dell 9100 w/ati 9800 pro vs. 9300 w/nvidia 6800

I have a Dell 9100 with ATI 9800 pro 256mb, P4 3.2Ghz with HT. My boss has a semi-bugged/broken 9300 with Nvidia 6800 256mb, Pentium M 1.66Ghz.

This Dell 9300 has been sitting unused for months, because I guess it gets the blue screen of death once a awhile. My boss is the kind of person who will not bother trying to fix anything, because he can afford to buy another. I however have a bit more concern for things going to waste.

So I am going to attempt fixing it, since I have noticed parts for this laptop on ebay are fairly cheap. A am also interested in learning the inners of laptops and like a good project.

My question is about the difference in performance in these GPU's and CPU's. will I see a large improvement in gaming with the Dell 9300 over my 9100? My 3.3ghz p4 w/ht, if im not mistaken, is a desktop CPU, and runs very hot, but has some oomph. Please correct me if I am wrong. How do my p4 and the Pentium M cpu compare? And is the nvidia 6800 step above the ati 9800pro?

I lost track of performance info after I bought my laptop over 3 years ago. The pentium M was taking over in next generation laptops, so I assume it's performance is a step above.

Thanks in advance!

 

Your P4 is faster than the PM. That PM is around the speed of a 2.6GHz P4, depending on what generation it is (I'm assuming Banias, but I don't remember exactly).

The Go6800 is a noticeable step up from the 9800, with the same bandwith and about 17% more powerful all around (shading power and fill rates).

 

Yeah I kind of figured that the P-M was aactually a step down. I have seen a 2.26 ghz P-M 780 for sale on Ebay, which I believe is the most powerful P-M made. So what is the conversion here. Would it be 3.26 p4 equivlent?

 

Which P-Ms you can upgrade to depends on which version it originally came with. If it was Banias (130nm, Intel 855 chipset) then you can only upgrade to Dothan (90nm Intel 9125 chipset) if Dell released a BIOS update allowing Dothan compatability. If it IS Banias and you cannot upgradeto Dothan the best you can get is 1.7GHz.

Dothan has 2 versions, 400MHz FSB and 533MHz FSB. Dothan differs from Banias in the manufacturing process, the optional 533MHz FSB and it has 2MB L2 cache over Banias 1MB L2 cache. The fastest Dothan released was the 2.266GHz Pentium-M 780 assuming you can take 533MHz FSB versions (Banias designed machines may not be able to even with a BIOS update) and 2.1GHz Pentium-M 765 for 400MHz FSB versions.

 

Yeah. You need to find out what chipset it has. If it is a Sonoma machine, and you can get the 2.266GHz PM, then that would be at least equivalent to a 3.3GHz P4, probably more like a 3.5GHz P4 on average.

 

6800 tromps on a 9800...

6800 is still within minimum spec for modern games. 9800 is not.

 

I wouldn't waste money on a new CPU though... That Pentium M is plenty for any game you throw at it.

 

Well I am pretty sure the 9300 supports 533fsb. The 2.266ghz P-M I am looking at is being sold for 9300 or Gen 2 xps, which is basically the same system, minus a bios update, higher power source, and gpu heatsink bracket able to handle 6800 ultra/7800gtx. Found a thread showing how to convert the 9300 to a xps gen 2, in just a few steps.

Well thanks for all the help. I guess I will try and fix this thing. Too bad I cant just swap the parts onto my 9100 for a frankinbook.