ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3650 (1024mb) vs. NVIDIA GeForce 9500M GS 512mb

I can't decide between two laptops


http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220306

and

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220279

the first is like $200 more but has an extra gig of ram, the ATI card and double HD space. Is it worth it?

ram and HD space aside is there a noticable difference b/w these two cards? thanks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220307

this one seems to have almost all the specs as the first one that you posted, but with a much lesser price of 1299.
the only difference seems to be a lesser resolution screena and a smaller hard drive. still no bd drive, but it allows you the most flexibility with future upgrade of os and hdd. and it's 60 dollards cheaper than the nvidia one, with 3 gb of ram. seems like the best choice is the 250 gb hdd with ati graphics with 4 gb ram.

ok that one looks good, but would there be much difference b/w the ATI and Nvidia cards? and i know they're not high end gaming computers but they would still handle games of Call of Duty n' such fairly well right? also another concern is that the first link in my original post (the one with ATI) has issues with high tempatures and i've heard a lot of people say that i'd have to use a cooler with it. anyone think that would be an issue?

ur right, the ram for ati is dedicated, i just assumed since it;s 1gb that its shared. still getting a 64 bit os, will solve all the issues.

as far as the ati vs nvidia performance, i can't locate at benchmarks of teh 9500 nvidia, tomshardware charts and copletely useless and outdated. but i do know that the 8500 mobile is one of the worst graphics card there is . a firend has it in his laptop and he can't play any games with it, it's bacsically like an integrated card.

i would definelty stick with ati on this one.

I am in a similar prediciment choosing between the 9500gs 512 and 3650 1gig but im on more of a budget like 1100 tops. I found a great website for mobile cpu/gpu benchmarks which has been pretty helpful.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDI [...] 167.0.html

It seems as though the 3650 is a much more powerful card.
i am thinking about buying either this 14.1inch ASUS with a 3650
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220303
or this 15.4 ASUS with a 9500gs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834220317

its a tough call i may just need to fork out more cash for a 3650 with a 15.1 screen any larger than that with a midrange card seems silly for games.
decisions decisions

Well I didn't catch this thread first time around, but here's my comment based on my extensive research of both.

The Problem with the comparison is that the HD3650 mobile 1 GB is only GDDR2 not GDDR3 so it's not as good as the 256MB model of the HD3650 which is GDDR3.

The GF9500MGS is essentially a GF8600MGT, whose performance properties are widely recognized as being dependant on the memory as well with it losing to the same memory version of the HD2600, but a GDDR3 will beat a GDDR2 model for both.

They are very close and I would say it's not worth focusing on the GF9500M or HD3650 unless you know of a specific game or app that you prefer that works better on them, because they will trade blows back and forth all day.

If they were both GDDR3 then the HD3650 would have a slight advantage, but even then it would be like a 5-10% advantage, these chips are very close.

If the GF9500M is GDDR3 and I know the hd3650 is GDDR2 then it would have like a few percentage points advantage. From what I could see that GF9500GS is GDDR2 not GDDR3, but check to be sure if you care about the slight diff.

To me look at the rest of the specs and see what you need most.

The only consideration of tie breaker I'd give is that if this is a long term purchase and you don't plan on upgrading for a while, then for gaming, IMO, the HD3650 would be a slightly better choice. Other than that they are pretty equal.

Main annoying problem is that mobile driver support for both ATi and nV SUCKS !!


If I can find some of the very few benchmarks I've seen of the HD3650 vs GF8600 / HD2600 I'll post them, I haven't seen a direct GF9500M vs HD3650 comparo though, but the GF8600GT is exactly the same clock for clock (with potentially added PureVideo support which no one seems sure about), the HD3650 however is slightly improved over the HD2600, by adding tiny tweaks like DX10.1. So an HD3650 vs GF8600GT comparo should give you a pretty good idea. Like I said before be sure to check the memory.

Notebookcheck is a notoriously random source for performance information, they don't even keep the CPUs consistent when comparing.

Also notice the tests they use, all the games are OGL, only thin DX was Bungholiomarks.

Real tests with similar configurations is the only way to compare, otherwise you find a GF8600GS with a T9500 beating a GF8700GT with a T5200.

Yep that goes back to my previous statement;

Main annoying problem is that mobile driver support for both ATi and nV SUCKS !!

IHV tells you to contact the OEM and the OEM tells you to contact the IHV.

The only way to get them to work properly is to use moded drivers, and in that case you need to know what you're doing and also pray for a little luck for the latest versions that have already been rough tested by others.

http://www.alienware.com/products/ [...] uters.aspx