Intel GMA 950 vs. NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150

Synomenon

Lifer
Dec 25, 2004
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I'm trying to decide which laptop to get:

HP DV2040US:

Centrino Duo - 1.6GHz, 2x2MB L2 cache
1GB PC4200 DDR2
120GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
Intel GMA 950 (128MB shared)


OR


HP DV2025NR:
AMD Turion 64 X2 - 1.6GHz, 2x256KB L2 cache
1GB PC4200 DDR2
100GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
NVIDIA GeForce Go 6150 (128MB shared)



Looks like they're even. However, when I was looking at the floor models, the 2025NR w/ the GeForce Go 6150 showed 256MB when I right clicked on the desktop and went to Settings -> Advanced -> Adatper.

So which of these would be the better choice? I'm not going to do any heavy gaming on it. Just an occasional session of WoW.
 

fbrdphreak

Lifer
Apr 17, 2004
17,555
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The Go 6150 will definitely be the better gaming machine, but by how much I can't say. However the Core Duo will be faster and more power efficient.
 

Synomenon

Lifer
Dec 25, 2004
10,547
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Ah ok, so since I'm not going to do any heavy gaming the Centrino model it is, BUT I just found another choice:


Toshiba U205-S5002:

Centrino Duo - 1.66GHz, 2x2MB L2 cache
1GB PC4200 DDR2
100GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
Intel GMA 950 (128MB shared)


The two HPs above can be upgraded to 2GB of RAM, this Toshiba can be upgraded to 4GB.
 

fbrdphreak

Lifer
Apr 17, 2004
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The HP Core Duo will support 4GB, as long as the BIOS isn't locked out. 32-bit Windows won't recognize more than 3GB anyway, so there is no point in choosing something for its max RAM support. Core Duo is 32-bit so unless you plan on dropping in Core 2 Duo later, you won't even be able to use a 64-bit operating system to get access to 4GB RAM.

Choose based on the merits of the machine, not its max RAM.
 
Dec 10, 2005
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Originally posted by: IsLNdbOi
Ah ok, so since I'm not going to do any heavy gaming the Centrino model it is, BUT I just found another choice:


Toshiba U205-S5002:

Centrino Duo - 1.66GHz, 2x2MB L2 cache
1GB PC4200 DDR2
100GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
Intel GMA 950 (128MB shared)


The two HPs above can be upgraded to 2GB of RAM, this Toshiba can be upgraded to 4GB.

What's the point of upgrading to 4GB of RAM. It is prohibitevely expensive in a laptop and the only time that it would ever be useful if you had upgraded to Windows Vista 64-bit edition and that is provided you have a Merom processor. The laptops you are showing us only have Yonah processors (32-bit only) so 4GB of RAM would be wasted since a 32-bit Windows system can only access 3GB of RAM. I would look at the other specs of the notebooks (weight, battery size, screen resolutions and quality) instead of worrying about whether the notebook can take 4GB vs. 2GB of RAM.
 

ailetlvo

Member
Jul 24, 2005
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wait, so core duo will not run 64-bit, but it will run vista right?

core 2 duo will be able to do both?

btw, if you could please post the links to these notebooks. im in the market for one myself and an occasional wow session is right up my alley.
 
Dec 10, 2005
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Originally posted by: ailetlvo
wait, so core duo will not run 64-bit, but it will run vista right?

core 2 duo will be able to do both?

btw, if you could please post the links to these notebooks. im in the market for one myself and an occasional wow session is right up my alley.

Any processor available right now will be able to run Vista (some will have to run it in 32-bit though). The Core 2 Duo (Merom) will be able to run 32-bit or 64-bit Windows Vista.

Edit: As for notebooks, what size are you interested in? Do you want something <5lbs or >5lbs? What size screen would you like? What's the budget?
 

fbrdphreak

Lifer
Apr 17, 2004
17,555
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Originally posted by: ailetlvo
wait, so core duo will not run 64-bit, but it will run vista right?

core 2 duo will be able to do both?

btw, if you could please post the links to these notebooks. im in the market for one myself and an occasional wow session is right up my alley.
Pretty much any recent notebook can run Vista just fine. There will be two flavors of Vista: 32-bit and 64-bit. The only notebooks capable of running 64-bit Vista are the rare 64-bit Pentium 4 notebooks, semi-rare Athlon 64 notebooks, Turion 64, Sempron 64, and Intel Core 2 Duo notebooks. Core 2 Duo is not really available right now, but in the next couple months it will be.

As I said, most any notebook can run Vista. It will be a little more CPU & RAM intensive than XP, but not much. The difference comes if you want to use the Aero 3D interface. To run that you need one of the following GPU's:

*Intel GMA950 or later
*ATI Radeon Xpress 200M integrated or later
*NVIDIA Go 6150 integrated or later
*Discrete ATI Radeon X-series or later
*Discrete NVIDIA Go 6-series or later

It also calls for 128MB VRAM, but I'm not sure if that's quite a requisite or recommended.
 

lazybum131

Senior member
Apr 4, 2003
231
0
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Originally posted by: djmihow
Get a Asus S96J.
Wtf? He's looking at 12-14" laptops, already says he doesn't do heavy gaming and you're suggesting a 15.4" of average weight and size (read: bulky) with a powerhungry X1600? Even if you wanted to cram a midrange GPU down his throat you could've mentioned the 14" Asus A8Jm and W3J, and Compal HGL30.

To the OP, have you looked at the Asus W7J? 13.3" Core Duo with the go7400 and a bit over 4lb. Oh, might not be a good choice if you're really concerned about the max ram, 512MB is soldered onto the motherboard so there's only a single slot free.
 
Jul 28, 2006
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That X2 lappy is going to have horrible battery life. The Core Duo one should be much better. But Intel Integrated graphics suck.
 

fbrdphreak

Lifer
Apr 17, 2004
17,555
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Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
That X2 lappy is going to have horrible battery life. The Core Duo one should be much better. But Intel Integrated graphics suck.
While Core Duo does have better battery life, Turion 64 X2 doesn't "suck."
 

Synomenon

Lifer
Dec 25, 2004
10,547
6
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Thanks for the input everyone. I ended up going w/ the HP DV2025NR. So far it fits my needs perfectly. I really like the integrated webcam and dual microphones. Also the imprinted / non-scratch design of the exterior is pretty nice. The "latch-less" design is nice too.

Reason I didn't have such a great selection was that I was limited to what Best Buy had. This laptop is actually a replacement for my "junked out" VAIO so I didn't have to pay anything other than what I originally paid 3 years ago for the VAIO + the replacement plan.

The VAIO this HP is replacing had a 2.66 GHz Pentium 4 (think it was a desktop processor too).
512MB of RAM
40GB HDD

It was pretty heavy too compared to this HP. The VAIO was 7.72lbs and had a 15.something inch screen.
 
Jul 28, 2006
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Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
That X2 lappy is going to have horrible battery life. The Core Duo one should be much better. But Intel Integrated graphics suck.
While Core Duo does have better battery life, Turion 64 X2 doesn't "suck."

Haha. WOW. You should post with your brain a bit more.
 

fbrdphreak

Lifer
Apr 17, 2004
17,555
1
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Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
That X2 lappy is going to have horrible battery life. The Core Duo one should be much better. But Intel Integrated graphics suck.
While Core Duo does have better battery life, Turion 64 X2 doesn't "suck."

Haha. WOW. You should post with your brain a bit more.
And your notebook experience & technical knowledge comes from.....a box of wheaties?
 

Synomenon

Lifer
Dec 25, 2004
10,547
6
81
The new ExpressCard slot on the HP is nice as well. I'm going to get an EVDO ExpressCard from Sprint or Verizon later on so I can have high-speed internet anywhere.
 

RedBeard

Diamond Member
Sep 29, 2000
3,403
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Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
....

Haha. WOW. You should post with your brain a bit more.
And your notebook experience & technical knowledge comes from.....a box of wheaties?

Thanks for setting electromoronsoccertux straight. The turions do very well for battery life. They usually do about as good as centrinos (which says a lot). Especially the MT line. I recently purchased a Turion ML-34, and I have been very pleased with it's performance. I went from a Pentium M 715 btw.
 
Jul 28, 2006
65
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Originally posted by: RedBeard
Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
....

Haha. WOW. You should post with your brain a bit more.
And your notebook experience & technical knowledge comes from.....a box of wheaties?

Thanks for setting electromoronsoccertux straight. The turions do very well for battery life. They usually do about as good as centrinos (which says a lot). Especially the MT line. I recently purchased a Turion ML-34, and I have been very pleased with it's performance. I went from a Pentium M 715 btw.

Their battery life is OK, but not "very good" as you say. Not comparable to a Pentium M. Stuff it fanboy. The Pentium M gets past 7 hours. The Turion tops out at 4:30. And thats not even on wireless.

Not to mention we're talking about a Turion X2, so the difference will be inflated approx 2x.
 
Dec 10, 2005
25,281
8,666
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Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
Originally posted by: RedBeard
Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
....

Haha. WOW. You should post with your brain a bit more.
And your notebook experience & technical knowledge comes from.....a box of wheaties?

Thanks for setting electromoronsoccertux straight. The turions do very well for battery life. They usually do about as good as centrinos (which says a lot). Especially the MT line. I recently purchased a Turion ML-34, and I have been very pleased with it's performance. I went from a Pentium M 715 btw.

Their battery life is OK, but not "very good" as you say. Not comparable to a Pentium M. Stuff it fanboy. The Pentium M gets past 7 hours. The Turion tops out at 4:30. And thats not even on wireless.

Not to mention we're talking about a Turion X2, so the difference will be inflated approx 2x.

STFU yourself. You could have stated an opinion in a more mild fashion, such as saying getting the Turion is not worth it compared to the Pentium M/Core Duo. Instead, you had to be a jackass and be like, "It sucks" and then start with your childish name calling. Grow up.
 

fbrdphreak

Lifer
Apr 17, 2004
17,555
1
0
Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
Originally posted by: RedBeard
Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
Originally posted by: electrosoccertux
....

Haha. WOW. You should post with your brain a bit more.
And your notebook experience & technical knowledge comes from.....a box of wheaties?

Thanks for setting electromoronsoccertux straight. The turions do very well for battery life. They usually do about as good as centrinos (which says a lot). Especially the MT line. I recently purchased a Turion ML-34, and I have been very pleased with it's performance. I went from a Pentium M 715 btw.

Their battery life is OK, but not "very good" as you say. Not comparable to a Pentium M. Stuff it fanboy. The Pentium M gets past 7 hours. The Turion tops out at 4:30. And thats not even on wireless.

Not to mention we're talking about a Turion X2, so the difference will be inflated approx 2x.
Wow, you really are an idiot. First of all, you're referring to tests by a user @ NBR. NBR's reviews and articles are half-assed at best, and the user reviews are even worse. The results of those tests are both unclear and cannot be accurate as stated. There would have to be some extremely messed up testing circumstances for that to happen that way. Frankly, I think that guy must have used the 6-cell for one and 12-cell for the other. My gf has a Dothan dv1000 and it gets 6-7 hours of normal usage on the 12-cell; the 6-cell would yield no more than 3-4 hours if that.
How do you know I ask? It has something to do with that thing I like to call my job.

First, let's take a look at Pentium M (Dothan) vs Turion 64. You can read your heart out to actually learn something true here:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=17
But let's cut to the chase. Two 100% identical notebooks. Same screen, same HDD, same battery, same GPU with same drivers, etc. Gee, what do we see here:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=17&page=15
I think we see the torch being passed between Dothan and Turion fairly steadily. If you read the whole article, you'll see that it appears Dothan uses less power under heavier load circumstances (which makes sense, the Dothan architecture is much more power optimized in the small details than Turion) while Turion is more efficient in the less intensive circumstances. So, now that we've proved you wrong about single cores, let's look at Turion 64 X2 and Core Duo (Yonah).

First, let's assess this statement you made:
Not to mention we're talking about a Turion X2, so the difference will be inflated approx 2x.
That right there tells each and every single person reading this post that you're a bloody moron. Dual cores does NOT mean twice the power consumption. Don't believe me? Look at Anandtech's dual core benchmarks of any dual core chip: power consumption is inceased very conservatively, as power saving technologies and smaller manufacturing processes allow for amazing power consumption reduction. If you still don't believe me, head over the CPU forum to and post about how much more power consumption dual cores have. Please.

Now we are in fact preparing an article directly comparing two identical systems using Core Duo & Turion 64 X2, but until then I can only make less accurate indirect comparisons, but still rather valid. Let's look at these two systems.
HP dv1000t: 14" glossy widescreen, Core Duo, integrated graphics (Intel)
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=120&part=glance

MSI S271: 14" glossy widescreen, Turion 64 X2, integrated graphics (ATI)
http://www.laptoplogic.com/reviews/detail.php?id=128&part=glance

Now, onto the battery life.

MSI S271 Office Productivity battery life: 3.93 hours

HP dv1000t Office Productivity battery life: 4.12 hours

MSI S271 battery capacity: 63.36 Wattage Hours (Whr)
HP dv1000t battery capacity: 43.2 Whr

MSI S271 Turion 64 X2 average power consumption: 63.36Whr/3.93 hours = 16.12 watts
HP dv1000t Core Dou average power consumption: 43.2Whr/4.12 hours = 10.48 watts

And for comparison:

Acer Ferrari Turion 64 average power consumption: 71.04Whr/3.73 hours = 19.04 watts
Acer TravelMate Dothan average power consumption: 71.04Whr/3.75 hours = 18.94 watts

Now, obviously we can see here that Turion 64 X2 (in an unofficial, not ideal comparison) does consume more power than Core Duo. However it is not only the CPU that makes this difference. Intel's GMA950 is likely more power efficient than ATI's Radeon Xpress 1150 IGP, as well as the chipset. The screens are also not identical, so power consumption will differ there. Personally, I've been disappointed with Turion 64 X2. But I'm not surprised: Core Duo (Yonah) was an entirely new architecture only mildly based on its previous generation (Dothan). Turion 64 X2 is basically a low power Athlon 64 X2, similar to the Energy Efficient Athlon 64 X2's (Same TDP actually) available on the new AM2 platform. AMD won't have anything new and exciting in the mobile arena until its next generation mobile chip, codenamed Bulldog.

Anyway, back on topic:
I know, it's embarassing. You've been proven wrong. You have two choices here: continue with your infantile behavior, being unnecessarily ugly to people and whining about fanboys & the such. Or you can just shut your cheeks before you talk out of your ass some more. Hell, in fact I'd say an apology is in order. No one here was rude to you until you started talking sh!t about sh!t that you clearly don't know anything about. So either apologize or tuck your tail behind your legs and go back to high school junior.
 

RedBeard

Diamond Member
Sep 29, 2000
3,403
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Wow... excellent pwn post fbrdphreak.
I read that same article @Laptoplogic, but I could remmeber where it was.
 

ChiPCGuy

Senior member
Sep 4, 2005
536
0
0
Originally posted by: RedBeard
Wow... excellent pwn post fbrdphreak.
I read that same article @Laptoplogic, but I could remmeber where it was.



QFT...I would say the point has been made with some pretty exacting finality!!!

My hat is off to you fbrdphreak.