T61: Nvidia Quadro vs. ATi X1400 128mb

What's the difference? Which one is better?

 

We need to wait.The benchmarks are not out yet.

 

The Quadro NVS 140m in the new T61 is DirectX 10, while the X1400 is DX9. I read somewhere on this forum that the NVS 140 is expected to be equivalent to or a little less than the X1600 (which is in the neighborhood of twice as powerful as the X1400). The Quadro is a business class graphics card, not designed for gaming.

 

From PCmag.com

Quadro NVS 140m: 3DMark06 1,826
ATI X1400: 3DMark06 928

 

The benchmarks for the Quadro NVS 140m is similar to the 7600 or X1600 models, if I'm correct.

 

I think an X1600 is 256MB and would perform better than this 140M (128MB), although I could be wrong.

 

Quadro NVS 140m: 3DMark06 1,826
ATI X1400: 3DMark06 928
ATI X1600: 3DMark06 1800

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM0MSwxNywsaGVudGh1c2lhc3Q=

3DMark scores mean squat. A card with 1600 more points actually performs worse in all games tested.

However, still agree that the NVS 140M would perform better than the X1600/X1700 series. Plus you get HD decoding and DX10 support, and (potentially) lower power consumption.

 

If I'm to game not really recent games (Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed, Most Wanted), GTA San Andreas, Toca Race Driver 3, Medieval Total War II. Would the new GMA integrated with Santa Rosa systems handle well those games in comparison with the discrete graphic chips Thinkpads T42p had (128MB ATI FIREGL T2)?

 

That's ... not true. The Quadro NVS 140M is built on a completely different architecture than the Radeon X1400. Business-class graphics cards aren't THAT much less powerful than their consumer cousins.

And yes, for practical purposes, Quadro NVS 140M = Geforce Go 7600 running at 300/350.

 

The Quadro is certainly a step up from the previous ATI Radeon X1400.
Keep in mind, the Thinkpad is targeted for business users, however it should be able to game fairly well.

 

Hmm, well I respectfully disagree. I stand by my comment that using 3DMark scores to suggest how well a card performs in games is not something worth trusting in. How can a card that scores 9100 3dmark06 points allow higher in game settings (higher resolution, higher AA/AF, and other settings) in 5 different games than a card that scores 10700 3dmark06 points? I do not trust 3dmark06 scrores as gaming benchmarks.

Yes, I agree business class cards aren't less powereful than their consumer cousins. I'd even say they are equal. The difference is not in their power, but how they handle games. They are optimized for 3d rendoring, not gaming. They still handle games well, but not as good as a consumer gaming card, although I've heard they can if you load different drivers.

 

The dirty secret behind the Quadro line is that it's the EXACT SAME THING. The drivers are optimized for accuracy instead of performance, and some additional features are enabled, but the only difference in the actual silicon is that the firmware is different.

Not that you'll ever get NVIDIA to admit that.

 

but then there is no way to change the firmware?
how about using different drivers?

 

I've heard some people say they have no problem loading consumer drivers, and others say they could not get it to work. That is the risk you take. Make sure you can get the drivers you want to load before you buy it.

 

this is one laptop i'm considering to purchase. Can anyone tell me if they know for a fact that the quadro 140m will perform almost exactly the same as the go7600. If this is true, I can go ahead and purchase this knowing that I will be able to play many modern games and use 3d studio max.

 

i think we will have to wait a bit longer untill more people get their hands on the t61, most ppl are still waiting for lenovo to ship

 

you're damn right.

 

This is true, however you haven't tackled the main problem - the 140M is based off the 8400M (not the 7600 as FREN mentioned earlier) and it's widely known that despite great 3D Mark scores by the lower end 8xxx series, they're nowhere near as good in real world gaming.

That's what something like this review points out:

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/nvidia_geforce_8600_gts_preview/page5.asp

As you can see, in 3D Mark 06, the 8600GTS does very well, beating out the X1950 Pro by upwards of 20%. Unfortunately, in the vast majority of actual games, it gets outperformed by the X1950 Pro. Only in a few cases (very shader dependent games such as Oblivion) does it manage to outperform the X1950 Pro.

So while the NVS 140M may look quite good in 3DMark 06 compared to the X1600, I don't think it'll be able to outperform that card in actual gaming performance.

Then again, you do get DX10 support and Purevideo HD if they didn't disable that in their 8400 series.

 

Absolutely - the lower-end 8-series cards are better at running complex shaders but is limited in memory bandwidth and other factors.

This was a deliberate design choice by NVIDIA, because games are getting more shader-heavy.

Apparently, though, the NVS 140M/8400GS overclocks well, which is a plus. And I don't think that it will have any trouble beating the x1600.

That said, it probably will have trouble against a 7600-based part. But lower power-consumption, PureVideo 2, and DirectX 10 make up for that in my book.

 

what the ...

 

X1400 is a little bit better than Q NVS 140M, see the following links:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVidia-Quadro-NVS-140M.4216.0.html

 

Don't chose ATi chipset, or you are going to go crazy with ATi driver.
I am pretty sure.

 

hi,

i agree totally wiht trinphone, chuck232, mryerse.

First: DX10 can´t be an argument, for using NV140, because it is to slow
for playing DX10 Games.

Second: Nvidia driver since vista never leaves the beta states and are often not stable. Ati releases one driver package a month.

Third: Nvdia is great in advertising, especially see the low cost models.
Looks good in Benchmarks (a lot of people rely on it), but poor in reality!!

Greets