The 3 best graphics cards

Is the NVIDA GeForce 7950 the best graphics card? I am looking for good graphics cards to play games like Battlefield Two, WOW, and Medieval Total War II with.

Can you please list the three BEST Cards, their prices, and what laptops they come in???

 

In terms of raw speed yes.

8700GT - toshiba X205, hp 8710p/w ( NVS320 and FX1600..almost the same thing), clevo 570u thats all i can remember.


8600GT (GDDR3) - G1S, 8510w, MBP,, ummm cant remeber any more.

the 8700GT is really a OC'd 8600GT.

There are few notebooks around that can have exchangeable GPUs (MXM graphics cards), evens the ones that can, find the right one that will be compatible with its heat sink is hard also, and the card themselves are not that easy to get hold of either, although there are websites that sells them.

Anyone correct me if i am wrong about the 3 cards

 

100% agree with Johnny.

Here's some additional notebooks that were not mentioned
1. 7950gtx (Best) - Alienware m9750, Sager 9261 & 5791
2. 8700m GT - Dell XPS m1730 + Sager 9261 + Sager 5791
3. 8600m GT GDDR3 - Asus G2S, C90S

 

Eh, 3's contestable between the Go 7900 GS and the 8600m GT GDDR3. The 7900 has more raw power while the 8600 offers dx10 compatibility.

 

The fastest two single-GPU mobile solutions are 7950GTX and 8700GT.
I'd pick one or the other for 17" notebooks at this point if you cannot wait for the 8800M. Clevo and x205 and a few others)

Both have strong points and weak points.

7950GTX
Good:
-Best performance at DX9 especially when resolution is higher than 1280x1024
-256-bit memory interface which makes high-memory utilization features easier (antialiasing, higher resolutions)
Bad:
-No DX10 support (mitigated right now by few DX10 titles)
-Higher power requirements than 8700GT. (lowers battery life and makes it either hotter or louder or larger depending on cooling solution)

8700GT
Good:
-DX10 Support
-Performs within 5-10% of the 7950GTX when both cards are tweaked at resolutions 1280x1024 and below.
-Lower power requirements than 8700GT. (battery life is longer and makes most laptop solutions it comes in extremely cool and quiet - 60-70C when massively OC'd for over 5 hours of benchmarking!)

Bad:
-128-bit memory interface which makes high-memory utilization features more taxing(antialiasing, higher resolutions)


For 15" laptops there is only really one
8600GT with DDR3 (asus G1S and macbook pro)

 

when will u guys think the 8800m be released? or a graphic card better then the 8700/7950? will they be available for 15 inches laptops?

 

....the 8600m gt is going to be the best in 15inches for atleast one year

 

actually, the C90S doesn't have GDDR3, its DDR2. MBPs are GDDR3

yep, he's right

 

actually the c90 does have gddr3 cards now, like $50 more

 

The best GPU for a notebook is the nVIDIA 8700M. Next is the 8600M, then is the 8400M, then the 7950.
---Hope I could Help

 

Actually its 7950gtx,7900gtx,7800gtx,7900gs, 8700gt,8600gt, and then about 40th is the 8400 not ever ahead of the 7950

 

the games oyu listed don;t need the best gfx card out ther to play. all three of them will play with either full or close to full settings on an 8600gt card. Just letting you know.

 

I know but in my desktop I have a ATI Radeon card, and it cant play any games so i want something good

 

Best for what?

IMO, the list goes:

Go7950GTX/Go7900GTX, Go7800GTX, MRX1800XT, 8700M-GT, Go7900GS, MRX1900, Go7800, X1800, 8600M-GT, ....

 

go 7800 is more powerful than 8600?

 

Sorry, but no 7M Card is going to out do a 8M Card

 

Its pretty obvious you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Grafic-Cards.130.0.html

I think everything is there.

 

Isn't this a better link:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

That being said - why is the 8700m GT ranked below the 7900 GS when the 8700m GT scores higher in everything than the 7900 GS? Same thing with the 8600m GT vs. the 6800 Ultra, 7800, and X1800?

7950 GTX is *STILL* the king of notebook GPU's for the time being with no new king on the near horizon.

 

Even better link: ****READ BEFORE POSTING**** Gaming General Info Sticky*****PLEASE READ*****

 

You really are damn stupid. 8600M, 8400M beating the 7950? Even the 8700 won't beat it. Figures, after all you were actually recommending cyberpower to some kid on another threat. o.0

 

LOL! so true

 

Must be true. I read it on the interwebs.

 

i might be mistaken but i do think that Nvidia GeForce Go7800(not gtx) is no better than 8600 and especially 8700....

 

7800 GS Go is equivalent performance to 8600m GT. 8700m GT is like 7900 GS.

 

^ Nah the 8600 is a little under or on par with the 7900 gs.

 

Yeah, in pretty much everything. The Go 7800 has twice the ROP's and much higher bandwith. Of course it looses in pure shading power, but without the fill rates and bandwith to back it up, that doesn't mean much (at least not yet).

Notebookcheck is an entirely unreliable source for rankings of mobile GPU's.

I'm not aware of any such thing as a Go 7800 GS. And an 8700M-GT is better than a Go 7900 GS for most uses.

I'd say it's definitely under a Go 7900 GS, though the GDDR3 version does come close, especially in shader heavy games.

 

Just to further drive in the point regarding "No 7M card is going to be better than a 8M card.." comment...

Lets look at two Cards, we'll leave the Geforce 7M series out of this;

a Geforce Go 6800 and a Geforce 8400Mgs

3dmark06 scores for the 6800, between 1800-1900

3dmark06 scores for the 8400Mgs, between about 1000-1100

Some tech specs;

Geforce 6800 Go;
# clock: chip: 450 MHz, memory: 550 MHz
# memory: DDR3, bus: 128/256 bit

Geforce 8400M GS
# chip clock: 400 MHz
# memory clock: 600 MHz
# memory bus: 64 bit


So while i "guess" the chip/memory clock's kind of average out, a 128/256bit memory bus versus a 64 bit memory bus is really the difference i see, allowing more data to be transfered, and thus more data to be processed.


Guess the moral of the story is even a Geforce Go 6800 Beats out an 8400M GS (or even the GT really)


**** Disclaimer, i am an idiot, cited information may be inaccurate, if so, please ridicule at earliest convenance ****

 

Not that it beats out the 7950GTX or 8700M GT DDR3, but the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2600 XT is certainly a very good card that deserves mentioning, and performs better than the 8600M GT DDR3 at least according to Notebookcheck's benchmark's. It's rather difficult to find, admittingly, the only model I can think of with it is the HP HDX, which is monsterous at 20.1 inches.

 

Just one minor correction, the 8400M-GS scores significantly higher than that in 3dmark06. You may be thinking of the 8400M-G. And while your specs aren't necessarily wrong, they're pretty misleading as core clock speeds mean absolutley nothing if you don't know the number of shaders, ROPs or TMUs.

Notebookcheck is a horrible resource for ranking cards. However, thanks for the reminder, I totally forgot the HD series in my previous post. The ranking should actually be:

Go7950GTX/Go7900GTX
X1800XT
Go7800GTX
8700M-GT
HD2600XT
X1900
Go7900GS
X1800
Go7800
8600M-GT
HD2600

*Note that this list is my own personal opinion, based on the usage of enthusiast level gaming across several generations of games. Other uses, including those limited to recently released or upcoming shader-intensive games, will favor the 8m and HD2 series strongly, moving their positions up in the charts.

 

Your list is likely accurate at resolutions above 1280x1024.

At resolutions 1280x1024 and below, the 8700GT is much higher.

 

I play two out of those three games, and if I might make this brief, I would suggest any laptop brand (Sager, HP, Dell) that has the 86/7 8*(future)00 series of cards from NVIDIA. With my Vostro 1500, I run BF2 and WOW exceptionally well at high settings.

 

Yeah, that's why I added the note at the bottom. When ranking high end cards, I really only consider 1680x1050, 1600x1200, and 1920x1200. While not all play at those resolutions, in my experience most people who are concerned about the differences in the very ultra high end GPU's are the same people who consider enthusiast gaming to be high-res only.