Which Graphics choice for the SR?

Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4700MHD with Intel® Clear Video Technology or ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470

With ATI® Radeon HD 3400 Series graphics with 128MB of dedicated video RAM, you'll experience the power of HD. Additionally, ATI Radeon™ HD 3400 Series graphics processors deliver break-through efficiency from cutting-edge technology and new energy-saving features that can help lower your energy costs and enable cool, quiet PCs.

 

Do you want to play the newer games?
Do you do 3d rendering?

If your answer is yes to any of the above questions go for the ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 3470.

The Intel option will also play HD video.

 

Phil, Do you consider hitman blood money a "new" game? It runs perfectly on my 8400 GT mobile card on my old laptop, but then again I BARELY played it. Maybe 20 hours since the year I had it..So i could probably live without it.

Anyhow, how about battery power? Would the integrated card be significant power saver over the ATI card? ATI claims cool and battery efficient, but how much more would it be? any specs on wattage or power they use?

Lastly, do you think there could still be issues with the montevina and intel GPU (which is why montevina partly got delayed for in the first place)???

 

The new dedicated and integrated graphics - according to info released from manufacturers - will be very power thrifty when they aren't in use. I believe it was stated from ATI that the dedicated graphics would shut it off and use the onboard graphics card when the graphics load is not high - ie. web surf, document typing. Also the clock speeds of the gpu's would auto adjust in accordance with load too.

I say, if your wallet can afford the $100 add-on, i'd go for it. The power drain difference for business uses should be negligible.

 

Which graphics card should be best for HD video editing? (AVCHD to be exact)

 

BATTERY LIFE REVEALED

Setup: ATI Card, P8400, 7200 RPM harddrive, 4 GB RAM

http://www.techradar.com/products/c.../sony-vaio-vgn-sr19vn-428132/review?artc_pg=2

Claimed battery Life: 3.5 hours

Likewise, http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowPro...9VN&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VN+SR+Series

claims battery life of 3.5 hours also.

Conclusion: With that setup, according to 2 sources, expect around 3.5 hours of battery life. I am also assuming that that time is NOT based on power saver performance mode, because who the hell would put a laptop to a performance test on power saver mode? (reffering to the techradar review)

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Setup: Intel integrated GPU solution with 3 GB ram and 5400 RPM HDD

Claimed battery life: 5 hours

http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowPro...9XN&site=voe_en_GB_cons&category=VN+SR+Series

Quite a difference!! So I guess the answer is clear for those looking for battery life...

Anybody agree with this? Could the 7200 RPM drive be at some fault or is it purely the GPU?

Can you UNDER CLOCK the card if battery life is an issue for you?

 

dedicated card are known to suck more energy...

 

my estimates:
battery life with Ati 3.5 hours.
battery life with Intel IGP 4 hours.

Under normal use. With strongly dimmed brightness and downclocked CPU I expect more.

 

Phil, I agree. The 7200 RPM hdd probably had SOMETHING to do with it but realistically they probably will be different by 30 ish minutes.

 

What do you estimate the FW to do?

 

Hrmmmm.... this kinda worries me... I hope the difference isn't really 1.5hours, because I was looking to get the Vaio SR off of P1, and all they have are the ones with the HD 3470 - or at least I hope the option to get it with WindowsXP will somewhat compensate for decreased battery life if there is any.

Anyone notice the one with the IGP has only 3GB of RAM?

 

Not really because the 7K200 is very efficient with power.

 

They have integrated options up now - I just ordered one a couple days ago.

 

Well, once you get it, can you tell me what the battery life is (mobilemark)?

And if it can run GR/R6:RS?

 

Battery life, sure. I don't have either game, though.

 

What games do you have that you think have a chance of running on it?

Counterstrike Source would be nice as well.

(Bittorrent XP)

 

Definitely go with the ATI. Don't sell yourself short. It's better to spend the extra ~$100 now instead of having to replace the unit 2 years down the line when you find yourself needed the extra graphics ability.

As for batter power the ATI site states that their software can switch via integrated and dedicated graphics on the fly. It's possible that Sony may have disabled this feature to promote the Z; can someone verify this?

 

Maybe the SR just doesn't include an integrated graphics chip in addition to the ATI card. Just because ATI makes it possible for manufacturers to support this feature doesn't mean every manufacturer will support it in every model.

 

It's a trade off. Better gaming power or better batterylife.

I do not play games so I'd prefer the X4500 option.

3470 is rated as 3.30 hours battery life.
X4500 as 5 hours.

 

Seems to me that an increase in 1.5 hours is overly optimistic.

Currently most models differ between 30 to 45 minutes, integrated compared to dedicated.

Maybe the ATI card is a power hog though....

 

Yeah I agree it seems optimistic. But it is Sony UK listing these numbers being reached with MobileMark 2007.

And since they were dead accurate on the ATI ...

 

Why would anyone be playing games on battery power anyway?

 

That's not really the point. Sometimes people want to game at home and do other stuff on the road while on battery power.

Unlike the Z series, SR does not come with hybrid graphics.

 

TBH I don't need hybrid graphics. I'd rather have a better GPU and when I need to have battery life, I'll just downclock the damn thing myself and put it on power save mode or something. This way, I get the best of both worlds.

 

I don't think you will come close to the battery life of integrated graphics.

To have the best of both worlds you need hybrid graphics.

But let's see what the benchmarks will show us.

 

Exactly my thought. Plus even sony says the ATi is built to downclock and not heat up like other models. It stinks Sony decided to only give the z hybrid graphics but either way I trust Ati more than NVIDIA. But hopefully benchmarks will prove that battery life is close to the same.

 

I don't get why people think the "OOOO ATI Downclocks!" is such a big deal.

All graphics cards laptop or desktop downclock when not under load. And if you downclock it to the point that the batt life difference is insignificant, you'll probably get pointlessly sluggish performance. Either way its more transistors to power than compared to IGP, so it'll eat more batt life.

 

If you may game and are willing to sacrifice battery life, get the ATI card

If you don't game at all or don't plan to and want increased battery life, get the intel IGPU.

Simple as that.