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

Ok, in the Mobile graphics card thread, it ranks the 8600m > 9600m. I've read places where it says 8600 is better, others say the 9600 is superior. Notebookcheck ranks the 9600GS as better, but I'd just like to know which is it, finally.

 

Yeah i am getting a 7811fx for cheap from someone. So i am selling my 6860fx.

If anyone is interested please PM me.

 

they both have 32 unified shaders...

the 8600m GT has a 475 core speed, a 950 shader speed, and a 700 memory speed.

the 9600m GS has a 430 core speed, a 1075 shader speed, and an 800 memory speed.

from this, i'd gather they are pretty similar, and outperform each other in different things. according to notebookcheck.com the 9600m GS is better, but i highly doubt you would notice, since the 9600m GS is a on smaller architecture, 65nm vs 80nm, it would probably perform better in a notebook.

 

something i overlooked... gddr3 vs gddr2.. i'm not sure how these pertain to graphics cards.. on benchmarks it still seems the 9600m GS is the way to go. maybe someone else can spread some light on these differences, as i presume you cant just simply compare the speeds.

 

Notebookcheck is inaccurate often, so take whatever is on that site with a grain of salt.

BTW - it's DDR2, not GDDR2; GDDR2 was phased out a long time ago. However, yes it does make a significant difference whether a card has DDR2 or GDDR3. The latter will allow for much higher memory speeds and thus improved performance.
I would go for the 9600 for the sole reason that it's supposedly not affected by all the problems the GeForce 8 series had with the defective chips. You're not likely to notice a difference between the cards performance-wise.

 

So 9800m gts is 15% better than 8800m gts. Or will the diffrence be less noticeable.

 

Hi: I'm looking at buying either the Vaio Z or SR. The biggest problem is I can't decide between the Vaio Z's Graphics featuring the Nvidia Geforce 9300M GS with 256mb dedicated video ram or the SR's graphics having the ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3470 with 128mb dedicated video ram. Which graphics card is better for playing games, I know that neither are 'real' gamer cards but between the two which one would run games smoother? Also, could either run games such as Crysis(probably lowest settings), Gears of War, Call of Duty 4/5, World of Warcraft, any games like that? If so which card would run those games better?

Thanks for your help.

 

For the 3470, check out this gaming thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=295866&highlight=3470

 

Have a qestion please!
In the faq section you stated that a card with dedicated memory 512 will not work better than thesame 256 memory card if the memory bus is 128 Bit.
But I am thinking to buy a laptop with NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT, which have 512 GDDR and 128 Bit bus, So are they missleading us with these extra memory?

Also, it is stated in the laptop sps that the Video RAM is Up to 1791 MB total graphics memory with 512 MB dedicated. What does this mean? Can I buy chips and add them to the card and increase performance, the same way we deal with Rams?

Last question: in HP Pavilion DV5 1060e is the card GDDR2 or GDDR3, I can't find out?
And is that card capable of playing all the games till Dec 2008?

 

In a nutshell, yes they are. But, they're not lying to you though. They're saying the GPU has 512mb, which is true. Nowhere did they say the GPU can use all 512mb efficiently. They are on the other hand making you believe that the more VRAM they pump into a GPU, the better the GPU will be.

VRAM is more or less mostly a gimmick by companies to make multiple versions of a same GPU even if the said GPU can't handle all the VRAM. After all, VRAM is hardly the most important thing in a GPU, yet that is the thing you usualyl see on the box. Cocre clocks, shader pixels and other such things are either on the side or badck of the box normally and they matter just as much(if not more) than VRAM.

If I gave a weak GPU such as the HD4500 1Gb of VRAM, it'd still suck because all its other components are bad. VRAM is not always the most relevant thing in a GPU.

Well let's assume for the sake of this example that the GPU could use all 512mb. That means that it'll have 512mb of memory dedicated to itself to perform its tasks. If ever though its needs exceed 512mb, the GPU will start eating system memory(RAM or other such things). Of course, the memory it "borrows" from the computer is far less efficient than its dedicated one(which is optimized for GPU use) so it's better to have an actual decent amount of VRAM nonetheless.

The "up to 1791mb of shared memory" represents the maximum amount of memory the GPU can use(considering both dedicated and what it eats up afterwards).

HP uses GDDR2 versions of the 9600M GT in its notebooks. The 9600M GT is currently one of the most powerful mid-range cards on the market and is also among the most widespread. It should be able to play games from this year and the next probably if you tweak the settings properly.

 

Thank you Forever Melody!
You were more than helpful to me!
Now I am going to study the available Laptops in the market in light of the quality of the GPU not the quantity of the VRAM. Because I have ignored some Good laptops just because it has 256 VRAM.
Thank God, I have travelled today for 250 Km to Buy the Pavilion DV5 1060, but I didn't find it in the store. Here the market is sollowed by Dell and Toshiba, which are very poor in Gpu!

 

For those with experience with the Go 6150 card, could you tell me the best driver I should get in terms of overall performance and stability?

Thanks.

 

Is the 9400M GS planning on being released for any other notebooks or is it exclusively made for Apple Macbook Pros only?

 

At least Dell is expected to use it on its new XPS lineup.

 

had a question .. how does the 9800m gts fare against a single HD3870 given other specs are the same?

 

about the same... the GTS might have a slight lead, but not significant.

 

I have a question, I know it might belong in a different forum, but it should be easy to answer- Is there any single notebook GPU that can handle Crysis at high settings at say, 1680 x 1050, and have it playable (25 fps or more)? Or is that something only achievable with SLI?

The review on that Toshiba notebook with 8600M-GT's in SLI was quite interesting- I never knew that SLI has to be supported by the game- so I figured it probably is better to have a single card that's more powerful than 2 less powerful cards in SLI (unless of course you have something like 2 8800M-GTX's in SLI, in which case even a single one would be able to run just about everything fine (excluding Crysis, of course ).

 

Correct, it's always better to have one faster single card than two slower weaker ones.

The only GPU capable of playing Crysis at high at 1680x1050 is the GeForce 9800M-GTX, which is isolated to a select few notebooks. The Sager NP5796, NP9262 have it. I forget if anyone else offers it.

BTW - thanks for reading the stickies and posting in a relevant thread. You picked the right place to ask your question.

 

Chaz:
Where they not the settings you played crysis on your desktop at with an 8800 GTX?(high@1680x1050)
Is the 9800m GTX really that powerfull? I thought it was around the same performance as the 8800 GT

 

i am considering going the barebone route to save money but i am kinda slows down on considering a video card.

my specs thus far will be
pt9500 cpu 2.53ghz
4gig of mem
video card????not sure which to get
320 hd.

considering which card to buy will help me play games. i am trying to keep
the amount to 2100 to 2200 bucks.

 

i'd go with the Nvidia card due to better driver support and better games compatibility (GTA IV anyone?).

PS: which barebone are you building your system on?

 

The Nvidia 9800 GTS is a superior card. The new ATI 48x0 would beat it though.

 

do you mean the 9800m GTS?

there wont be much difference, I would lean towards the 3870 on this one.

Also just so you know, the mobile 4xxx series could be released early next year, so maybe hold out for a bit longer to see if that will be confirmed?

 

barebone as in you add to the notebook thru a site...example RK computer

 

The Mobility 3870 should more powerful in this case.

 

I would go with the 9800m gts. It is slightly better and has better drivers support.

 

I had an old GPU which is ATI Mobility X700.I want to ask how big is the performance gap between 64 MB and 128 MB ATI Mobility of X700??Does the 64 MB X700 still can play the latest game?what will be the difference between those two cards when play the latest games??

 

the GPU is what counts... the size of the videomemory wont do anything really.

Example: X700 64mb is still equal to X700 128mb in performance... memory size does not matter.

 

I keep getting amazed at my video card - quadro NVS 140m. It runs at 650/950 core/memory and gets 2423 3DMark06 marks (64bit bus, 128MB DDR3)

so I play games pretty fine with it, no lower than 1024/768 with mid/high details ..

Runs modern games fine, lol

 

So not much difference when come to game play right???Most of the games need more gpus rather than memory??

 

What kind of situation that video memory is crucial??

 

High resolution and heavy texture usage.

 

no difference in gameplay...

correct. games depend on the GPU the most... always will be.

like said above, only in high res textures... which wont matter if the GPU cannot even drive the game.

 

Thanks Gophn and TRF-Inferno for the information. For 1280 x 800 resolution,does it consider as high resolution?If playing in 1280x 800 resolution will make any difference to the 64 MB and 128 MB X700 graphic cards??

 

Outstanding informative write up Chad. Thanks for taking the time.

 

I nominate this thread for a sticky!

 

I could say this thread really informative and i had learnt lots of thing from here.Well done.

 

Not that I haven't read through most of the threads over here... but still just want to confirm my doubts...

Ok.. I have HP Pavilion DV9700t CTO... will following specs

Intel T9300 2.5Ghz w/ 6mb L2 Cache running on Intel PM965 chipset...
With Nvidia 8600m GS 512mb video card...

When I used Everest to pull up the system information... It showed me that the 8600m GS was connected through PCIe x16 connection... I believe its a MXMII connection.. so cant I replace it with 9600m GT as an upgrade?

Anyone with HP 9700T is it do able?

UPDATE:
nvm... I just read that HP has a soldered the chip on mobo.. so no way of getting at it... Thanx... Getting a Alienware next time

 

SLI ENABLED DUAL nVidia 9800M GTX (2) 1,024MB (2,048MB TOTAL) PCI-Express w/GDDR3 Video Cards

or

CROSSFIRE ATI HD3870 (2) 512MB (1,024MB Total) PCI-Express DDR3 DX10??

 

Cost for performance: ATI
Best Performance Overall (with no care for cost): Nvidia.

 

Which laptop is this for? Because if it's user upgradeable it's very likely that you could put mobile 4850/70's in it (once they are released in a month or two) and those should be able to outperform 9800M GTXs for cheaper.

 

obviously he's considering either Sager np9262 or OCZ Whitebook.

i'd say go for the nvidia cards if you have the dough.

 

Yeah looking at those two comps and that's what it comes down to right?

 

OCZ Whitebook is (AFAIK) confirmed to be upgradable to the HD 4850 and HD 4870 once they're out.

 

The Nvidia will outperform the ATI setup by a significant margin, but it also costs a buttload more money. I'd say wait for the Mobile ATI HD4xxx series and see how they match the 9800M GTX SLI in terms of pricing and performance.

 

When come to hypermemory,let say 256 MB dedicated memory vs 256 MB hypermemory.Will there be any significance in performance when come to game play??

 

What do you think of this graphic card: NVIDIA GeForce 9200M GE

what kind of games you can play on that?

what range is this? A, B, C, D or E?

A. Integrated Cards
B. Low-End Cards
C. Mid-Range Cards
D. Performance Cards
E. High-End Cards

 

I think its a low-end. But it might be an IGP.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=299785

Most games will play on low settings at a lower resolution.

 

Hi,

Was wondering about the real life difference in these two GPU's in terms of game performance. Found two laptops for roughly around the same price...however one has a 9500M GS (512 MB with DDR2) and the other 9600M GS (256 MB with DDR3).
I was looking at a previous topic where it listed the cards performance along with some of the latest games and the 9500 was just below the 9600. However 9600GS with DDR3 wasn't listed. I'm just asking this because the laptop with the 9500M GS has better looks and better screen, so if there isn't a big difference then I would definitely go for the 9500 one. Could someone please let me know the difference? For any further reference here are the two laptops:

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Samsung_R560_Laptop_NP-R560-AS02UK/version.asp?PID=749

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_6920G_Gemstone_Blue_Laptop_LX.APQ0X.657/version.asp

Thanks