Nvidia GeForce GT 330M vs. ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

I have the dilemma of trying to decide between the Sony Vaio Z and the new Acer 3820TG (if it ever is released). The Acer sports the 5650 GPU, but is heavier, doesn't have an optical disc drive, not quite the same build quality...

If I get the Acer 3820TG, I would probably get it with a CPU of Core i5 540M if that's available. If reviews of the 3820 indicate there aren't heat concerns, maybe I'd be more inclined to go with the i7 620M. On the Sony Z, I'm definitely leaning more toward the Core i7 620M.

Now I know that the ATI 5650 should outperform the Nvidia GT 330M, everything else being equal. But would the GT 330M paired with the i7 620M be a match for the ATI 5650 paired with an i5? I have to weigh the benefit of having the extra GPU power in the 3820 (not to mention the much cheaper price) with the cost of not having an optical drive. If the Sony Z can come close in performance, that might tip the scale in its favor...

Any help is appreciated.

 

You can't substitute CPU power for GPU power. It depends entirely on what is important to you... if you just want the best gaming performance, then the Acer 3820TG is your best bet. That said, you have to weigh the performance gains against all the other downsides you listed... is it worth getting an extra 5-10fps or whatever the difference is when you have to deal with no optical drive (which I actually prefer), and the build quality and all? I can't help you with that. That's your call.

 

According to notebookcheck.net reviews of GPUs, the 5650 generall handles most games better than the GT 330M on when on medium detail settings. On high detail settings for a lot of games, the 5650 really only seems to add a few extra fps over the GT 330M. I guess my question is, am I really going to notice the difference?

By the way, was that really your 5000th post?

 

Looks like it was. w00t!

Anywho, it depends on the game... 5fps matters a lot more when the average is 30 than when the average is 50. You're probably going to be stuck with medium details to make things playable anyway, so I'd be looking at those scores.

 

Thanks, that is useful. Congrats on the post.

 

The 5650 will beat GT330M in any games... the CPU won't affect games so get the timline if it has a 5650.

 

get 5650.. new drivers(10.3) seems to help it even better.. an average of 5 to 10% performance boost is guaranteed.... nvidia 3XX series .. i dont think is good enough as 5650..

 

The 5650 is kinda like a 4650/4670 with slightly improved performance and DX11 support, so yeah, it beats the 330M

 

it has 80 more cores , DirectX 11 and GDDR5 support so its way better than 4650/4670 although the GDDR3 version is quite similar...

 

5650 is gddr3/ddr3 only. it's like a cooler running 4670 with dx11.

 

It doesn't have GDDR5, according to NBR. The mobility 57xx series do.

 

oops sorry.. but it does have 80 extra cores and directx 11 right?

 

yes 10 char

 

80-48=32 more cores

 

He was meaning 80 more than the 4650/4670 320cores. But Ati and Nvidia shader processors work really different from each other, so you cant just say that because a 5650m has 400unified shaders vs the gt330s 48shaders automatically makes it nearly 10x more powerful. As they are just too different to be ever compared that way.


In the end though, the 5650m is the better card, and like everyone said, the laptop with the 5650m would be the better buy.

 

Unless you really need the super sleek and light Z, the Acer is a better bet. It looks like a nice machine, and can't beat the price. But I also wonder when it might be released in the States. It's a good alternative to the M11x even, although slightly larger.

 

according to notebookcheck, 5650 is about 15-20% better than 330m in Games

but unfortunately, i saw 330m on more hi-end laptops compared to 5650 ><

 

I think he meant if you take ATI's shaders and divide by 5 (they are 5 way) then its a pretty good indication.

So 400 = 80.

 

Follow up question: Direct X 11 vs. 10.

The 5650 supports DX11, whereas the GT 330M does not. Does that mean some games will not run at all with GT 330M, or would DX11 games have the option to use the DX10 drivers? Are there that many games out there now that use DX11? Will there be that many in the next few years?

Pardon my DX ignorance, but I just don't know a whole lot about how it works.

 

Very few games use DX11, and the 5650 will not be able to push many of the DX11 features very well (primarily tesselation, which is basically an artificial explosion of geometry. Very pretty, but needs non-trivial horsepower).

That said, the 5650 will perform better per watt, and better just plain period across all DX versions. DX11 games will just have a reduced featureset on the 330M, they will likely run though. There's always the software path, too (using the CPU instead of the GPU).

 

I was under the impression that tessellation on ATI GPUs was done using a fixed function processor. I know that Nvidia's new GF100 scales tessellation directly with the power of the GPU, but I didn't think this was the case with ATI.

In other words, as a DX11 feature, tessellation should perform the same on each ATI GPU, unless someone knows information that points out otherwise?

 

You could be right. I don't know for sure.

 

you also have to take in to account the games you play. If you were to play somethng lik GTA4 im sure the sony would do better because it is far more demandng on the CPU than the GPU. my friend has a mobil core i5 and it struggles with GTA 4 in medium settings whereas with my DESKTOP i5 650 and a geforce GT230 DDR2 i amable to play the game with most settings on high at 1920x1080. when i trie this same game on my notebook (specs in sig) i was nto albe to get it to play smoothly and when i looke at task manager it was the CPU which was maxxed out and hat was on the lowest settings

 

Desktops and notebooks are totally different. A <$1000 desktop can run most games at good quality, while a >$2000 notebook might not even be able to match it...

 

I disagree.. any 2000+ notebook if configured properly can match the desktop.. ex Asus G73 for $1499 has as much power as a desktop 5770.. its a matter of researching and buying and seriously , i regret not doing so.. wouldn't have bought this Dv5t if i had known.

 

You can easily get something like SLI GTX 260 for a desktop for <$300, while a comparable notebook part at that cost would be a single GTX 260M, which is far, far inferior. Similarly, <$300 can get you a i7-870, while on notebooks, you can get a i5-540M, which again is far inferior...

 

i wasnt ocmparingdesktops an notebooks, i was just saying for some games eg gta 4 on my desktop wth a not particularly powerful gt230 with ddr2 memory i can play gta 4 on high settings in full hd and thats down to the cpu and not the gpu.

Anyway id go for the sony although i will probably cost more and will have a SLIGHTLY worse gpu it will still bebuilt better and loks nicer. Acers generally are built badly, there are a few exceptions though. Another thing to take note of is although the 5650 supports DX11, it wont be able to handle a lot of the features and games which come with DX11. If you are buying it for DX11 you woud be better off with the 5870 which is a far more capable card.

 

and i agree you can get a far more capable desktop for the money which is why i switched over to desktops for gaming as i never play games while i am out and about. i thought i would which i why i got a notebook with a dedicated gpu but its just too awkward getting out my mouse and finding somewhere to plug in my ac adapter. my fried just got analienware m15x ad for the price he got it at i could have and i7 and 5870 in a far more powerful desktop. my £600 desktop can easily keep up with his £1200 alienware and dont say there are better value notebooks than the alienwarebecasue in theUK there really isnt. last time i looked the G73 on play.com was like 1700 and for that you get the power of a desktop with a 5770 an core i5 650 at best which imo is not worth the money

 

How much easier is it for him to bring his machine over to your house than it is for you to bring yours to his? Can you use your machine on your lap while watching TV? Or in the living room instead of the study?

Yes, a desktop will always provide better performance for the money. That doesn't mean that notebooks perform badly, or that they don't have other advantages over desktops.

 

yeah but i was stating that will he be gaming anywhere apart from at a desk becasue if not imo its better to have a notebooks for when you are not at a desk and then a desktop for gaming

i sgree that heu are great totake places i take mine all over the place but for gaming i dont really see the point i never game with my notebook on my lap it gets far too hot and when i go round friends houses we dont generally play compter games.

 

But will you ever want the computer for anything else? I bring mine with many places, especially on vacation and such so I can offload the videos and pictures off my cameras, as well as properly use the Internet (slightly less important since getting my Nexus One... hehe), and so on. I just happen to also use mine for gaming. No, it's not as fast as my crossfire 4670, PhenomII desktop but it is 2/3 of the speed, which is impressive. I do tend to go to friend's places and play games with them... something about playing in the same room/house that makes it more enjoyable. Better than just voice chatting You can go grab a Mt. Dew from the fridge and commiserate on the strategy for the next round, etc.

Anywho, the point is that for you, a desktop is a better use of your money. And if your friend's Alienware never leaves his desk, then he did do a silly thing. But if he uses it in a notebook capacity and happens to game on it as well, well... it's not a bad deal. He can do a heck of a lot more computing at the local coffee shop than you can.

 

mm guys so the point is? will you go with the ati 5650 or the nvidia 330m?

I was going to buy the alienware m11x but I just saw the new hp laptops with the ati card and better cpu's. Which would you decide in this case?

a laptop with ati hd 5650 and i7 820qm or a laptop with a Nvidia 330m and i7 620um?

 

The M11x has a GT 335M though, I believe, which is closer to the 5650.

My answer to your question is neither, because both the i7-820QM and i7-620UM are likely very expensive upgrade options in whatever you're looking at, and not worth the price. If I had to choose solely based on those specs, I'd probably pick the i7-620UM + 330M config for battery life, even though the 5650 + 820QM is definitely more powerful.

 

can a 5650 be overclocked?

 

I've seen one overclocked, but I don't know the specifics. But overclocked, it held its own pretty darn well in DX11 benchmarks.

 

a 5650 overclocked is pretty much a 5730

 

you are right i confused i was refering to the nvidia 335m, so to be more specific now, how comparable do you think the nvidia 335m is to the ati hd 5650 in real life, cuz i know the specs of each, it is just the gpu that really doesn't make me decide which laptop to choose, I really dont care much about the cpu as long as they are i7 also it doesn't matter to me if they are ulv.

 

What? Do you just want an i7 for the label? The ULV i7s are weaker than proper i5s, so your statement just doesn't make sense there.

As for real-world performance, the 5650 should be faster than the 335M, but not by much; that's based on what I've seen from Notebookcheck and AnandTech. Look at their benchmarks yourself for more info.

 

yep.

@OP- 5650 FTW

 

in a way yes.. but the ones in sony laptops can't be oced much.. the ones in acer and gateway seem to be more ocable and actually to insane clocks.

 

Probably because Sony not only underclocks, but also undervolts them. And unlocking the BIOS is a hassle.

 

AND the question remains, WHEN THE HELL IS ACER GONNA RELEASE THE 3820TG IN NORTH AMERICA?!!!

 

No! Don't tell me this! I ordered a Vaio with the 5650 a few weeks ago

You can still overclock it to the Ati default of 650MHz, right? Right?

 

tis true - most I've seen are at 1.000v whereas the Sony is 0.950v. 650MHz isn't really the default of the 5650 - that's 5730 clock speed. 550-600Mhz is more like the usual range for the 5650, which the Sony can do fine, plus a memory clock boost too.

 

Yea, the notebook that I saw the overclocked 5650 in was a Vaio EB, so yes, you can overclock it. The thing about the Sony notebooks is, that they might underclock and undervolt, but they always use very good memory, like in my CW where some Manu's were using DDR2, Sony used GDDR3.

 

I am stuck at GPU Clock 626Mhz on my Sony VAIO EB.
My highest stable OC setting => 626/9xx MHz.
This OC setting will give you 3DMark05 score 14250 - 14732.
Maybe you can play your games as long as you will without afraid of overheat because of UNDERVOLTED.
My max gpu temp when playing games => 62'C.

If you or somebody found any methods/tweaks to de-undervolted ATI Mobility HD 5650 on Sony VAIO, please message me !

Check this out :
http://hwbot.org/community/submission/1024413_yadieet_3dmark_2005_mobility_radeon_hd_5650_14732_marks

Enjoy VAIO..

 

I think the 5730 also has its voltage turned up a bit by ATI. When you max OC the 5650 it does not perform at the same level as the 5730 even though they are the same base.

 

But I thought the one caveat with Sony's, are driver updates are very infrequent, and typically Sony doesn't allow third party driver updates (ATi or nVidia).