New Laptop

Skud

Don't know if this is the right forum but anyway... I'm getting a new laptop and i want a 256mb graphics card with it, dell have it advertised on their site but when you customise the laptop it says only maximum 128 mb... i googled it and everything and i can't find a laptop to suit my needs without going over the dell price of 2700 ish, main featuure i want are as much processing power with as much ram, that spec graphics card and wifi port so it can be used in college. Any sites suggested? I tried elara too and not much in the way of a 256mb graphics card there either. Or would i be better off shipping from america? in which case i'd have to pay vat on yeah? Cheers for the help...

l3rian

the dell InspironTM 9100 is the only laptop with the ATI Mobility Radeon 9800 256MB, and its a desktop replacement laptop, so lugging this baby around will be a pain in the ass

it weights over 4kg and is 5cm thick and has a battery life of only 2 hours :eek:

i just got a travelmate 8006 and its got the new pentium m 755, a ati 9700 128mb, weights 3kg and is 3.5cm thick and has a battery life of 5 hours i got it for €2400 from a place in swords, microaid.ie, next day delivery too


oh and elari suck, theyre too expensive (they ask €2,458.30 for the 8006 while microaid.ie want only €2400) + elari lied to me twice about next day delivery, which turned into next month delivery


edit: just checked dells site.. they appear to only be offering the 9700 pro, when i was buying i found dell uncontactable by phone or email, just check back later and maybe itll be available

RicardoSmith

Why do you need 256? What screen resolution and benchmarks are you going on where 256mb is better than 128mb? Because that is limiting your choices of laptop enormously.

l3rian

RicardoSmith

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=560

RicardoSmith

Thats the difference between a 9600xt class gfx and a x800 lite class gfx. Not the difference between a 128mb and 256mb.

joePC

The amount of memory you have with your GFX card makes little to no difference in preformance, TBH I would go for a more portable laptop rather than a desktop replacement. It sort of defeats the purpose of getting a Lappy.....

Good luck...

Jammer

joePC wrote:

The amount of memory you have with your GFX card makes little to no difference in preformance, TBH I would go for a more portable laptop rather than a desktop replacement. It sort of defeats the purpose of getting a Lappy.....

Good luck...

doesnt really, when you think of other peoples needs.

i needed something which was powerfull, and i could use at home and college. i dont have to carry it around as im in a car going to and coming from college so it suits me fine. i only ever use it when sitting at a desk so battery life doesnt concern me. much better then lugging around my desktop.

i have the dell inspiron with the 128mb 9700 and it plays games grand. slight difference to my 9800xt in my desktop, but not really that much to be honest!

RicardoSmith

I have a desktop replacement myself. I find it great. Mines only got a fx5600 which isn't so hot though. I like something with gfx a little faster. But it plays things like COD fine. But newer titles like Doom or Lockon are too slow. Far cry is ok at 800x600 just. But I use it for work and college mainly. Games aren't that important.

Skud

it's both for college and desktop replacement. Dell aren't offering the 256 card anymore. Mainly want it for the new halflife game and just want a beefy laptop so i don't replace it in three years. I got a p4 1.3ghz at home 32mb graphics and i heard the hardest thing to replace in a laptop is the graphics card. My p4 is out of date for the latest games and my next home pc will prob be when i finished my degree in 4 years so that is why i want it... Thx l3rian I'll have a look about that site later. The thought of a 5hour battery is great...

stevenmu

Aren't ATi and nVidia working on ports that will allow laptop users upgrade graphics cards, might be worth waiting a while to see how they turn out.

RicardoSmith

Skud wrote:

...i don't replace it in three years...

1. You can't upgrade the gfx of laptops. No point after 3 yrs either.
2. Any PC/Laptop will be well past it for games after 2 years never mind 3.
3. Laptops go out of date faster than PC's. Hardly any upgrades see!

What you're asking for is impossible.

stevenmu

There's an old article at the The Register on Nvidias plan for upgradeable laptop graphics cards. ATi have some similar in the works too.

Skud

cheers lads for all the help, i think i'm just gonna settle on a 128 since it's less hassle and get a new desktop in a few years or build my own. This laptop thing is painful atm in relation to the desktop situation but understandable because of size and weight requirements. Hopefully the Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) isn't too far off (cheers stevenmu) but it isn't reported on ati or nvidia sites yet. I'll keep an eye out. One more question... Is there a new windows os out soon (windows 2003)? Think it's along the lines of nt and 2000? a lecturer said this the other day to out class...

stevenmu

He/She was possibly referring to XP, the current version, lecturers are sometimes way behind the times, do you go to NUI Mayooth by any chance ?
The next version is Longhorn and the most optimistic estimates put that sometime in 2006. There is a Windows 2003 but it's really only for servers, I don't think there's any advantage to running it on a standard PC/Laptop.

Skud

No I don't, I go to UCC in Cork, was wondering how much sense was he making. I didn't really want to run it on a new laptop just wanted to know was i better off not getting xp pro but looks like i might have to (seems to be a requirement for the student wireless network) but i don't know the severity that they are going to implement that rule at.

Cheers again

stevenmu

There's a good few differences between pro and home, many listed here. Mainly they're to do with networking and security. With a wireless network in particular IP security would be a big deal so that's probably why they want it.

RicardoSmith

stevenmu wrote:

....plan for upgradeable laptop graphics cards...

So you can't buy one. Even if you could. Say you had a AGP x4 slot in a 3 yr old PC its out of date now isn't it? If you were buying a PC now for the latest games you'd be mad to get an AGP slot. So you'd be upgrading now anyway.

You can't escape the cycle.

stevenmu

You must be one of those people who buys a whole new PC every 12 months. You know just because there's something faster available doesn't mean the stuff you already have is absolutly useless. Up untill a month or so ago I was using a 1.6Ghz P4 with 512Mb of very early DDR and a geforce 3 ti200. Current games like Far Cry and Doom3 ran fine on it. Now I'm running an Athlon64 3200, 1Gig DDR400 and a 6800, things don't run all that much better. And I stuck with AGP too, given that AGP 4x isn't really pushed yet, let alone AGP 8x I don't see any major benefits to PCI-e (which is equivelant to AGP 16x).

RicardoSmith wrote:

You can't escape the cycle.

It might be better to say "you can't escape the marketing"

daram

I found one

http://www.sub.co.uk/index.php?sec=sysconf&mcat=1&mscat=6&mid=357&systype=laptop&basesystem=17*DUALDRIVE&displayquery=%201=1

test999

daram wrote:

I found one

http://www.sub.co.uk/index.php?sec=sysconf&mcat=1&mscat=6&mid=357&systype=laptop&basesystem=17*DUALDRIVE&displayquery=%201=1

Where can I get a new laptop for 500 euro?

pickarooney

(Because somebody is bound to say it).

Blanchardstown SC car park.

daram

i know one place, cant think of the web address off the top of my head

Dothee

thats not much good(",)

RicardoSmith

daram wrote:

I found one

http://www.sub.co.uk/index.php?sec=sysconf&mcat=1&mscat=6&mid=357&systype=laptop&basesystem=17*DUALDRIVE&displayquery=%201=1

Thats some laptop. Nice price too!

stevenmu wrote:

You must be one of those people who buys a whole new PC every 12 months. You know just because there's something faster available doesn't mean the stuff you already have is absolutly useless.....

I'd like to see those games run "fine" at 1024x768 (TFT res) fine on a GF3ti200. What fps do you get? I could run them both at 640x480 at low detail levels on a P4, 2.8/1gb DDR/ and a fx5600 (dire card I know but it is a laptop!). Anything more than that and the stutter got annoying. Personally I wouldn't consider that "fine".

He wants to buy a machine that will play the latest games in 3 years time, and that he won't be upgrading then. That would the same having an early P4 and a GF3 like you have and trying to run D3, FC.....and you're upgrading....so your kinda contradicting your own advice.

daram

Cheapest one I can find is €649 on http://www.ccity.ie/tradeonly/ of course, its a trade only company so actually buying it will be a challenge.

smileyrecords

Dont go for a crappy 256mb graphics card with a slow GPU, when a 128mb graphics card with a fater GPU will do the job better.

Its not about quantity its about quality

stevenmu

RicardoSmith wrote:

I'd like to see those games run "fine" at 1024x768 (TFT res) fine on a GF3ti200. What fps do you get? I could run them both at 640x480 at low detail levels on a P4, 2.8/1gb DDR/ and a fx5600 (dire card I know but it is a laptop!). Anything more than that and the stutter got annoying. Personally I wouldn't consider that "fine".

I could run them both at 800x600 mediumish details (definetly no AA/AF), they were only jumpy for a few seconds at the start of a level or going through the odd door. Don't know what the frame rates were, probably pretty minimal though.

RicardoSmith wrote:

and you're upgrading....so your kinda contradicting your own advice.

Well I didn't really upgrade for gaming, I upgraded the graphics first cause I wanted to use dual monitors and I wanted to try out some DirectX development. I got a 9800 first but the TV-out was crap so I returned it and then thought might aswell go for the 6800. After getting that I was pretty dissapointed with the lack of performance gain in games and I wanted a memory upgrade anyway (for programming again) so I bought an upgrade kit. Also, I've got a nasty habit of wasting money on kit I don't really need just for the fun of it I don't think I'm alone here in that one

Prior Of Taize

The 9100 was available with a 256Mb card up until a week ago...

My brother is currently standing beside the pc with the card in hand ready to order but the card is showing...On the other hand he said that if he cant get the 255Mb card the money for that gets him an extra GIG of ram...a laptop with 2 Gigs!!!...alienware dont sell that on most of their laptops...

bonkey

Prior Of Taize wrote:

Tthe money for that gets him an extra GIG of ram...a laptop with 2 Gigs!!!...alienware dont sell that on most of their laptops...

Probably because they know that the vast majority of their machines won't benefit significantly from an extra Gb.

But hey....knock yourself out. More expensive with bigger bits must be better, right

RicardoSmith

stevenmu wrote:

I could run them both at 800x600 mediumish details (definetly no AA/AF), they were only jumpy for a few seconds at the start of a level or going through the odd door. Don't know what the frame rates were, probably pretty minimal though.
Well I didn't really upgrade for gaming, I upgraded the graphics first cause I wanted to use dual monitors and I wanted to try out some DirectX development. I got a 9800 first but the TV-out was crap so I returned it and then thought might aswell go for the 6800. After getting that I was pretty dissapointed with the lack of performance gain in games and I wanted a memory upgrade anyway (for programming again) so I bought an upgrade kit. Also, I've got a nasty habit of wasting money on kit I don't really need just for the fun of it I don't think I'm alone here in that one

Well I'm not convinced that its playable, to MY satisfaction on that spec. Your comments thus far don't persuade me either. But each to their own. You bought a 9800 and then a 6800 just for dual monitors and not for gaming? Thats like saying you got a Ferrari not to drive fast, or to show off, but to do your paper round on your own street.