Which video for laptop ?

[jose]

Hi everyone , my friend is getting a dell inspiron 8600 laptop.

She does autocad on it. (architect) Which video card is best for her ?

32MB DDR NVIDIA®GeForce? FX Go5200 AGP 4X Graphics
64MB DDR NVIDIA® GeForce? FX Go5200 AGP 4X Graphics [add $69 or $2/month1]
128MB DDR ATI's MOBILITY® RADEON? 9600 PROTURBO [add $189 or $5/month

thanks for the help.

Jose

 

[ViRGE]

Autocad? While I'm not fond of the 5200, that would be my reccomendation; Nvidia's drivers just seem better tuned for OpenGL than ATIs.

 

[jose]

Thanks, since thats probably the main program she will be using I guess the best choice would be the 64mb nvidia card.

Regards,
Jose

 

[Markfw]

Well I can;t find any autocad benchmarks on the two cards, but based on this review of the Inspiron 8600 I would say get the ATI 9600.

 

[MangoTBG]

Regardless of the drivers. The 9600 spanks the 5200 in everything. The difference between the two is so signifacant that it isn't funny. Google some reviews of both chips.

 

[heresiarh]

No doubt ATI is a better card but for Autocad, go with the Nvidia 64mb. I own a similar laptop setup and work with Autodcad. Somebody mentioned Nvidia has better openGL setup, that is true.