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    which is the better graphics card

    Discussion in 'Gaming (Software and Graphics Cards)' started by bmx391xmb, Jul 31, 2009.

  1. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    So I'm in the process of looking for a laptop in the $800 range with decent graphics and a mid range processor. Something that i can take to classes (good battery life) and still be able to play games like TF2 and cod4. at the moment I'm torn between these models:

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220559

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157020

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114653

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115592

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114650

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152073


    My main concern is the graphics power. I do enjoy playing games and i don't like low frame rates, so i poise this question. Which of these GPUs is better, the GT 130m, GT 220m, the 9600m GT, or the mobility HD 4650? I've read around quite a bit but haven't seen any real numbers just guys saying yes "card x" is better than "card y" . no frame rates or benchmarks...


    it would be awesome if some one could throw up some graphs and numbers :)
    and even suggest some other laptop models with equivalent or better graphics, thanks!
     
    bmx391xmb, Jul 31, 2009
    #1
  2. pet0sh

    pet0sh Notebook Enthusiast

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    pet0sh, Jul 31, 2009
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  3. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    Yeah notebookcheck has benchmarks, just be sure to tab them so you can see the actual machine(and their specs) concerning those benchmarks(so you can compare). Don't just use their GPU list because that list is inaccurate on many levels.
     
    Melody, Jul 31, 2009
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  4. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    Very good and useful site thanks!!! :)

    So from the looks of it i need to find a laptop with an HD 4650 with GDDR3. I also noticed there was a large difference between certain games. Is this because certain games take more resources from the GPU than CPU and visa versa? or is it just because of the way the 4650 handles shaders and all of the "differentiating" stuff? (By the way what makes the Ati architecture different from the Nvidia chips?) Also does any one know how any of the afore mentioned laptops perform running TF2 and other games or any other laptops within the $800 dollar mark?

    and even on that site, as good as it may be the GT 130m and GT 230m don't have any benchmarks and the GT 220m isn't even on the list, which doesn't surprise me because its not even on Nvidias website...( Nvidia, get your together!)
     
    bmx391xmb, Jul 31, 2009
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  5. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    ATI uses shaders in units of 5 while Nvidia uses unified shaders. Therefore, it's common that ATI has loads more shaders than Nvidia. In terms of effectiveness, it depends on the game as the subdivision of labor of shader units in ATI sometimes works more efficiently or less than Nvidia's unified shaders.

    Oh and the difference in games depends on the engine. Source games favor ATI while Crytek, Unrela and other engines favor Nvidia.
     
    Melody, Jul 31, 2009
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  6. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    So basically all of the HL2 mods like CSS DODS and TF2 and what not will perform better with an ATI card? The the brand you buy depends on the games you want to play? that seems like a very easy way to limit your customers. is there a website that has a list of games and the brand they play best on?
     
    bmx391xmb, Jul 31, 2009
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  7. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    Well it's a question of development. Since each company have different architectures, game programmers will code in a way that sometimes favors one architecture over another. The difference isn't HUGE mind you, but it's there depending on the game and specs. Mostly this will become apparent if your hardware was low end and you barely had the minimum reqs of a game. THEN the architectural advantage would make a significant difference. In general cases it's not really a big deal at all. I wouldn't ever base a purchase on that.

    To illustrate my pint, probably more than half of games have the "Nvidia, the way it's meant to be played" sticker on them, yet I run all of those all flawlessly on an ATI GPU.
     
    Melody, Jul 31, 2009
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  8. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    alright so now it comes down the meat and potatoes question what card would you recommend; the HD 4650, the 9600m GT, the GT 220m, or the GT 130m?
     
    bmx391xmb, Jul 31, 2009
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  9. TevashSzat

    TevashSzat Notebook Deity

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    From what I can gather, the 9600M GT, GT 220M, and GT 130M should roughly have the same performance (may be wrong on the 220M though) so probably the 4650 is the best performance wise.
     
    TevashSzat, Jul 31, 2009
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  10. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    I think the only GT220M is DDR2 though(the one in the newegg Asus is) so it'll underperform any DDR3 or GDDR3 GPU.

    As for performance, the GT130M and the HD4650 should trade blows here and there. I'd look at other features of the 2 machines as the performance difference between those 2 isn't really huge anyways.
     
    Melody, Jul 31, 2009
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  11. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    Alright so is the I'm pretty sure that this laptop is the one i wanna get. any one have any feed back and opinions? any opposing laptops with better or equal value with better or similar specs?

    Theres one thing im worried about. I have read around some more and noticed that the gt 130m comes in 2 configs; one with gddr2 and gddr3. how can you tell with out running GPU-z what your going to get... i don't want to end up with a gddr2 chip when i could have gotten the 4650 with ddr3. also whats with the whole "ddr3" thing on the 4650, shouldn't it be Gddr3? if not then whats the differenc between gddrX and ddrX or is it just a label? does any one know if the aspire comes with Gddr3, gddr2 or is it randomly tossed in there?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 2, 2015
    bmx391xmb, Aug 1, 2009
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  12. tianxia

    tianxia kitty!!!

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    hd4600 series can indeed use ddr3 memory, it's clocks are typically faster than ddr2 but slower than gddr3. this is official.
    of course, it could be a typo and it uses gddr3 rather than ddr3.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 2, 2015
    tianxia, Aug 1, 2009
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  13. neilnat

    neilnat Notebook Evangelist

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    I haven't been able to find confirmation anywhere, but I suspect that since the 130m in the Acer has 1GB of VRAM, it's probably DDR2
     
    neilnat, Aug 1, 2009
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  14. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    If it's not writtne anywhere(neither on the seller or manufacturer's site), you can try and find reviews or benchmarks of the machine and compare those with the DDR2, DDR3 and GDDR3 benchmarks on notebookcheck(be sure to taba nd check the rest of the specs of those machines to get info on possible variations in benchmarks)
     
    Melody, Aug 1, 2009
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  15. Oxyflo

    Oxyflo Notebook Enthusiast

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    The CPU on the laptop your interested in is pretty junk. Be careful not to let it bottleneck your GPU. I've got the 130M and it's a good card that struggles with certain games, but it runs very cool and will probably be the better card in the long run.
     
    Oxyflo, Aug 1, 2009
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  16. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    His CPU is fine and unless he plays an older RTS game or Flight Simulator, the GPU should be the bottleneck before it. Normally newer games which require CPU power are also GPU hungry(Supreme Commander, Empire: Total War etc.) so the GPU will bottleneck anyhow.
     
    Melody, Aug 1, 2009
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  17. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    do you think that the T6500 would bottleneck the GT 130m or the HD 4650? I have that problem going on with my desktop; GTX260 core 216 with one hell of a bad processor

    ohh alright ok so GDDR3 > DDR3 > GDDR2 > DDR2? so if i figure out that the GT 130m has GDDR2 or DDR2 then should i go with the HD 4650 because i know it uses the DDR3?
     
    bmx391xmb, Aug 1, 2009
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  18. Soviet Sunrise

    Soviet Sunrise Notebook Prophet

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    When we are talking about GPU's, we shorthand. For example, GDDR3 and DDR3 are the same thing. Yes, we're lazy like that.
     
    Soviet Sunrise, Aug 1, 2009
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  19. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    @bmx: I don't think it should no. Bottleneck is when one part isn't poweful enough compared to the others. In terms of CPU, games in general aren't too demanding(some games still ask for single core CPUs) so unless your CPU is really that weak compared to your GPU(ex: single core CPU and SLI GPUs), the CPU shouldn't bottleneck before the GPU does except in a few games.

    Oh and btw the order is GDDR3>DDR3>>>DDR2>>GDDR2. GDDR2 is based on the old DDR standard.

    @Soviet: Actually we're talking about genuine DDR3 and DDR2 in this case. To cut costs, companies put in regular memory rather than GDDR memory(video specialized memory) in GPUs so it's normal to find DDR3 and DDR2 in GPUs.
     
    Melody, Aug 1, 2009
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  20. mobius1aic

    mobius1aic Notebook Deity NBR Reviewer

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    Alot of people don't make it clear if they are referring specifically to GDDR3 or DDR3. Even Newegg has a problem with this.
     
    mobius1aic, Aug 1, 2009
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  21. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    Yeah I know, but I was pointing out that it does in fact exist and that we were talking about it in this case(at least I was).
     
    Melody, Aug 1, 2009
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  22. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    Last edited by a moderator: May 5, 2015
    bmx391xmb, Aug 1, 2009
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  23. Kevin

    Kevin Egregious

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    Kevin, Aug 1, 2009
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  24. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    so now to stay on topic and what not you know the whole "which is the better graphics card" thing:


    can some one go ahead and do one of these things... a > b > c > d????
    with the 130m GDDR2 and 3, 9600M GT GDDR3 and 2, and the HD 4650?
     
    bmx391xmb, Aug 1, 2009
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  25. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Hd 4650 Gddr3 > Gt 130m Gddr3 > 9600m Gt Gddr3 > Hd 4650 Ddr2 > Gt 130m Ddr2 > 9600m Gt Ddr2
     
    sgogeta4, Aug 1, 2009
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  26. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    i love you. <3



    but now i have a dilemma...

    i forgot to mention the whole DDR3 thing with the 4650 and even the GT130m, they both seem to have models with just normal DDR3 and DDR2 where would they fall in this inequality comparison?
     
    bmx391xmb, Aug 1, 2009
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  27. neilnat

    neilnat Notebook Evangelist

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    I wouldn't worry about the difference in GDDR3 and DDR3... If it in fact is regular DDR3 and not a typo in each particular circumstance, it still wouldn't make a very big difference.
     
    neilnat, Aug 2, 2009
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  28. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    bmx391xmb, Aug 2, 2009
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  29. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    bmx391xmb, Aug 2, 2009
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  30. sgilmore62

    sgilmore62 uber doomer

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    If you are interested in the Toshiba A505, the BestBuy model has better specs, a backlit keyboard and faster processor than the Newegg model and is $50 less.
     
    sgilmore62, Aug 2, 2009
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  31. sgilmore62

    sgilmore62 uber doomer

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    I would get the BestBuy model for $750 and order the 12volt battery upgrade from Toshibadirect.com.
     
    sgilmore62, Aug 2, 2009
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  32. Kevin

    Kevin Egregious

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    Please learn how to use url tags.
    Acer with 130M

    Toshiba w/ 4650
     
    Kevin, Aug 2, 2009
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  33. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    they're not that hard my friend im just lazy.

    well that didnt work as you can use profanity, even in URLs but you get the idea...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 2, 2015
    bmx391xmb, Aug 2, 2009
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  34. Melody

    Melody How's It Made Addict

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    Yeah but pasting links sometimes doesn't work(they don't for me sometimes) and it's a bit of a pain for us to go looking for those models(especially when the links are abbreviated).
     
    Melody, Aug 2, 2009
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  35. Kevin

    Kevin Egregious

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    That's even worse. You won't get much help with that kind of attitude.

    Anyway, pick a 4650 or GT240M. Have a nice day grasshopper.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 2, 2015
    Kevin, Aug 2, 2009
    #35
  36. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    the processor might be better but the graphics arent as good as the afore mentioned toshiba from new egg or the acer
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 2, 2015
    bmx391xmb, Aug 2, 2009
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  37. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    seemed like you attacked me first... but thank you for the info!!!
     
    bmx391xmb, Aug 2, 2009
    #37
  38. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    alright I've started to use the imbedded links now
     
    bmx391xmb, Aug 2, 2009
    #38
  39. sgilmore62

    sgilmore62 uber doomer

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    You can customize the A505 @ Toshibadirect.com

    I would call a sales person and ask for a quote, got $250 off my Qosmio that way.
     
    sgilmore62, Aug 2, 2009
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  40. Kevin

    Kevin Egregious

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    "Please learn how to use url tags" was just a suggestion to greatly improve the quality of your posts. No need to take it personally.
     
    Kevin, Aug 2, 2009
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  41. bmx391xmb

    bmx391xmb Notebook Enthusiast

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    alright its all good than. just a misunderstanding
     
    bmx391xmb, Aug 2, 2009
    #41