ATI or Nvidea?

Hello all,

I plan on buying a gaming laptop in the near future and was wondering if I could get some opinions that would help me decide if I want to go with Nvidea (SLI config) or Ati (Crossfire config) graphics cards.

 

Well what are the exact setups you are looking at? They can both perform the exact same if set up that way...

 

Some people have strong preferences to one or the other, but there isn't much difference between them. I wouldn't make it a factor in your purchase decision.

 

As I<3RAM said, it depends on what specific cards you're looking at. 3870's in Crossfire will trounce 8700's; 9800's in SLI will beat hybrid (unmatched/paired) crossfire.

 

Personally i'd always go with a nvidia card. Ati are too slow with driver updates.

 

Personally, me too. Just seems to be so much less bugs/issues with nVidia and more support for it, but I guess either is a good choice depending on the setup.

 

how much are you willing to spend will also be a factor.. and what types of laptops that supoprt "gaming SLI/Crossfire" cards is also something to look into. For a list of cards and their specs/3d Marks http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

and for some more info check this thread out.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=302231

 

Well, right now I am leaning towards the Sager NP9262 here are the specs.

SAGER NP9262 Ultimate Custom Laptop (Built on Clevo D900C / D901C)
- 17" WUXGA "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1920x1200)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- Standard Dead Pixel Policy
- ~Intel Core 2 QUAD Q9650 3.0GHz w/ 12MB L2 Cache - 1333MHz FSB
- SLI ENABLED DUAL nVidia 9800M GTX (2) 1,024MB (2,048MB TOTAL) PCI-Express w/GDDR3 Video Cards (User Upgradeable)
- ~ 4,096MB DDR2 800 (2 SODIMMS) Dual Channel Memory (Requires Vista 64-Bit to recognize Full 4GB)
- Standard Finish
- ~Combo 8x8x6x4x Dual Layer DVD +/-R/RW 5x DVD-RAM 24x CD-R/RW Drive w/Softwares
- ~ 250GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300)
- ~ 250GB 7200RPM (Serial-ATA II 300)
- Raid 0-Stripe (Combines primary and secondary hard drive)( (Requires Identical Sized Hard Drives)
- Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/MS Pro Duo/SD/Mini-SD/MMC/RS)
- Internal Bluetooth + EDR
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi Link
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Basic Black Business Case - Included
- Smart Li-ion Battery (12 Cell)
- ~Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit Installed (64&32-Bit CD Included) w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's
- 3 Year Labor* 1 Year Parts Warranty Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Based Toll Free Telephone Tech Support
(Labor Warranty through Xotic PC)

Price= $3854.01

 

If I do decide to go with ATI, here is the rig I'm leaning towards.

OCZ FORCE EXTREME 840 (Built on Flextronics / Arima W840 DI / OCZNBIM17A / W840DI )
- 17" WUXGA "Glare Type" Super Clear Ultra Bright Glossy Screen (1920x1200)
- Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
- 15 Day 0 Dead Pixel Guarantee
- -Intel® QX9300 45nm "Montevina" Core™2 Quad 2.53GHz w/12MB L2 On-die cache - 1066MHz FSB
- CROSSFIRE ATI HD3870 (2) 512MB (1,024MB Total) PCI-Express DDR3 DX10 (User Upgradeable)
- - 4,096MB (2 SODIMMS) DDR3 1066MHz Dual Channel Memory (Requires Vista 64-Bit to recognize Full 4GB)
- Standard Finish
- - Combo Dual Layer SuperMulti 8X DVDRW Drive w/ Software
- - 250GB 7200RPM WD or Seagate (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s)
- - 250GB 7200RPM WD or Seagate (Serial-ATA II 3GB/s)
- Raid 0-Stripe (Combines primary and secondary hard drive)( (Requires Identical Sized Hard Drives)
- Internal 7-in-1 Card Reader (MS/MS Pro/MS Duo/MS Pro Duo/SD/Mini-SD/MMC/RS)
- Integrated Bluetooth® EDR
- Built-in Intel® PRO/Wireless 5300 802.11 a/g/n Wi-Fi Link
- Built in 2.0 Megapixel Camera
- Sound Blaster Compatible 3D Audio - Included
- Carrying Case Optional (Select if desired)
- Smart Li-ion Battery (12 Cell)
- Integrated Fingerprint Reader
- -Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit w/ Drivers & Utilities CD's
- 3 Year Complete Care Full Parts / Labor Warranty - Next Business Day Shipping both ways - Lifetime 24/7 DOMESTIC Telephone Tech Support

Price= $3363

 

This would be the one i'd get personally.

Faster processor and faster gpu

 

Daaang dual 9800M GTX would be bordering 15000 in 3DMark06 and w/ 1GB VRAM over the Crossfire setup GTA4 should look good...and that is one monster quad

 

That's exactly what I was thinking.

 

nvidia has really fallen in prestige if you ask me... manufacturing problems... overheat issues...

plus, ATI cards are better at video decoding, have better image quality for videos, about the same performance, less fequent driver releases and about the same power consumption. Nvidia has digital vibrance, more frequent driver releases and a cooler logo... So, it's apples and bananas... Between the two computers you posted, I'd go for the nvidia powered one...

 

Nvidia is a step ahead of ATI in the notebook department IMO. They own most of the GPUs produced in laptops and most higher end GPUs are ATI. This might change with ATIs 4xxx series coming to laptops, but at the moment they aren't as widespread.

As for differences, it depends on the specifics of which card as said. A 9800MGTX SLI setup will be more powerful than a 3870 setup(as can be noted by the 500$ tag difference lol ).

Also note that some games will perform better on an Nvidia platform then on an ATI and vice-versa.

 

Not been the case for a while now, look at the recent DXVA green screen debacle.

 

In terms of brute performance perhaps, but ATI has had a nice breakthrough with price/performance ratio recently.

Unless we're literally speaking of the highest end cards(ex: GTX 280 x2), normally an Nvidia card which does something can be found in an ATI counterpart which costs significantly less(at least where I live). That much is already a point on ATI's part.

It's really a push & pull thing between both of them, just like Intel and AMD have. Some people will argue Intel always had the advantage and some will argue Nvidia always had the advantage, but the presence of the other promotes competition and improvement, even if a company DOES have the advantage, so the market prospers in that sense If ATI was no threat to Nvidia they would see no need to constantly improve their products.

And as I said, some games favor one brand than another. Source games(such as CS or Half-Life) have been confirmed to perform better on ATI cards for example(probably due to OpenGL) while Crysis has been confirmed to mesh better with Nvidia.

 

apart from performance, I can compare the last 2 mobile graphic cards I used directly, one's from ati, one from nvidia (radeon mobile 9700 / geforce 9600m gt).

nvidia: frequent driver updates, dedicated mobile driver page (even tho it's ofc external) laptopvideo2go.com, very few driver options, no "video overlay mode"

ati: seldom driver updates, no separate way to get actual drivers, but many and useful options on them, including a "video overlay mode"

I would have chose ati for my new notebook if only it was available for a proper model. the video overlay mode I talk about is: you start a video, windowed, on your main screen, and it directly mirrors in full screen on your 2ndary screen (eg, an hdtv). nvidia removed this option from their drivers without further explanation. I'm really really annoyed that my 2004 acer notebook offers me a crucial option my brand-new vaio has no way of enabling.