15. Summary And Conclusions

As our tests have shown, gaming on a notebook with few limitations is possible only when that device incorporates a graphics processor from the top performance class. Graphics processors like the Mobility Radeon X1400 may indeed support all the latest graphics effects, such as HDR rendering and Pixelshader 3.0. But in fact they offer far too little 3D performance in current games to enable fluid rendering at high graphics quality settings.

The ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 and the Nvidia GeForce Go 6800 represent minimal graphics configurations for those who want to engage in reasonably serious play on a notebook. For those willing to compromise on maximum graphics quality and resolution, both of these graphics processors can handle current 3D games. The only graphics chipset in our current test group that can deal with truly demanding games is the GeForce Go 7800 GTX found in the Aurora M7700 from Alienware.

In practical, hands-on testing it's also possible to observe that there's more to high-quality, fluid graphics rendering than high frame rates. Racing games such as Need for Speed Most Wanted also show that some games are simply too fast for the majority of Notebook LCD displays. Rapid scene changes through sharp curves make the background blur and cause image rendering to smear, making the game more or less unplayable. In 3D role playing games, strategy, and world-building games, these problems are less frequently encountered.

Sadly, various interesting gaming notebooks didn't find their way into our labs in time for testing. Dell's new XPS m1710 with the successor to the GeForce Go 7800 GTX, the GeForce Go 7900 GTX is not yet shipping in Europe and was therefore not available to us for testing. Dell was also unwilling to send us a pre-release prototype model. Fortunately, MobilityGuru was able to test the XPS M1710 independently in the United States. You can find the first part of our two part review here.

Because neither Alienware nor another vendor (nor even Nvidia itself) could ship us an SLI-equipped notebook in time, we had to omit such notebooks from this round of testing. As we learned from a usually informed source, SLI graphics processors for notebooks are currently so very rare that the few vendors that can offer such systems would rather sell them to power-hungry buyers than lend them to reviewers for objective testing. There are only two such notebooks available in all of Europe for testing, as we write this story. We didn't manage to get either of them!

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