Please rank the following Mobile GFX Cards

Hi All,

I'm sorry if this annoys anyone, but i've asked around and even gone through many notebook gfx benchmarks and I'm having trouble with getting the right info of which gfx card is better and by how much and whether its sufficient for medium settings/light gaming e.g. WoW/Starcraft 2.

Sager NP8170/Clevo P170HM
- I know the GTX 485m and 6970m is one of the best, but what about the following?


Dell XPS 17 - Nvidia GT555m 3GB DDR
ASUS N73sv - Nvidia GT540m 1 GB DDR
HP Envy 17 - ATI 6850m 1GB DDR5
Acer Aspire 8950G - ATI 850gb 2 GB DDR3

- I assume GT555 is better than GT540, But by how much and can current 2011 games be played on Medium settings, e.g. SC2 and WoW?

- Is ATI 6850 better than GT555/540? I heard someone DDR5 gives the gfx card a performance boost.

- I was thinking of the Sager NP8170 which is a Clevo P170hm with a ATI 6970, but I hate the fact that it has e huge AC Adapter, even the Alienware M17x AC Adapter is smaller.

If possible, can someone answe the above stupid questions? =)

Thanks,
Mike

 

6850M GDDR 5 > 6850M GDDR 3 > / ~= GT 555M > GT 540M

1) GT 555M can handle Medium Settings on WoW on 1080p and Medium Settings at 900p with SC2 easily. The 540M won't have the juice to keep up a constant 30+ FPS at the same settings of SC 2 but maybe with WoW at 900p.

2) The 6850M GDDR 5 is far superior to the 6850M GDDR 3 due the faster GDDR 5 VRAM.

3) You need huge AC Adapters to power high-end cards. High end laptop gaming performance has to come at a price, and huge AC Adapter are needed to fuel the 75W TDP to run the 6970M, which is then used to power the monster into giving out massive FPS in games.

In defense of #3. My Precision M6500 has a slim 210W AC Adapter that is not as bad as the stock 240W brick, which literally can be used as a brick for construction. I think Alienware/Dell does sell those slim adapters that can still churn out the power needed to run the laptop fully.

 

Star Forge,

Thanks for the quick Reply.

I Guess the HP Envy 17 is my choice. I was going for the m17x or Sager, because the Envy in Australia is actually more expensive even with crap specs than the Sager with ati 6970, but the HP is more portable.

So I guess Since the 6850 DDR5 is better than the GT555m, I can run SC2/WoW on Medium settings easily?

 

Yeah without any problems. However, I personally dislike the HP Envy line for several reasons though... Yet, I don't want to scare you off what is the best choice of the lot...

 

I am getting an M17X tomorrow. If you want enough power for games today and in a year, I would go with the M17X's 6970m.

 

Not everyone can afford one though. That is the biggest problem with Alienwares. Especially outside the US/Canada, many people in Euro/Oceania doesn't have the dough to get one in those specs from Alienware.

 

even in central/south america, AWs are overpriced. The real deal with AW laptops in USA/Canada is calling in an AW rep and getting a decent discount off of the online price. I don't think this happens outside of USA/Canada

 

I'm thinking of getting Envy 17 with its 1GB 6850M DDR5 too, but confused comparing it with XPS 17 + 3GB GT555M.

Will the 1GB 6850M really be better than 3GB GT555M due to its DDR5?
I see the GT555M ranks higher than 6850M in here.
Comparison of Laptop Graphics Cards - Notebookcheck.net Tech
I'm no expert in GPU, so I'm only looking at reviews and specs.

 

I don't trust Notebookcheck's rankings at all. They have really been showing their nVidia bias over the last few years and would skew the rankings to give nVidia the advantage over ATI, when in reality the actual nVidia card is inferior to the same ATI in real-life fair and balanced testing.

The fact of the matter is this the 6850M is better than the 555M in many ways more than just the type of VRAM.

The 6850M is essentially a slightly slower core-clocked rebadge of the 5850M, which itself is a slower-clocked version of the venerable 5870M. The 5870M rivals in performance with nVidia's GTX 460M and 560M GPU's. So the 6850M is more or less around a 460M in power, since the 460M in stock clocks at its time of release was still weaker than the 5870M.

The GT 555M is often compared to power to ATI's Radeon 6770M and the 6770M is still weaker to a decent degree from the 5850M/6850M/5870M due to its 480SP over the 5850M's 800SP, but keeps itself powerful by pairing it with GDDR 5. The GT 555M has more efficiency with its 144 CUDA Cores, but its GDDR 3 192-bit pairing still makes it weaker than the 6770M's GDDR 5.

Also despite having 144 CUDA Cores, it is still not enough to rival the 6850M's 800 SP. nVidia needs 192 CUDA Cores to balance the map, which they are using in the 460M and 560M. Hope that helps.

 

according to notebookcheck the 555m is faster than the 6850

AMD Radeon HD 6850M - Notebookcheck.net Tech
NVIDIA GeForce GT 555M - Notebookcheck.net Tech

 

I see you didn't read my post. I discredited notebookcheck as a ranking site because they are nVidia-biased. Some of the experts on NBR no longer use notebookcheck other than to look up specifications for GPU's. Their rankings are no longer fair and balanced and they always give inferior nVidia GPU's an one-up from their stronger ATI counterparts.

The common deduction reached on most NBR GPU fanatics based on real-life benchmarking on laptops with the the GT 555M and the 5850M (which the 6850M is a rebadged version of) shows the 5850M still superior in every aspect. It was one of the reasons people were disappointed that Alienware ditched the 5850M m15x for the m14x 555M. The 555M's main ATI rival is the 6770M, while the 6850M main nVidia rival is the 460M.

Please read my post before rehashing the exact information to the poster I was replying to. He stated the same thing as you did via notebookcheck and I gave my prompt response above.

 

That's a very detailed explanation. Thanks SF!
I used to compare GPU only from their memory GB, so I don't really have any idea on other technical stuffs behind the scene.

1 thing keeping me from Envy right now though is that they only have 1x USB3.0 (and 3x USB2.0). I want my notebook to be future-proof, so this is still in my consideration.
And also still undecided between 3D or non-3D.

 

The other thing to note with notebookcheck's rankings is that they used the Acer 6850M to set their benchmark, which uses GDDR 3. In GDDR 3 conditions, the 555M has a better lead because it has more memory bandwidth with its GDDR 3 than what Acer uses for the 6850M with GDDR 3.

HP uses GDDR 5 for their 6850M therefore it is notably faster and utilizes its GPU potential better to. For the Envy, just be wary of temperatures.

 

"According to notebookcheck", even a 560M was "once" faster than 6970M too(kinda hilarious to see they withdrew that audacious statement eventually), and a whole lot mid range Nvidia cards are better than cards like 5850M/6850M, and we all know they are not true.

 

1 thing keeping me from Envy right now though is that they only have 1x USB3.0 (and 3x USB2.0). I want my notebook to be future-proof, so this is still in my consideration. And also still undecided between 3D or non-3D.
Sorry to ask this, but does 3D mean I have to wear 3D glasses all the time?

As for Vaio, if I were to get Vaio and due to availability, the model I can get is this one, VPCF217HG. I'm totally into Vaio's design, but the thing still keeping me is its 540M VGA which is inferior to Envy's above, however Vaio has 2x USB3.0 and 1x USB2.0, a slight different with Envy.

Any input guys?

 

If you get the 3D model you don't need to wear the glasses all the time. You just get a screen with a 120Hz Refresh Rate that will scale down to 60Hz for 2D (Standard) viewing.

Also, all USB 3.0-enabled machines right aren't really that future-proof on the basis that the drivers only work when you boot into Windows Vista/7 or Mac OS X 10.6+. They aren't bootable by Intel Chipset as a USB 3.0 device. If you want future-proof USB 3.0, wait till Ivy Bridge.

 

errr even on the specification notebookcheck is just WRONG they have plenty of card with spec that were never released in thier list

and as a side not they don't list dual 4850 ;p

 

i see didnt know there was a gimped 6850 in the acer model. if it just a slightly higher clocked 5850 it should be faster than a 555m by quite a bit. since my gx640 with a slow dualcore even got 11560 in 3dmark06

 

So that means I can switch rates between 120Hz (3D) and 60Hz (2D) screens whenever I need it to? In case of home and portable usages.

Sorry, I'm just new to 3D screens and I'm going to get this Envy from US with help from a 3rd party and without me seeing the actual thing first, so I just want to make sure everything is good.

I can live with the 1x USB3.0.

 

off course you can live with 1 usb3, the only thing that usb3 serves right now is for storage.

and yes you can alternate between modes, for gaming and movies using 3d you are going to use a program for that to work, cant remember the names right now

Im glad that you are the another guy in the world that likes the F21 design, being the other the designer that made it

 

Sorry to ask about this again, just want to make sure.

Will the 3D screen bring down the Envy's performance in any kind of technical way, when I'm using it as 2D?

I may not be using the 3D that often (maybe none at all!), but since the total price is not much different than 2D, then I think why not getting it as additional feature.

But if there is a performance decrease in any way, then I will be glad to order the standard 2D.

 

Nope just don't forget to set it to 60HZ before gaming on 2D mode.

 

No way, no how! 6850 is 10-15% faster. I am a huge Nvidia fan, and chose the Envy 17 3D because the 6850 was on par with the 460M and the 555M was not. Not sorry I did...

 

I just bought an HP Envy 17 with 6850. Is this card better than the 6770 found in the cheaper DV7 models?

 

Yes...

tenchar

 

Thanks for that, on the Notebook check hierachy list the 6770M is ranked higher. Which I thought was kind of strange A) because the 68 designated cards are usually better than 67 designated cards on desktops and B) because the Envy is meant to be the premium HP notebook.
Although from what i've read there isn't much in it. A Shame they didn't put something a bit more powerful in the Envy 17..

 

Im afraid that the Envy 17 could not have cooled down anything higher without a redesign.
Sager / Clevo and Alienware are big and chuncky compared to the slimmer Envy.

Also you might consider getting a cooling pad so that you can keep the temps down when doing long gaming sessions.

 

lol my clevos got a big booty. but its actually quite light at 6.83 lbs, especially compared to the m15x which weighed around 9 lbs.