I can't decide between two laptops


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220306

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220279

the first is like $200 more but has an extra gig of ram, the ATI card and double HD space. Is it worth it?

ram and HD space aside is there a noticable difference b/w these two cards? thanks

it seems that the one witht he 4 gb of ram doesn't have a 64 bit os, that means that you will never see or use all 4 gb of ram. because of this the short answer is no. the premium is not worth for something that you will not utilize.

ati vs nvidia. this isn't a gaming laptop, so yo u will never have great frames. it's mostly about features like hdmi and hd video playback, in this case i say that ati is better here, but also not sure if it is woth it. plus under the specs, it doesn't list the nvidia one as having and hdmi port, and i'm not sure if the 9000 series finally supports sounds through hdmi. i know that ati does.

250 vs 500 gb of space, you decide, it's mostly likely 2x250 hdd, so if you buy the cheaper one, you can add a hdd youself in the future, either a ssd hdd or a much higher capacity one.

i would personally go with the more expensive one, 500gb hdd, ati graphics 4gb or ram. simple upgrade to 64bit os, and you have a really awesome laptop. but i would also try to find one with a blu ray drive if you plan on keeping the laptop for some time and actaully care about watching high def on your laptop, or hooking it up to a big screen and watching movies with sound.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220307

this one seems to have almost all the specs as the first one that you posted, but with a much lesser price of 1299.
the only difference seems to be a lesser resolution screena and a smaller hard drive. still no bd drive, but it allows you the most flexibility with future upgrade of os and hdd. and it's 60 dollards cheaper than the nvidia one, with 3 gb of ram. seems like the best choice is the 250 gb hdd with ati graphics with 4 gb ram.

yeah godless thats a good computer.

ok that one looks good, but would there be much difference b/w the ATI and Nvidia cards? and i know they're not high end gaming computers but they would still handle games of Call of Duty n' such fairly well right? also another concern is that the first link in my original post (the one with ATI) has issues with high tempatures and i've heard a lot of people say that i'd have to use a cooler with it. anyone think that would be an issue?

Also, the one with 4gb of ram has a videocard with 1 gb of ram. Wouldn't that further the amount of ram not being addressed by the 32 bit OS?

ur right, the ram for ati is dedicated, i just assumed since it;s 1gb that its shared. still getting a 64 bit os, will solve all the issues.

as far as the ati vs nvidia performance, i can't locate at benchmarks of teh 9500 nvidia, tomshardware charts and copletely useless and outdated. but i do know that the 8500 mobile is one of the worst graphics card there is . a firend has it in his laptop and he can't play any games with it, it's bacsically like an integrated card.

i would definelty stick with ati on this one.

I have actually been looking at the same two laptops and decided to go with the ATI version for these reasons:

• Bigger Hard Drive
• 4 GB of RAM (I already have a copy of Vista 64... MSDN Account FTW!)
• 1 GB of Vram
• Direct X 10.1 is supported by the ATI and not the Nvidia GPU
• Display on the ATI laptop goes up to 1680 x 1050 and the display on the Nvidia laptop only goes to 1440 x 900 (i know that is picky, but i like my screen real estate)

I have been a big Nvidia Fanboy for a while and after doing the research on these two laptops I am glad with my decision. That is until I saw this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220309
Same guts with a 17" WUXGA Screen (1920 x 1200 res). Probably still going to go with the 15.4" version because I travel and want a lighter laptop (hmmm 8.6lbs vs. 6.5 lbs.)

Also I read Asus is putting out 1TB versions of both the M50 and M70 series laptops.
http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03 [...] f-storage/

And that the G70 is getting a quad core cpu support, 4GB of DDR3 RAM and Dual GeForce 8700M GT
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=11031

--Shadowlo

I am in a similar prediciment choosing between the 9500gs 512 and 3650 1gig but im on more of a budget like 1100 tops. I found a great website for mobile cpu/gpu benchmarks which has been pretty helpful.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDI [...] 167.0.html

It seems as though the 3650 is a much more powerful card.
i am thinking about buying either this 14.1inch ASUS with a 3650
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220303
or this 15.4 ASUS with a 9500gs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220317

its a tough call i may just need to fork out more cash for a 3650 with a 15.1 screen any larger than that with a midrange card seems silly for games.
decisions decisions

Great thread. I have been trying to decide between the two gpu chipsets myself.

Well I didn't catch this thread first time around, but here's my comment based on my extensive research of both.

The Problem with the comparison is that the HD3650 mobile 1 GB is only GDDR2 not GDDR3 so it's not as good as the 256MB model of the HD3650 which is GDDR3.

The GF9500MGS is essentially a GF8600MGT, whose performance properties are widely recognized as being dependant on the memory as well with it losing to the same memory version of the HD2600, but a GDDR3 will beat a GDDR2 model for both.

They are very close and I would say it's not worth focusing on the GF9500M or HD3650 unless you know of a specific game or app that you prefer that works better on them, because they will trade blows back and forth all day.

If they were both GDDR3 then the HD3650 would have a slight advantage, but even then it would be like a 5-10% advantage, these chips are very close.

If the GF9500M is GDDR3 and I know the hd3650 is GDDR2 then it would have like a few percentage points advantage. From what I could see that GF9500GS is GDDR2 not GDDR3, but check to be sure if you care about the slight diff.

To me look at the rest of the specs and see what you need most.

The only consideration of tie breaker I'd give is that if this is a long term purchase and you don't plan on upgrading for a while, then for gaming, IMO, the HD3650 would be a slightly better choice. Other than that they are pretty equal.

Main annoying problem is that mobile driver support for both ATi and nV SUCKS !!


If I can find some of the very few benchmarks I've seen of the HD3650 vs GF8600 / HD2600 I'll post them, I haven't seen a direct GF9500M vs HD3650 comparo though, but the GF8600GT is exactly the same clock for clock (with potentially added PureVideo support which no one seems sure about), the HD3650 however is slightly improved over the HD2600, by adding tiny tweaks like DX10.1. So an HD3650 vs GF8600GT comparo should give you a pretty good idea. Like I said before be sure to check the memory.

Here are some hard numbers on which to base your decisions.

Notebookcheck_dot_Net

Nvidia 9500M GS

[url]http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDI [...] 167.0.html[/url]

ATI/AMD HD3650

[url]http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-M [...] 839.0.html[/url]

Both GPU's are considered Class 2 mobile graphics processors. Nvidia's naming schemes cause more confusion than they should, imo. Their marketing people should be coached and corrected, or released...

Notebookcheck is a notoriously random source for performance information, they don't even keep the CPUs consistent when comparing.

Also notice the tests they use, all the games are OGL, only thin DX was Bungholiomarks.

Real tests with similar configurations is the only way to compare, otherwise you find a GF8600GS with a T9500 beating a GF8700GT with a T5200.