I am in the market for a new notebook and am stuck between two nearly identical models with different video cards: 1. Dell Studio 15 with 256 MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 2. Dell XPS M1530 with 256 MB Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT. Which video card is better for gaming?
quickly checking this site: http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=534&card2=555 it looks like the 8600 gt has better numbers. I didn't see a benchmark for them but it looks like the 8600 gt is a superior card.
But the 8600GT is almost guaranteed to break after a few months I would go for the ATI, purely so it will last, plus the studios look the shiznazz. It also depends what games you are going to play, what cpu speed and how much mem you are going for with them. Both cards with 2gb and a core2duo 2ghz should be able to handle most games reasonably well. My 8400GS, 2ghz turion X2 and 2gb ram can handle, stalker, the orange box, sins of a solar empire and cod2 pretty well. Crysis was a slideshow even on very low settings, I have not tried cod4, but I imagine it will run like crap.
That is why you have a warranty. So many laptops are build every day, that probably the bad stock is already done.
Depends on if the Inquirer is right or not, I haven't seen any evidence to show conclusively that it is or isn't a design defect. nVidia claims a bad batch, Inquirer that it's all of them.
doesn't say if it is the 8600gt. it might be, maybe a chance to take with a more powerful card. and like goodbytes said this is what warrenty's are for. Of course its a major hassle to send something in for repair so maybe its better off going with the green team (ati)
I have the 8600GT, have had it for about 6 months now. Runs everything I have thrown at it well at 1440x900. That site is also comparing the desktop version of the 3450, the mobile version may have lower clocks.
no I ment amd/ati because they are trying to become known as the more enviromentally friendly company.
Most definitely go for the 8600! http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-3450.9593.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-8600M-GT.3986.0.html The 8600 thrashes the 3450 completely.
