Question:
ATI Mobility Radeon X300 or Radeon 9700??
Hi,
I'm hesitating between a Dell system (Inspiron 6000: Sonoma) and a Toshiba system (M30X 154: Dothan). The 2 laptops are very close in price range and I think my choice will depends on the graphic card because both system have great advantages.
I can get the Dell with a 64Mb ATI Mobility Radeon X300 while the Toshiba comes with a Radeon 9700 64Mb. I know the Radeon 9700 (AGP) memory is NOT shared, what is very good and I'd like to know if the Mobility X300 64Mb (PCI-Express) also use dedicated memory or not. Do you know this? What are the performances of both cards and which one seem to offer overall better performance providing that the Radeon 9700 will be on a P-M 1.6 Ghz Dothan system (400Mhz FSB) and the Mobility Radeon X300 will be on a P-M 1.6 Ghz Sonoma system (533 Mhz FSB)?
Thank you
Answer:
If you're in a rush...go for the cheaper one....
I'll go for the 9700...
read this....it's gonna help for deciding Sonoma or Carmel (1 gen centrino)
http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/20050119/index.html
Answer:
Thanks for the reply Lazzy Dude! I've yet seen the Tomshardware review on the Sonoma and it's interesting but I still have some difficulties to choose.
I had to forgot the Toshiba because delivery time are too long. However I come across another great offer from Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M1425 which is also good in comparison with Dell Inspiron 6000. Please look at what are different between those 2 systems:
Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo M1425
---------------------------
P-M 1.7 Ghz (400Mhz FSB)
ATI Radeon 9700 128 Mb (not shared)
512 Mb RAM
Price: 1515$ (incl. shipping)
Dell Inspiron 6000:
-------------------
P-M 1.6 Ghz (533 Mhz FSB)
ATI Mobility Radeon X300 128Mb (not shared????)
768Mb RAM
Price: 1470$ (incl. shipping)
You see that the prices are very close so it's definitely not a concern in that comparison. What is nice with the Dell is the 768Mb RAM and obviously the 533Mhz FSB however I still can't find if the ATI Mobility X300 really has 128Mb of dedicated memory. On the other hand, the Fujitsu has 1.7 Mhz but has to remain on the "old" 400Mhz FSB and has "only" 512Mb of RAM.
From these specifications above, would you recommend getting the Dell or the Fujitsu-Siemens? I still can't make my decision but I must be quick now since the Dell offer (free shipping and free additional memory) is closing in 2 days.
Many thanks
Answer:
I would personnally go for a Dell because of their choice for LCD screen. I would take a WUXGA. Personal preference...And the X300 is dedicaded video memory...
Answer:
X300 comes in both shared and unshared variety. The Dell I6000 I believe has both as options -- make sure you choose the unshared version. I think however the 128mb they offer is the unshared. Either way, the 9700 is slightly faster than the x300. Which means, that the gaming performance of the Fujitsu, if all else being equal would be slightly better than that of the Dell.
A couple things to keep in mind:
The Sonoma platform is a refresh of the Carmel platform, performance-wise, the sonoma doesn't really offer any benefits at the moment. DDR2 runs at a faster FSB than DDR1, BUT DDR2 has *MUCH* worse latency issues, and in many instances actually performs SLOWER than DDR1 at the same speed -- so the 533mhz is barely faster than the 400mhz ddr1.
The additional RAM is nice thou -- get as much RAM as you can in the system.
I think both are nice systems, you won't be disappointed with either one. Sonoma-based system *might* give you slightly more room for upgrades in the future. The performance of the 2 are virtually gonna be identical, so I'd just rather save the money and get the Dell -- plus u get more RAM right off the bat.
A few here seems to really love Fujitsu notebooks, I think they are great machines too, nothing spectacular imo to warrant the price premium over the similiarly equipped Dell. Get the Dell and upgrade the warranty with the money you saved would be my suggestion.
cheers,
yass
Answer:
The X300 is a low-end, budget video card, not suitable for today's games.
Answer:
Thanks for your help [:)] Yes really the "key" point of the Dell is the 768Mb RAM which is nice to get. As for the graphic cards, it seems there is some misunderstanding sometimes as written on other threads: the X300 is a low end GPU in the desktop market but it seems that in the mobile market, it performs almost equally to the Radeon 9700.
Now my last point is: is 128Mb of video memory really important or should I have to keep with the standard 64Mb and get a 7200rpm HD for example with the Dell?? I'm interested in graphic performance but a mobile computer is not a gaming machine so I need some performance for DVD etc and eventually some games but I won't play Flight simulator or racing games on a laptop! So would you say it's better to save money on video memory and spend it on a faster HD or are the 128Mb of video memory really a must have when buying a laptop today?
Many thanks for your help
Answer:
Just saw this on Tomshardware on the Sonoma review:
"Another potential upgrade problem exists when a notebook PC designed for dual-channel operation is equipped with only a single 256 MB DDR2 module. If the user later wants to upgrade to 512 MB or more, he can't be 100% sure that an additional 256 MB will result in a successful upgrade. He may have to buy two new identical 256MB DDR2 modules, or two 512 MB DDR2 modules to upgrade to 1 GB. We don't recommend an upgrade plan for dual-channel systems that involves combining modules of different capacities, such as one DDR2-256 MB and a DDR2-512 MB, because memory performance will go through the floor"
The Dell Inspiron 6000 comes with 768Mb=512Mb + 256Mb of DDRII 400Mhz. So will this cause any problem such as Tomshardware seem to describe???????????