UPDATED - The Mobile Graphics Card Info Page - Most GPU Qs answered

-What about ATI 2300HD? What is the difference with X2300?
Asus A8Jr & HP Compaq 6910p have X2300 but Sony Vaio CR has HD2300

-Which 14.1" laptop has GF8600GT? I've only found 8400GT but not 8600

Thanks!

 

The X2300 is merely a repackaged X1300.

The HD 2300 is based on the new architecture I believe but is still only DirectX 9.0c.

There is a Zepto with one but that's the only laptop I know of. I believe it is the 6224W.

 

ATI HD2xxx cards have HDMI support and allow you to play HD DVD and Blue-Ray

There is only Zepto 6224W so far, but for an uncertain yet list of the 13"-14" laptops with at least 8400GT read here or click on the red link in my signature

 

Thanks
I've been searching ATI Web site and find specification of both cards
http://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityradeonx2300/specs.html
http://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityradeonhd2300/specs.html
and they are very similar, both are DX9.0c (pixel shader 3)
HD2300 only adds

So it is just a X2300 with better video decoding & HDMI support (and perhaps different memory system)?
Of course we should wait to some review

Thanks fr the link Jaymz. BTW have you edited your signature?

 

I don't understand.. should I ?

 

No, sorry, just that i couldn't found your signature, but it is in your profile, I didn't checked it

 

The HD2300 should be more powerful than the x2300, though not by too much. It's also not DX10, which is strange since every other HD card in ATI's lineup is. In the end, I think we need to wait to see what the HD2300 will be, as right now it's specifications don't seem to make sense in terms of where it is in ATI's lineup.

 

Yes odin243 according to specifications X2300 and HD2300 are too similar, so I don't see the point of havig booth chips in ATI portfolio

 

Kosh, signatures are under everyone's post !
All those colored links under my post are in my signature. You just click'em

 

Make sure that you have the "Show Signatures" box checked:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/profile.php?do=editoptions

 

Thanks!!! I ddn't realize that!!
Box Checked now!

 

Chaz, who do you think you are, Jango Fett ?

 

Which would be better for direct x9 gaming, in your opinion, the 6800 Go or the 8600 GT. I know the 6800 is old technology, but i would like to see how its performance would stand up to the mid range 8 series.
thanks

 

I don't know that I've ever seen the two compared directly in a real world gaming situation, but judging by benchmarks the G1s should be maybe 150% better in current games and up to 200% better in future games.

 

Boba Fett.

The 8600M-GT should outperform the Go6800 fairly easily as posted.

 

Well it outperforms 7800 easily which leads to the conclusion that 6800 is not even a case here !

 

The 8600mGT doesn't easily outperform the Go7800.

 

ok ok professor.. you may cut "easily" and my sentence is still true !

 

That might not be true either...
The 3DMark score of the 8600GT seems too good to be true for many...
Any real-life benches ?

 

No, so far in this gen and last gen DX9 games, the Go7800 still has the 8600GT beat. The 8600GT's drivers are optimized for 3dmark and next-gen game engines, so as time goes on the 8600GT will probably become the preferred choice, but right now the 7800 still has more raw power, and can easily beat out the 8600GT at ultra high resolution and details (e.g. WUXGA and 8xAA, etc.)

mjutaba, there are a whole bunch of real life gaming benches for the 8600GT. Look in Ken's thread, I think it's linked in the sticky thread on this forum.

 

I meant about 8600GT catching up to 7800GTX in real-life benches.

 

Oh, I guess that's true. If you looked hard enough you could probably convince some forum members with the card to run the FEAR and Quake Beta benches, then we could tell for sure.

 

Anyone know if the Asus C90 is going to have anything better then an 8600GT that you can upgrade to?

 

Does anyone know where to get old mobile Catalyst drivers?

 

No one is sure yet, a card would have to run as cool as the 8600GT otherwise it might overheat.

If you google the specific version your looking for I'm sure you will find it.

 

FileHippo has most of them.

 

patriot, i dont think you have to worry about a card being as cool as the 8600 gt in the c90 because of the 4 huge fans in the back.

 

Still, I'm not sure the C90 could take much more heat, based on the specs at least.

If it ever gets released as MXM-II, I'd bet the HD2600XT could work in the Asus C90.

 

I've searched the forum, but there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer, just conflicting synthetic benchmark (or maybe I just can't make sense of it all).

Which is the more powerful laptop when it comes to gaming between a TL-50 with a Go 6150, and a T7100 with a X3100? both have up to 256MB of shared memory.
What about driver issues?

 

The T7100 with the x3100 will be faster for everything, including gaming.

 

neither will perform in an acceptable way for modern games.

 

and thats the bottom line

 

Well, it depends on your definition of "acceptable." Both cards will give playable framerates in FEAR and Oblivion, and will preform even better in older games.

 

Thanks. I'll go with that if I can.

CS:S is modern enough for me
I won't have much time for games anyway.

 

Hi,

In your article you said this about virtual memory:

"Right-click My Computer, Properties, Advanced tab, under “Performance” hit Settings, Advanced tab. Now under “Virtual Memory”, change it to 1.5 or 2GB."

on the windows dialog box it simply states: "is an area on the hard disk that windows uses as if it were RAM"

I don't quit get that.

Can you explain exactly what virtual memory is and does?

thanks

And by the way this is a very useful forum.

 

When you launch software (including the OS itself), it's loaded into the main memory (RAM). But you often don't have enough in laptops, and if you have an integrated GPU, it's also taking some memory.

So you can set your OS to use a part of your hard drive as a if it was memory - it will load programs in it. Unfortunately, the hard drive is the slowest component in a computer, even more so in a laptop. So the more RAM you have, the less virtual memory you need to assign, and your HDD is accessed less often (=faster and better battery).

On default, Windows manages how big your virtual memory is. But it's commonly accepted (that means I have no proof, and haven't seen any ) that setting a definitive value (max=min) improves performance.

Better yet, if your hard drive is fresh, you can create a 2GB partition FIRST then do what you want with the rest, and use those 2GB as virtual memory. Since that partition is created first, it's on the ege of the plates of the HDD, which means it's accessed faster.
Again, got no proof on performance gains (personally I'm too lazy to do this one ).

 

Very well said thiru.

Could you post a screenshot of that window? Press Alt + PrtSc and then go into Paint and press Ctrl + V to paste it. Save it as a .png and upload it here.

 

here's the screen shot. Thanks for the good explanation thiru.

 

Chaz, have you considered adding that the best in class graphics for a 10.6" is the Go7300?
Also, though it's not major, the asterisk doesn't really need to be on the 13.3" now.

 

hello chez,
just wanted to drop a post here to thank you for your very helpfull and informitive piece on vid. cards. i was looking online trying to find a comparision between the ATI x1800 and the nvidia 7950 gtx. i found that here in plain english. thanks man. i feel much better 'cas i have the 7950 gtx.

 

Is that 360MB set by default? Windows usually puts it around 1.5 times your memory size... which is often the wrong value (cuz if you have 256MB, 384 of virtual memory isn't enough in WinXP, and if you have 2gig of memory you practically don't need virtual memory).

Well anyway just set it to customize, and set the minimum to the same value as maximum. 1.5gig or 2.

 

Thats a good idea; I'm going to increase my VM.

 

My 8600GT on my inspiron 1520 gets pretti hot fairly quickly, is there any way to deal with this? I keep having to shift my laptop over to the right bit by bit to disperse the heat xD

 

Recommend to use a notebook cooler.

the best out there is the Zalman ZM-NC1000

goes for $50

 

I have a problem with gaming and it has occurred just recently. Whenever I play a game ( Warcraft 3 or HL2) in the middle of it randomly my computer freezes. This has been constantly happening since a couple months ago. I have updated all possible software and drivers ( I have ATI so I cant get drivers independently) and still have this issue. Any ideas to solve my problem?

 

What card do you have and at what settings are you running the games at? If your computer just freezes up it might just be more than a gpu problem...

 

I have an ATI Radeon X1300 (64MB), I run War 3 on highest settings(have done this before without a problem) and HL2 on lowest settings.

 

Going to have to disagree here. I had a dv2530 with the T7100 and X3100, and the compared to my old laptop with a Turion 64 X2 and GeForce 6150, I'd say the old one was better for games. Nowhere near as fast in Windows, though.

I took it back and got a Sony FZ11L for the same money, which is tons better but doesn't have all the nifty media center features.

 

Check the cooling guide, it sounds like an overheating issue. Getting a notebook cooling pad would probably solve your problem.

 

Is it possible that Dreamscene can overheat the graphic card and cause it to shut down?