x1400 or FireGL V5200 in Thinkpad T60

Happy Holidays, folks. I'm hoping the more technologically learned out there can help.

I am facing a new laptop purchase, and am trying to decide between GPU options in Lenovo's Thinkpad T60/T60P line.

Computer's tasks- primarily Photoshop, secondarily gaming. (In the next year or so I'd like to play Riddick, Prince of Persia, and if possible, FEAR).

I reviewed Chaz's excellent GPU sticky post, but didn't see the 256MB ATI Mobility FireGL V5200 in there... I know it's primarily for CAD and the like, and I remember reading a while back that it's not a "gaming GPU.". How does it perform in Photoshop and games? I probably do not need to run the games at absolute highest settings.

Looks like I have two choices with these Thinkpads- ATI Mobility x1400 HyperMemory, or the 256MB ATI Mobility FireGL V5200.

Which to choose?

(The other computers I'm considering- HP nc8340, and Asus A8Js. Both have better cards, I know, but the Flexview screen on the ThinkPad is a big plus, and the build quality... so I don't want to make the purchase decision on the GPU alone. Gaming is secondary, not primary.)

Thanks very much, and Happy Holidays!

brandon

 

The X1400 would probably be better since its more optimized for gaming and since you apparently don't need the optimizations for CAD work that the FireGL provides.

 

Hi I have an ATI X1600 - excellent for games, the X1400 is probably a bit slower.

I have one major problem with the X1600 though: I am programming a professional OpenGL application and some things simply don't work on the X1600. Because of the drivers, no other reason. It's a gaming card. I would think those things would work in the FireGL no problem.

You have to realize that games use only a very small subset of OpenGL, so gaming cards focus on implementing those and optimize the heck out of these few features to Doom3, FEAR and whatever run fast. But they don't care one bit about being standards compliant or implementing the whole OGL standard as well as they could.

NVidia seems to do a lot better in this regard - the feature I need is large textures, over 2000x2000. On the X1600, that just doesn't work. On a 3 year old NVidia GeForce Go - an ancient beast - it works!

Anyway, I would think the FireGL can do that too. This is the difference between a gaming card and a pro card. The pro cards also tend to be a lot slower in games.

Af for Photoshop: The GPU really does not matter one bit for that. Is all CPU, at least for now. But you will need a proper GPU for Vista.

 

Depends on which GPU is more powerful. Even if a CAD GPU is more optimized for practical work, its sometimes better to go with the MORE powerful solution as either piece of hardware still works within Direct X 9.

 

The v5200 is nearly identical to the x1600. It's just different drivers and marketing.

The v5200 would be better than the x1400 for gaming.

 

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I will not be doing any CAD or similar. Photoshop, basic wordprocessing, and some gaming is pretty much it. If only Thinkpads had an x1600 card option!

Anyone else out there wish to share their thoughts and experiences, please do so. I greatly appreciate it.

Holiday best,

brandon

 

As admlan said, the V5200 is based on the same chipset as the X1600, so will give you 90-95% of the performance of the X1600 in games. It beats the X1400 in everything bar battery life. Go for it.

 

Exactly what I was going to say!