VAIO E Series - Which GPU to get ??

The UK SonyStyle site has two options :-

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5470 512Mb = an extra £50

ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 1Gb = an extra £100

The best price I've found for a nicely specified E is £713 from these guys = Laskys

Unfortunately it only comes with the lower end GPU !!

Is the 5650 GPU worth paying more for, as it would mean having to CTO from Sony pushing the price to about £900 !!

 

I vote for the 5650. I hear it gives pretty good results as noted in the E series owners thread and it supports DX11. The 5470 if I recall actually performs much lower than last year's Ati HD 4650 in Notebookcheck's website GPU rankings. Did you check the screen resolutions for both models? The 5650 should have the full HD screen. Maybe that's why there is a larger price increase

 

I guess it really depends on your usage. If you want a laptop with a decent gaming/3D performance, then go with the ATI 5650. Otherwise the ATI 5470 might be enough for you.
Another point to consider is screen, I heard the fullHD screen is much better than the standard resolution screen (I can't really verify this as I never compare them side by side)

 

I'd go for the 5650.

 

I will go also 5650 for better gaming capability. If money is not a constraint why not.

 

Thanks Dudes! Yes, I was planning on getting the Full HD display - for less than £40 extra it's a no-brainer! I wonder why Sony even bother offering the lower resolution screen ?!

Would the 5650 make it comparable to an Alienware M11X as far as gaming is concerned?

And how good is the E in handling heat and noise?

 

The HD 5650 is about 1000 points higher than the 335m(m11x) in 3dmark06. Here's the links: Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M

Notebookcheck: ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650

 

Definitely the 5650. It's a beast of a mid-level card. DX11 and all.

 

It`s a pity the 5650 on the VAIO E is set at only 450mhz instead of 600mhz , so you will need software to see it`s full power.

 

Tis true, and it's also undervolted, so there's not very much overclocking headroom.

 

What software would I need ??

 

Does it need to be overclocked ??

 

Well, no, it doesn't NEED to be overclocked. But if you want to unlock its full performance then you have to. I wouldn't even call that overclocking since it's just bringing it up to ATI's stock clock levels. If you want to push it beyond that and clock it over stock levels, then the undervolted GPU becomes restrictive.

And you can use AMD GPU Clock Tool or MSI Afterburner

 

I'm going for the same spec as your sig dude! How do you like it so far?