Laptop Graphics

[DarkRogue]

Hello,

I've been trying to look up some information about these low-end "mobile" graphics for laptops but it's incredibly difficult as it's not as popular to review as the latest and greatest of their desktop counterparts.

More specifically, my laptop has an ATI Mobility Radeon 9600, and the current IGP offering for the most part is the Intel GMA X3100. I'm trying to find out how the Intel X3100 stacks up to ATI's mobile offering from 4 years ago but I'm getting very conflicted results since there was a large time gap between the two releases, hardly anyone actually reviewed both, and people who review either of them used very different software so the numbers are not directly comparable.

In looking for a new low-cost laptop I considered getting the Intel IGP to lower the cost, but I don't want to do so if it would be a "downgrade" from the Mobility 9600.

Does anyone know of some places where I can get information about these things being compared?

Thanks in advance.

 

[DaveSimmons]

You might try translating the 9600 to its closest deskop part, for example (wild guess) maybe the mobile part is 10% slower than a desktop 9600.

Given that, you can try to find an overlap in tested games between the 9600 and the x3100.

The bottom line though is that the x3100 is awful in gaming, just slightly less so than older intel "xtreme!" graphics. Look at the x3100 benchmarks on the main anandtech.com site (moible section).

If you want to do much gaming besides old 2D and some Quake 3 / Unreal 1 engine titles then you'll want a real graphics card.

 

[DarkRogue]

I've been trying to do that, but most of the numbers are not directly comparable because of different software used (for example, the many many versions of 3dmark.)
I had hoped that the IGP would have at least matched a mobile discrete graphics card from over 4 years ago, but some places seem to say it is, while others seem to say it isn't. Again, depending on what software used.

Man, we've taken for granted how easy it is to look up information about these things.

As far as what I'd do with it, most of the time it'd be very basic, such that the IGP can easily handle it. However, there may be times I'll fire up a game when I'm bored, and it's likely not going to be Solitaire, so it would be nice if it would at least run decently. I played Half-Life 1 mods, FFXI, NavyField and even Unreal Tournament 2004 on my Mobility Radeon 9600 very well at 1400x1050 (That's a higher resolution than my desktop's LCD lol.)

It would be a shame if the Intel IGP couldn't handle those (and perhaps more recent) games as well as the Mobility 9600.

 

[daveybrat]

The intel X3100 is pretty awful for gaming. You're best bet for entry level is at least the Nvidia 8400M GS 128MB as your starting level on a new laptop. Or maybe ATI Radeon 2600Pro Mobility as well. And if you go with one of the new Dell Vostro 1500 laptops, you can upgrade to the Nvidia 8600M GT card for pretty cheap and have a pretty decent gaming experience for a low amount of cash.

 

[DarkRogue]

Yeah, I took a look at a bunch of various laptop configurations to see what the general price was. The Vostro was hands down the cheapest I could get, almost a fully configured system for under $500, which is less than the repair cost for my laptop lol. The downside is I have gotten so used to using the trackpoint on my IBM, the touchpad is so awkward for me

I'm trying to find a replacement (or repair my laptop for 575 worst case scenario) that has a trackpoint equivalent. Unfortunately it seems these things are only available on the other vendors' "business" machines - Dell Latitudes, Sony BX series, HP 2510p/6910p, etc. Those get pretty expensive when you add similar items for the Dell Vostro. The IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads are expensive no matter what I do.

There seem to be a few people selling laptops but to lower the cost, almost everyone has integrated video, I'm not sure if it's a better bargain to get a new one with integrated video, or repair my current one with the Mobility 9600.

My head hurts like crazy now though, so I'll pick up the research tomorrow, this is all very confusing.

 

[JJChicken]

Originally posted by: daveybrat
The intel X3100 is pretty awful for gaming. You're best bet for entry level is at least the Nvidia 8400M GS 128MB as your starting level on a new laptop. Or maybe ATI Radeon 2600Pro Mobility as well. And if you go with one of the new Dell Vostro 1500 laptops, you can upgrade to the Nvidia 8600M GT card for pretty cheap and have a pretty decent gaming experience for a low amount of cash.

Totally agree on how awful intel integrated graphics are!

 

[Bateluer]

Its almost pathetic how poor information about mobile GPUs is. Notebooks have been out selling desktops for a while now, and people do want to be able to use them to accomplish all the tasks their desktop does. Nvidia and ATI are both ridiculously slow getting their mobile parts to market and usually by the time they do, the successor has just been announced. You can find 8600Ms in plenty of machines, but you can only find the flagship 8800M GTXs in a paltry handful of machines, and only 17in and up sizes. Heaven forbid you might want to actually play games at a 1680x1050, 15.4in screen. To the best of my knowledge, ATI's most powerful mobile parts are the 2600 and 3650.

 

[DarkRogue]

I know, the integrated looks like it's worse than my Mobility Radeon 9600 which is quite sad considering it's 4 years old.
Unfortunately, since I need a trackpoint, that limits me to the "business" type laptops from the competitors which usually limit me to either Integrated X3100, or the nVidia Quadro NVS card. The latter usually adds an extra $150 or so cost. I'm honestly thinking it may be more cost effective for me to spend the $575 to repair my old laptop than to buy a new one for the same price right now, if it's going to outperform whatever I can get for the price.

 

[RussianSensation]

OK, can you please elaborate why the trackball is so important to you? If you intend to game on this laptop, aren't you using a mouse? I guess you need the trackpoint when you use it for business work on a train/plane?

Keep in mind that although your 4 year old laptop has a faster graphics card, you have a slow single core processor (probably a P4?). So any recent laptop should be faster with almost any integrated graphics (other than Intel's!).

Anyways, to help you with your search here are 2 links:

Mobile GPU Guide
Mobile Graphics Cards specs + 3dMark scores

X3100 Intel is ranked 86th (yours is 77th).

Notes:

1. Remember to play close attention to GT vs. GS designations. Oftentimes, the GT cards within the same family have double the shader processors over their GS counterparts (i.e. 8600GT vs. 8600GS game benchmarks) I believe 8700 is twice as powerful as 8600GS as well. If you are looking into a gaming card, you'd probably need to look into 8800M (but even that card only has 64 shaders!!! compared to 112-128 for desktop 8800GT/S).

2. The Nvidia 9500M-GS and the 9650M-GS are not actually anything new, merely die shrinks of the current 8600M-GT and 8700M-GT respectively.
Nvidia 9300M-GS is the exact same card as the 8400M-GS and the two cards have identical performance.

So do your research. Unforunately, last 2 years ATI completely folded in mobile graphics and NVidia has been releasing overpriced junk 1 year behind desktop parts. Although, ATI should have very competitive mobile parts with HD 4xxx series, but considering it takes mobile gpus about 6 months to come out after desktop parts, it's a long way to go.

 

[DarkRogue]

Thanks, I actually came across those two same exact sites during my research. Problem is I'm not sure if they used the same version of 3dmark for all of those tests. 3dmark '03 scores are not exactly comparable with 3dmark '06 scores.

Anyway, it's not a trackball, but the trackpoint that I feel is important. Yes it is true when/if I game on those rare occasions I have a spare mouse (two actually) to use for it, but outside of that, the trackpoint (the little joystick like thing between the g, b, and h keys) is very useful on the train and whatnot where a separate mouse will be awkward. It's very convenient and I got so accustomed to it, the standard trackpad is cumbersome for me to use and it takes great effort for me to get anywhere with it. I actually ended up disabling mine so that it wouldn't catch my palm resting on it as movement.

Another thing, that is very true you pointed out, while the mobile 9600 does appear to be faster than the current GMA X3100, my CPU is vastly slower. It's a Pentium M (exact frequency escapes me right now.)
I don't need the latest and greatest graphics chip on the laptop - I have my desktop in my sig to do all the "serious" gaming, but sometimes when you're at a hotel away from home, it's nice to be able to play a decent game or two.
At present I'm thinking maybe Team Fortress 2 (slightly more demanding than HL2.) I'm almost positive that anything I can afford will not run World in Conflict or Oblivion well, so I'm not even going to bother with those. I won't say I won't try though

Again, since the majority of the laptops that have the trackpoint or their equivalents are "business" class machines, there is no real choice in discrete graphics, the only choice I can see are 2 versions of the nVIDIA Quadro NVS which adds an extra $100~200 to the cost of the laptop which is pretty expensive when I have to pay another $100 just to downgrade to Windows XP Pro. If I were to get a "Gaming" laptop, I suppose all those options would come into play, but I'm not looking for a straight gaming laptop, more of a work laptop with the ability to do casual gaming well. Battery life would also be of a concern but that's at odds with a discrete graphics card, for obvious reasons. How do the newer CPUs (I'm seeing a Celeron M, Pentium Dual Core and a few Core2Duos) stack up with my current CPU in terms of power consumption and productivity?

I'm also looking for something around 15" or 15.4" at resolutions of either 1400x1050 (my current laptop) or 1680x1050 respectively.

I know I'm getting pretty specific but I'm weighing my options. If in the end it's worth it to simply repair my old one, I'll go ahead and do that.

Thanks again for all the information.

 

[RussianSensation]

I am not sure in terms of productivity comparison. Yes we can try to find benchmarks but at the end the major difference will come from 4200 vs. 5400 vs 7200 rpm hard drive and the user's ability to perform tasks. Unless you are doing something like Photoshop or running 50,000 lines of stock option valuation model, I doubt any of the current processors will improve your productivity. Although having a dual core system will definately make things more seamless; and 2GB of ram is a must in windows XP imo.

 

[DarkRogue]

Well, the 7200 rpm drives are usually more expensive than the 5400rpm ones, at least from a quick glance at Newegg's offerings.
I'm trying to keep the cost as low as possible, as I recently spent a large chunk of my budget on my new PC.

I did manage to get my broken laptop to boot today, so that's a plus. It appears that the CPU's HSF died, the fan will not spin. That alone is not too bad but I noticed the LCD is also odd, the outside borders have some yellow tint to it. Unfortunately I believe this will be the bulk of the repair cost if I send it back to IBM. Also the hard drive is dead so I would need to get a new one anyway.

Anyway, since it's out of warranty I will give them a call tomorrow to get a quote on the repair cost, which should set a limit for what I'm willing to spend.

A faster CPU (Core2Duo vs Pentium M) would mean everything else runs faster, though it comes at the expense of gaming performance if I cut costs by going with the integrated option. How much faster is debatable though, my Pentium M is 1.7GHz, and the cheaper Core2Duos clock in at 1.4GHz. Also, while it seems established that the integrated X3100 graphics still does not beat a dedicated mobile graphics card from 4 years ago, I'm not sure if that means games are unplayable or not. It would help if I chose not to game at all on this laptop, but alas, we are all gamers at heart.

Anyway, the more important issue is whether it'd use less power or not.. Integrated graphics should definitely consume less power, thus extend battery life, but going from a Pentium M (I assume this is single core) to a Core2Duo could also mean it eats more power there. This is a very tough call to make..

 

[RussianSensation]

hhaa What you want is a cheap, powerful for gaming laptop that also has good battery life. hehe that doesnt exist! I personally hate laptops since you cant even buy a light powerful gaming laptop regardless of price.

I saw if you want to play games on the go, get a PSP or Nintendo DS.

 

[DarkRogue]

lol, I know!

Anyway, I've reconsidered about the gaming aspect, I'll live with integrated graphics. It's worse but it can still manage 20-30fps in the games I might even consider trying on it (according to people's reviews), and paying an extra $150-250 for a 15fps boost isn't quite worth it IMO.

What I AM concerned with now is the CPU performance, battery life, and the LCD screen. I was actually surprised to learn my old T42 used an IPS panel :shocked:
I looked up what else used an IPS but it seems not many of them have it, I only lucked out in getting one. The T60 seems to be the last model that had an option for an IPS LCD along with a Core2Duo. I'm thinking of shopping around for a cheap used/refurb T60 now for the IPS panel. Any of the CPUs it comes with, even the lowest C2D 1.66GHz should beat out my 1.7GHz Pentium M.

Edit:
Actually going back to a T60 negates the whole X3100 vs Mobility 9600 argument since the T60 either came with the Integrated 950 graphics or a discrete ATI mobility card. Either way, I don't think it should matter, the 950 is probably worse than the X3100 but hopefully I won't need to game on it much.

 

[ghost recon88]

You know they're making a ATI 3870x2 mobility card? Not sure if its out yet.

 

[DarkRogue]

That would probably be expensive and I'd hate to imagine the battery life on that lol.

Besides, those are usually found on gamer laptops, the business ones usually don't have anything near as fancy as that unfortunately.