Envy 15 (ATI 5830) vs Envy 17 (ATI 5850)

In light of the return of BCB, I might purchase another envy to compare against the envy 14 then return whichever one I dont like. So my question is, does the 5850 perform a lot better than the 5830? If no, then I think I will go with size over minor performance gains.

 

That's a great idea, I would love to know the results of your testing - will you post your benchmarks for us here?

Here is are reviews of the 5850:

Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850

and the 5830:
Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5830

 

I originally bought an Envy 17, but returned it for the Envy 15. The E17's heat issues outweigh the small difference in performance, in my opinion.

 

Re: the screenshots of purported problems. Unless I'm missing something, I don't see how a screenshot taken with the Snipping tool would show any screen defects. You'd have to take a picture of the screen with a proper camera. The Snipping tool just records what's in video RAM, not how the screen actually looks.

 

5850m >> 5830m

The GDDR5 makes a huge difference when running at 1920x1080. The GDDR5 on the 5850m provides over 60 GB/s memory bandwidth whereas the overclocked 5830 has around 25-28 GB/s.

The 5830m can play games at 1920x1080. However, you will experience stuttering with some games. This is because the 5830m (GPU is the same as 5850m) is starved for data because of the memory bandwidth. Turn on anti-aliasing and you will see a bigger difference between the 5850m and 5830m.

On Dirt 2 with everything on high, 1920x1080, and 4xMSAA, I was getting over 44 FPS. The 5830m was reported to get around 22-30 FPS (depending on overclock).

Benchmarks for comparison between the 5850m and 5830m are really lacking.

On another note, the Envy 17 has edge to edge glass. Thus, you can rest assured that the bezel will not get scared. On the Envy 15, the bezel is plastic. Many have reported the bezel on the Envy 15 gets scratched easily just by closing the screen. Furthermore, the Envy 17 has the better webcam and does not suffer the purple coloring of the cam on the Envy 15.

Many have reported that the Envy 17 has heat issues. The Envy 17 does get hotter than the Envy 15. However, I found that giving the left side vent of the Envy 17 enough ventilation dropped temperatures around 5-6C. Using a notebook cooler dropped the hard drive temperature and made the palm rests much more comfortable to use.

The Envy 15 has all its ports on the right side. If you are right handed, you might have a hard time trying to avoid hitting anything you plug in. Of course you can use a separate keyboard and mouse to avoid this all together.

Personally, I feel that 1920x1080 is too high a resolution for a 15" notebook. 1920x1080 is just right for a 17".