ALDI Laptops

bambam

never bothered to benchmark - just wanted that warm fuzzy feeling gotten from having the latest possible drivers installed.

But I'm sure plenty of other people on the web have perf benchmark results available.

dontasciime

None of my 8 desktop pcs that i built myself have a bios that i am unhappy with ,even the pc i built for my son ,ecs k7s5a has a more tweakable bios ,
One of the reasons i want to be able to alter things in bios on the laptop is the graphics aperture is set a little too high for my liking ,i would like to be able to switch on fast writes for this card as well ,as well as SBA. i would like to be able to alter the agp speed for this card also .as i was led to believe that this card was 8 x agp ,by both nvidia and The Aldi leaflet ,which states it is an 8x agp card with directx 9 ,they even go so far to show you the difference between dx 8 and dx9 .
As you can imagine i have a few GFX cards in fact 12 of them all of which are nvidia .

Geforce2 mx 440 ,geforce 3 (ti500) ,geforce 4 mx 440 ,460vtd ,460vtp ,ti4200vtp ,etc etc ,I like nvidia cards ,i like to get the most out of them as well .

The bios in laptop ,i would like to be able to alter things for opt power or to actually lower the power consumption .i would like to alter memory timings ,SPD is good ,but i suspect that the chipset and memory are not running in time (async) , i would like to see exactly how memory ,cpu ,etc is set up in bios .

And the fact that its a 3.06ghz ,15"" screen. 1400,1050 ,60 gig hard drive , dual format dvd/cdrw ,lan ,fx 5600 with agp 8 and directx9 ,(even tho i dont think the card is or the motherboard or chipset cannot use 8x agp ) seemed like good specs to me ,which is why iwanted that one ,(i wouldnt class £999.99 budget either,it might be budget to some people ,but a Grand to me is lot of money .
It also kinda represented value for money ,with regards to the specification of the machine ,3 year warranty (of sorts) yeah £60 quid for that.

So overall i looked at how it was advertised ,read the advert and thought thats good i think i will go and buy one ,based on the info on the leaflet ,and a little bit of research .The reasearch kinda went a long with the info on the advert so i thought yeah ,good deal for that kind of hardware .

RicardoSmith

You're missing my point. What difference does it make in real terms i.e. benchmarks orgames fps if you can alter those settings?

Systems you build yourself are normally complete configurable. Systems you buy off the shelf, like a Dell, Compaq etc. Aren't. You don't seem to have known that. Thats my other point.

dontasciime

Well setting things too high or too low will alter 3d performance ,and stabilty issues may arise .Why bother installing a newer gfx card driver ,the answer being it has been optimised for further performance ,Especially nv drivers .As they are always tweaking their drivers .
As to buying a machine off the shelf ,my mates e-machines bios ,is configurable .
my mates dell is ,as is his compaq ,yes i do understand your point ,in most cases the bios in those machines (Suck)
I am aware of that .Its a bit hard tho to ask ALDI to Plug laptop in before i buy it so i can check the bios .And then to say ooh it doesnt matter ,i dont want it now .

RicardoSmith

Generally the later NV drivers are slower as they add more features than the older drivers, especially in Dx8 titles the older drivers pre 5x.xx are faster.

Your talking about desktop machines vs a latop thats a completely different issue. Besides you can't ask to look at a Dell machine either so thats a mute point. Very little is configurable on those machines. Much like the latop you have. On a desktop you can change components, whereas on a laptop most of the stuff is built in. So thats why theres no options. But at the end of the day those machines are not designed for enthuasists to tweak. They are built to a price for mainstream users.

But what speed increases will you see from these tweaks on the fx5600 go specifically. or are you just doing it because you can? (or can't it seems) Do you have any links to benchmarks that demonstrate these improvements? Even ones that demonstrates the speed difference in a game from AGP 4x to 8x? What dx9 titles are you playing that you can see a difference in?

dontasciime

older nvidia drivers faster ,at what ,yes for directx 5 .if features added for dx8 then on a dx 8 hardware card should be just as fast. if trying to use dx8 on hardware less than dx 8 then driver will definately be slower as it has to run in software mode ,as there will be no hardware support for dx 8 in a directx 5 hardware card dx 6 dx 7 etc.

I can change things in the laptop ,hd updgrade ,dvd rom ,memory ,so it is upgradeable like a desktop pc ,not to the same extent granted .There is also 2 free pci slots in laptop.

The benchmarks that you are so keen on ,i dont have any yet.
When i do i will post them for you to see the difference .
And they are not going to be huge differences anyway.
As most computer jargon is jargon and theoretical ,ie bandwidth 2.1 @ 8 agp
heres an example of 8x agp ,where as in theory yeah should be good .

isochronous
Time-dependent. Processes where data must be delivered within certain time constraints. For example, multimedia streams require an isochronous transport mechanism to ensure that data is delivered as fast as it is displayed and to ensure that the audio is synchronized with the video

That could be classed as a benefit of having agp 8x .

It changes all the time tho ,Now nvidia is focusing on serial ie pci-express .
A lot of people a while ago said agp 2x whats the benefit of using that 1x is enough as did they when 4x was implemented.
Its never enough ,i will always want faster cpu's ,memory ,more bandwidth ,Less bottleneck, more possibilities .
You will only notice fps on the latest games,running highest resolutions ,highest level of details ,if i can get the most out of my GPU to allow me to play a game at a reasonable level ,then yeah great ,but it will always be i want it to run at the best it can .Especially if i have just spent £389 quid on a new gfx card .Like i did when i bought my geforce 3 .
There are many benfefits to new technology and configuration ,otherwise why would they implement it .(maybe not the great leap they promise ) but sometimes it is a great leap (n64 is a good example of delivering) yeah not pc ,but still a wow factor when playing for the first time .

Ok ,will post some differences ,in speed of gpu when settings are correct.

RicardoSmith

2 PCI slots free? Show me this amazing laptop!

The bencharks are the proof of the pudding! Let us see and believe!

I meant the Pre Nvidia 5x.xx drivers not dx5 dude!

dontasciime

in that case you surely meant direct x 9 code being added to make em slower

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by dontasciime
in that case you surely meant direct x 9 code being added to make em slower

Even before they added the Dx9 code sometimes the older drivers pre 4x.xx were slower than older drivers. Some people go back to the 3x.xx and earlier for somethings. I guess the more functionality you add the slower they are too.

dontasciime

Im gonna try the hacked ones anyway .
Guess nvidia must be wasting their time trying to optimise their drivers.
i,m going off them anyways ,and i think ill get an ATI dx9 card next ,like the 9800 pro .
Or even wait for a pci xpress board (socket 940) and Pci xpress gfx card .

And till i have saved up some more money .

paulj13

Could be possible move this chain of discuss to technology? This is the bargain section and time is better spent discussing if this Aldi offer was worth while and if you’re happy with your purchase. I understand how we've got here but I believe the last 10 post or so have no place in the bargains discussion.

So are you lot happy with your purchase? If not clearly state why not?
With the benefit of hindsight would you avoid such offer in the future?
Was it REALLY such a great deal?
How many people are filling in the forms in store to get one?
Has what your heard about the machine changed your option to get one?

dontasciime

Yeah okay ,If thats your 10 pence worth, then thats a bargain.

RicardoSmith

Well I thought we were trying to get to the bottom of the issues dontasciime has with the laptop. I don't think they are any different from any other laptop, or big name desktop. Its also a desktop replacement not a true portable, but thats all been established earlier in the thread.

I was interested in how it compares with my own Sony which has the same GFX card and similar spec.

dontasciime

is it a desktop replacement ?
Certainly not from my perspective .
I think its a bargain now that i have had a play with it ,Just didnt like the way the operating system has been installed then bios ,and the false advertising on ALDI's behalf .With regards to the gfx card not being what they said it was .

How is it not a true portable ,the CPU is a MOBILE PENTIUM 4 And not the cheaper desktop Variety.
So the fact that the battery doesnt last That long is probably down to first couple of charges .
OR a poor performing battery .
I will still say its a bargain ,until i am proved wrong then i will be the first to REALLY complain .
So i need to have more of a play with it ,but i must say that the more i use it ,the more i like it ,Yes intel claim it offers near desktop performance ,Its running on par with my old 1200 mhz AMD ,thats good enough for me.

sceptre

Originally posted by dontasciime
So overall i looked at how it was advertised ,read the advert and thought thats good i think i will go and buy one ,based on the info on the leaflet ,and a little bit of research .The reasearch kinda went a long with the info on the advert so i thought yeah ,good deal for that kind of hardware .

You know if it isn't what it said on the leaflet you wouldn't have to return it for 9000 bananas. If it isn't what was advertised you can just get your money back via a complaint to the ODCA

I'm just offering it as an option - I'm not trying to curb your ability to discuss the shortcomings or otherwise of the machine or anything like that.

dontasciime

No problem ,except i dont think the odca have any juristiction in my country ,There will be an equivalent though ,so thanks

ozmo

Originally posted by dontasciime
...and another thing the graphics aperture size on the 128 ,eg card has been set to 256

Just curious - why would you want to change this.
Isnt it usual to have the Aperture to twice the available graphics memory.
It doesnt use up any adtional resources.

dontasciime

will do if i drop the memory down to 256 meg .Dont want it eating into system ram.

Eurorunner

I was interested in how it compares with my own Sony which has the same GFX card and similar spec.

Why dont you both benchmark using the same standard and post results;)


As regards Aldi not offering what they advertised, according to previous threads Aldi are great with regard to returns - i dont think there would be any difficulty in getting a refund if its returned in original packaging.


Why would you want to bring your memory down to 256 ? The way things are going with AV/Firewall software and a host of other stuff sitting in the taskbar, i would say 256 is no longer enough!

Standard Toaster

I ordered mine on the Thursday.....any idea on when I might get a phone call folks?

dontasciime

why would i want to use 256 ,i would not want to use 256 ,but i may be forced to use 256 ,if anything happens to the current 512 memory ,and i have to replace it ,and can only afford at that time 256 meg of ram .
I have loads of ram from sdram to ddr 400 ,but none will fit ,so i will have to buy some .And if i aint got the funds and i have to buy 256 ,The performance will suffer.

ozmo

Originally posted by dontasciime
will do if i drop the memory down to 256 meg .Dont want it eating into system ram.

The AGP memory is separate from the system memory.

Increasing the Apature does not eat into system memory - its uses a free memory range that is not populated with system ram.

dontasciime

wells thats not what i have read ,or have a belief in

ozmo

Originally posted by dontasciime
wells thats not what i have read ,or have a belief in

Its called virtual memory. A 32bit PC has 4GB of addressable memory (2 to power of 32).
You have, say 512Mb or 1Gb of real ram installed. This is divided up into pages, or small blocks - each block can appear at any place in this addressable space.
Therefore the addressable space has lots of holes in it with which are not mapped to physical ram. (If a program tries to read from one of these holes - the processor fills the hole by finding ram from somewhere - eg. by dumping something it no longer requires or requesting the os puts something it rarely accesess to the swap file.)

Anyway - you dont have enough system ram to fill the whole 4GB memory range - so you may as well give some of the memory range up for the AGP card.
The bigger the apature the better as it leaves the graphics card room to move its memory blocks around in this space. If the apature is too small then it cannot access all its memory at one time and has to request blocks of memory every time it tries to access them.

ozmo.

dontasciime

At the moment it is highly unlikely that the allocated 256mb will eat into 512 meg ,it is highly unlikely that having 256 meg of ram and a graphics aparture set at 256 will affect this either ,but if the setting for graphics was set to 256 when in fact the ram on gfx card is 128 then if say a game used more than 128 meg for textures then it would ,try and get some ram from the physical memory in the computer ,yes it is still highly unlikely that a will find this game that needs that much texture memory .
So yes i understand its not likely but i would still like the option to change it ,especially if i had to go lower with the amount of ram i could put in 128 .
So regardless of the benefits, disadvantages ,No difference ,i still want control over what is set in bios .

dahamsta

Originally posted by dontasciime
why would i want to use 256 ,i would not want to use 256 ,but i may be forced to use 256 ,if anything happens to the current 512 memory ,and i have to replace it ,and can only afford at that time 256 meg of ram .

Sorry to go off-topic but this is driving me nuts: dontasciime, it's comma-space, not space-comma. And there's no space between the last word in a sentence and a full-stop.

Again sorry, but it makes my head spin and it's happening so much on Boards now I could well go postal.

adam

dontasciime

lol or is that not right either?
Will i have to type laugh out loud for it to be acceptable to your perfect grammar?

machalla

Makes things easier to read is all. I don't think its a personal thing.

I think its punctuation he's talking about anyway not grammar.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by dontasciime
lol or is that not right either?
Will i have to type laugh out loud for it to be acceptable to your perfect grammar?

I find it hard to read myself. It doesn't help with comprehension either.



Re: the memory on the video card.

AGP "aperture" is one thing but are you guys not confusing this with the main video ram on a fx5600go which is (on some models anyway) shared with the main system ram? That said most games aren't slower on a 64mb card than on a 128mb card, never mind a 256mb card.

So whats the point?

dontasciime

The fx go 5600 has 128 meg of ram, it does not share system ram.
It has it's own memory.