Which is better for mobile gaming Geforce Go 7400 or ATI Mobility V5200?

[HockeyZZZ]

I am looking to get a desktop replacement that is relatively small in size but not in performance. The XPS m1210 was right up my alley but it has no DVI out and no docking capability. I was also looking at the ThinkPad T60, I know it is more for business application, but my question is will its 256 (dedicated) V5200 perform better in games than the Geforce Go 7400 (64 on board 192 shared.) The geforce is geared towards games but doesn?t have the power of the ATI, so I didn?t know if it would perform better than the business geared V5200.

I really need docking but I will be playing ALOT of games on this machine, and it seems all laptops with docking are for business. IBM also offers the 128mb x1400 with hyper memory (shared) that is more geared toward gaming I would think? Just so you know I am limited to Dell or IBM I sweet deals.

I will give up docking for it to perform, but having to hook up my monitor and usb's every time will be a pain in the a$$. Also I am running a dual monitor set up at home and with only a single VGA out the m1210 could no keep this going for me. I need to make a decision today. =/ TIA for any help!!!

 

[fbrdphreak]

MR V5200 >> Go 7400

V5200: 12 pixel shaders
Go 7400: 4 pixel shaders

Just load modded drivers on the V5200 and you'll be good to go.

 

[HockeyZZZ]

can you elaborate on that? Is loading modded drivers the same process as just loading normal ones? and where would be a good place to find those?

 

[fbrdphreak]

http://www.omega-drivers.net is a good start

You install them just like normal drivers, they are optimized for gaming and can be installed on mobile GPU's. The V5200 drivers from Lenovo will be optimized for stability and quality, not performance; the modded ones will take care of that.

 

[HockeyZZZ]

Sweet It looks like there is one driver for all ATI cards Mobile and all. Thanks for your help I will be going with the T60 then!

One more question though, just for the heck of it, is the V5200 on stock drivers still faster than the go 7400? Do the drivers have that big of an impact?

 

[fbrdphreak]

The V5200 will wipe the floor with the Go 7400 no matter what drivers you are using. But yes, going from the workstation drivers to the gaming drivers should provide a noticeable boost in performance. But try it out yourself both ways

Check out more info at http://forum.thinkpads.com

 

[HockeyZZZ]

Thanks a million for your wealth of information! =)

 

[BladeVenom]

That's a workstation card; isn't that awfully expensive to use for playing games? Workstations cards also don't play games as well as equivalent gaming cards, although those clearly aren't equivalent cards. I think I would recomend looking for something else for gaming, but I'm not sure what since I don't pay any attention to which laptops use docking stations since I never really cared much for them.

 

[MacVista]

T60s can be equipped with a Mobility Radeon X1400... that would probably be better for playing games and cheaper too than the V5200.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: MacVista
T60s can be equipped with a Mobility Radeon X1400... that would probably be better for playing games and cheaper too than the V5200.

Once again, nope

MR X1400: 4 pixel shaders
MR V5200: 12 pixel shaders

Pixel shaders aren't the only measure of performance, but I don't have the rest of the specs on the MR V5200 to rattle off. Regardless, the V5200 is much better than the X1400 for gaming in every respect. Search forum.thinkpads.com, I'm sure someone has done tests

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: MacVista
T60s can be equipped with a Mobility Radeon X1400... that would probably be better for playing games and cheaper too than the V5200.

Once again, nope

MR X1400: 4 pixel shaders
MR V5200: 12 pixel shaders

Pixel shaders aren't the only measure of performance, but I don't have the rest of the specs on the MR V5200 to rattle off. Regardless, the V5200 is much better than the X1400 for gaming in every respect. Search forum.thinkpads.com, I'm sure someone has done tests

Basically, the Fire GL V5200 is the professional counterpart to the MR X1600. It performs a little worse than the X1600, but will be a better performer than the MR X1400.

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak

Originally posted by: MacVista
T60s can be equipped with a Mobility Radeon X1400... that would probably be better for playing games and cheaper too than the V5200.

Once again, nope

MR X1400: 4 pixel shaders
MR V5200: 12 pixel shaders

Pixel shaders aren't the only measure of performance, but I don't have the rest of the specs on the MR V5200 to rattle off. Regardless, the V5200 is much better than the X1400 for gaming in every respect. Search forum.thinkpads.com, I'm sure someone has done tests

Basically, the Fire GL V5200 is the professional counterpart to the MR X1600. It performs a little worse than the X1600, but will be a better performer than the MR X1400.

Bingo. Same hardware as the MR X1600, drivers are optimized differently and clocks may be different. To see how the MR X1600 compares to the MR X1400, check this out:
http://www.laptoplogic.com/resources/detail.php?id=37

 

[cheesehead]

Half the time, with modded drivers, "workstation" level GPU's like the 5200 will perform like their desktop alternative. The other half of the time, they perform a shade worse. But it should'nt be a huge difference.
However, regardless of sub-par performance, an x1600 with 256mb of onboard memory will kick the crap out of a 7400. The onboard memory is also good, as that's effectively 192mb more system memory in addition to faster graphics.