always handy, and since more and more apps and OS's using 3d interfaces, its nice having a dedicated card for thoes occations And as you said your self, CPU can be upgraded later, got plans for that my self, when the T9500 or X9000 gets down in price due to phasing out

 

I'm starting to think that I will just use my laptop for streaming video and movies, and buy a SA blu-ray player. This being the case then the ATI/AMD 780 or the Intel X4500 should be more than enough for that purpose right? would either have a significant edge over the other in this aspect.

 

x3100 is for people that know nothing about computers
The heat is minimal it's not like a cheap dedicated graphics card will crash the mobo

Vista works best with 2gb ram, and 128mb+ graphics

 

You did not make mistake. Good choice. I was going to recommend Vostro too. Excellent performance for that price...

 

Congratulations on your decision, it is a steal , great deal , if you dont care about BL , then there is no way to ignore this kind of deal , it is amaizngly cheap , I am envious of you , I wish I were in CA now.

happy holiday.

 

what about battery life and emission of noise and heat?

what about people who DO NOT need any kind of discrete graphics and care about battery life ?

all people have different needs, and many people dislike Vista or even no plan on running it..

when people want to get a quiet PC with long battery life , the X3100 is worth it.

 

Yeah it should be fine, streaming video and most downloaded video is not encrypted, so that takes off alot of the workload, I think at that point the X3100 would probably be 'OK' but with higher CPU usage.

Of the two I'd say I trust the AMD experience sofar, but the X4500 is promising. And realistically for what you're doing either should be fine, and both will offer boosts over the X3100, and both will offer some mild post processing benefits similar to 'Fullstream' etc.

I'd say if you have better CPU, or connectivity, or other options from one or the other focus on that area where the differences are greater, but if all things being equal, then I'd currently chose the 780G over the X4500 until it proves itself a little more and we know it's strengths and weaknesses and not just the promises.

 

That depends on the task though, if you're watching an HD movie even DIVX or even upconverting normal DVD, the increased CPU load would suck more battery life, increase the heat, and spin up your CPU fans more too.

If you have a better option like the GF8200 or 780G intergrated solutions, that's likely the way to go simply because they offer more options and the battery life and heat situation under low work is likely not greatly different (we'd be talking small percentages), and then for a more challenging task you would want the power and hardware assist of the other options.

It realy comes down to application. For M$ word or surfing, the X3100 would give you everything with little drawback, but for other tasks what would seem like a benefit might actually cost you in other areas like Adobe Acrobat, etc.

I agree with your thinking especially for the majority of intergrated users, but it's not always cut and dry.

 

thanks for the insight!
Right now I am leaning towards the ATI/AMD 780 but I havent heard anything about which companies will offer laptops with this chipset??

Any time frame on when they will be available?

I have also been looking at the Dell XPS 1530 (if I just cant wait, lol), which would probably be overkill for what I plan to do with the laptop, but its sure nice!

 

Thanks , but after brrowing my friend's LG , I do not like the idea putting too much power (graphics card )into a tiny lappie.

That one gets really hot , and this moring I went a shop and played around with an ASUS F8sn xx for about 30 munites with some demo programs, it got really hot , as hot as I never got used to feeling so I decided not buy it and stick with relatively weak X3100 and NV8400gs.

Plus, for me gaming is not the main priority, so I can compromise it and get a bit better CPU or more ram , and I am always wonder why real major OEMs like HP never puts strong Graphics into its 13.3 or 14.1 and there should be a good reason, HP knows some people buy Dell jsut because it does not offer any more powerful Grpahics than NV8400gs but the company stick with it still, why?

I think the reason is emission of heat and nosie.

I think I will buy a desktop or a huge Laptop like HDX next time for graphics and keep my Toshiba M305 and HP DV2761 do the rest.

have a good one.

 

Yeah I understand, my old editing rig was a Dell 2.8 P4HT and GFFX5200, very hot.

However I doubt the 780G would up the heat much, whereas running the CPU at higher load would definitely produce more heat.

 

I'm with you dude. I love my x3100. Its not the most powerful thing ever, but guess what? My temps never go above 45, my fan is only on ocassionaly, and my computer cost me a small car payment. $350. It does everything i want and need. Battery life of 2.5+ hours, plays/burns dvds, can play nes/snes/n64 emulators, can play ut99 and ut2k4, and fulfulls all my word processing, websurfing, remote desktopping, computer troubleshooting needs.

When I need a clock, I buy a clock. I do not buy the Big-Ben or this.

Some people have other needs. This does all I want. That guy who said the x3100 is for people who know nothing about computers? I think he knows nothing about people or computers.

 

So that means , the P4 generated more serious heat issue than your GFFX5200?

 

Hi , Waterwizard11 , so how do you play a game ?

I think some people confuse what they really need with what they want to get.

I want to get a good LCD on my laptop , as bright as my HD TV, but guess it is impossible withou compromising on battery life , so I will forget about it.

Like that , I really want to get a powerful gaming laptop but it is not my main priority so won't get it at the expense of my other priorities such as a huge HDD, a fast CPU , a bright LCD(not as bright as HD TV,though) and at least 2gb of ram.

Thank you for understanding me.

 

OH yeah, like a furnace it did especially out the back of that 5150, right at the knee most often. The mobilized P4HTs were probably the hottest thing ever to be put in a laptop. I used my aging Thinkpad more often than not because of that, but when I needed editing on the go the P4 was used. For that though there wasn't much benefit from the FX5200 doing much of anything (what little it could do), so there wasn't much benefit, it was low or high power mode on the CPU that's it so heat was high. But now it's more dynamic even with the VPU not only clocking down, but shutting down PCIe lanes to 1-2 lanes to conserve power.

And that would be the issue, the 780G likely produces maybe 1-3W more heats than an X3100, if that, but going from 5% to 50% on the CPU would likely generate alot more heat even on the fairly efficient Centrinos & Turions.

I aree with you, like I said, for the low needs stuff, it won't matter and the X3100 will be an ok choice, but for battery life and heat for anything more (including even stuff like Adobe Acrobat, etc) you will likely see a difference and also in performance as well, when CPU gets called on for filling in the workload blanks you're simply shifting the heat/power load to the other side of the equation and while the dfference in VPU power/heat is low, the difference between near idle and a working CPU would be noticeable.

For larger discrete VPUs it'll be all about performance, they may tread a fine line balance between power/heat if they are lucky (especially the ones closer to the GF9300/HD2400, but for the smaller newer class of on board discrete and intergrated VPUs they do offer enough reason to think that the X3100 won't always give you a benifit.

 

Are there any current or future laptops that will offer an HDMI output that will support bitsreaming hi-res digital audio with the video?

A laptop with a blu-ray player that can output 1080P and Dolby TrueHD or DTS-MA bitstream through its HDMI would be awesome!

Will it exist anytime soon?

 

Not yet.

Still pretty much limited to LinerPCM, and then that's dependant on the audio Codec, nothing prevents the signal going along with the HDMI connector off an HD2600, but considering it's primaryily the desktop solutions that get focus, most build around the limit of the DVI->HDMI dongle which can't carry the required bandwidth.

This may change by the end of the year, it's already beginning to appear in the desktops with the Auzentech HDMI Xtension solution 'coming soon' (been coming soon for about 5 months now).

Give it a bit more time, and likely by the summer/fall for laptop solutions. Few people right now don't really have the hardware to decode DTS-HD MA or TruHD, so we're usually stuck with DTS core or the other formats downconverted to DTS or else PCM.

 

Very intersting and insightful , thank you for your knowledge, theGreatGrapeApe.

But how do you compare the HD2300, NV8400M G or ATI HD3470 to the X3100?

Just very interested to know what you think of them, do you think I 'd notice the difference between them even in using Photoshop Elements or DXO pro kind of programs?

 

My time frame for a new laptop purchase is actually fall to X-mas so I have time to wait and see how these thing play out.

I have an Onkyo TX-SR705 that decodes all the hi-res codecs so bitstreaming over HDMI out would be great. However, even decoded LPCM 5.1 or 7.1 would be fine. I just want it all over HDMI - One cable to Receiver!

It just doesnt seem lke the PC/laptop/chipset manufacturers are putting much emphasis on the audio, which IMO, is a HUGE part of the overall movie experience.

 

From experience you just notice the lag a bit more in an X3100, however it's really not inhibiting, in fact I don't really mind when I use my desktop or laptop at work, which have a GMA950 and X3100 respectively and while slower than my laptop at home, it's more of a 'fluidity' thing where you will notice slight delays or long time when applying and undoing effect, you can see a slight. It's not the CPU because the CPU on the desktop here at work is much faster and the laptop is the same speed although a slight FSB difference.

I think they're fine if it's what you have, but if it's a purchase and it's not much to upgrade, then to me it worth the difference, but like everything it's about the cost/benifit. Would a GF8800MGTS with a T9300 be better than a GF8600MGS with a T5250, sure, but whether it's worth it would depend on the price.
For most people the differences are minor for these more 2D-centric apps (different with video though), something that might be terrible to one person and unnoticeable to another. It's like people who hate playing games at below 60fps because it's not fluid and others who are fine gaming with the sliders lowered and the just barely moving 15fps.

For the majority of people the important thing for apps like Photoshop is the quality of the static image, not necessarily the fluidity at which a filter or effect is undone (application is really still CPU bottlenecked) or jumping from layer to layer etc.

I find it something where I'm more annoyed in an app like Acrobat than Photoshop because I'm more forgiving of photoshop because to me that amount of work requires alot of juice be it CPU, VPU or Memory, whereas I expect things like Acrobat to be more responsive.

Overall just like gaming it comes down to what you find accpetable, because not everyone cares about the differences between X, Y and Z level of crards/performance.

 

Yeah I'm looking to update my NAD T770 (was looking at the T775 but it only support LPCM which not all discs/players allow) but I was hoping they would bring out DTS-HD-MA and TruHD processing for their Master series, still nothing yet thoug. I'm thinking I may go with Denon if there's nothing new by the summer. I was able to pass-through 5.1 of the 7.1 analogue out from the Samsung BUP5000 (although not all formats supported again) but I had other compatability errors with some discs (3:10 to Yuma dn Live Free or Die hard were the last straws) and so I traded for the LG SuperBlue (which is also possible to upgrade to BD2.0) but not analogue out.

On my laptop currently restricted to DTS or 2 ch PCM, but LPCM is supposed to be supported by the Realtek codec according to Realtek (asked because their datasheet doesn't explicitly say the type of support, but when I asked point blank they said the HDMI would support LPCM for the surround information and not 2 channel was conecerned because it's called the 2+2HD codec), just can't tuly test it until I upgrade (and Power DVD will report things it doesn't support to which is annoying), supposedly LPCM isn't even supported by PDVD until version 8 anyways.

Yeah I think because of the DRM issues and how hard it is to comply if all the flags are enabled, it's a low priority because the return on investment is unfortunately low (not everyone would be willing to pay $10-50 more for proper audio support. Hopefully this will change with the adoption of the more HD media centric solutions, but considering how bunged-up the whole Audio & Vista situation is, I wouldn't count on it being truly cleared up soon or well.

Anywhoo not to hijack the thread, just thought I'd reply to your questions. Believe me I aprreciate your situation.

 

I'm wondering how the X4500 & G45 chipset will be compared to the 780G?

Since the G35 chipset can output multi-channel (or bitstream) sound, I wonder if the X4500 will be able to also? Maybe?

 

Yeah should do.
And the X4500 is also supposed to finally add true hardware HD acceleration.

The main issue with multi-channel LPCM is that what's doing the decoding? Power DVD doesn't, instead downsampling everything. It's nice to have he hardware support (better than being hard limited to 2 channel or SPDIF limits in the 780G) , but if PowerDVD8 doesn't support it except as pass through support [which requires even more complicated hardware hoops IMO], then we're still stuck unfortunately with DTS 96/24 as the best.
For 'forward looking' support, I'd agree with going the GF8200 route over the 780G but the 780G over the X3xxx series (although personally I'd prefer even more VPU power than any of those since they can clean up the image a little better and audio support is still a big question mark).

[rant] Really bugs me, and I wish they'd simply tell the RIAA et al to stuff it so they can start bringing us the hardware and movie experience we've already paid for. The pirates aren't looking for the high resolution audio, heck rarely do they leave the normal DTS track even on standard DVDs. Why worry about them, start focusing on your paying customers not the RIAA! Arggh!! [/rant]

 

Thanks for your posts Great Grape Ape.