4. Video Processor Mayhem
Not sure what specs and components your new laptop should include? Here is a concise primer on CPUs, RAM, video cards, hard disks, and displays.
You may think video cards are just for gaming, but they have a few more purposes: namely HD video playback, image processing, and 3D rendering. If you are absolutely sure you’ll stick to basic productivity software, you’ll get by fine with pretty much any video processor sold in a new laptop today. Unlike video cards for PCs, graphics devices in laptops are referred to as graphics processors or GPUs.
For those of you who plan to do anything at all with video (including watching it), you should know that there are three main brands of video cards. Intel’s offerings are pretty much only suited for your basic computing needs with the exception of that company’s GMA 4500 series chipsets, which are capable of very light gaming (meaning Flash, 2D, and very basic 3D titles) and HD video playback.
AMD/ATI and Nvidia have a much wider range of offerings, from integrated chipsets like those from Intel to extreme gaming solutions like dual-video processors in SLI and CrossFire modes. The only problem is that there are just so many from which to choose and so it is difficult to know which one is best for you. ATI’s naming scheme is fairly linear—the Mobility Radeon 3000, 4000, and 5000 series video processors use the hundreds placeholder to designate the GPU's main purpose. The processors with the sub-500 designation are primarily only good for light game play and watching HD video. The 500-800 designations are perfect for more mainstream gaming, and the 800-900s are used for more extreme gaming solutions.
Nvidia on the other hand has recently changed its naming scheme significantly, shifting from the familiar four-digit series processors, such as the 8000M and 9000M series, to the G, GT, GTS, and GTX series. I’ll start with the older four-digit series, since they are very similar to ATI’s naming scheme—they use the hundreds digit to separate their intended purposes. Just like ATI, the sub-500 designation is for very light gaming and HD video, the 500-800 is for mainstream gaming, and 800+ cards are for the more hardcore gamer.
Nvidia's G, GT, GTS, and GTX series is a bit more complex—the G, GT, GTS, and GTX designations are minor performance indexes that can mostly be ignored by mainstream consumers. The real markers are the three-digit numbers that come after that G-designation, such as the 260 in GTX 260M. The sub-200M cards are intended for light gaming and HD video, while the 200M-240M cards are for more mainstream gaming. This leaves the 260M and 280M for the hardcore gamers.
For basic browsing and office work, we recommend either a simple Intel integrated card, or something in the Nvidia 9300M/ATI Mobility HD 3400 series. If you want the option of HD video playback, it would be best to get at least the Nvidia 9300 or ATI HD 3400. For moderate gaming (such as WoW and other basic 3D games) the Nvidia GT 240M and 9600M and ATI Mobility HD 4670 and 3670 processors are the best fit. For the hardcore gamer, you probably already know what you want, but if you’re looking to give a gift to a hardcore gamer, you might consider the Nvidia GTX 260M and 280M or the ATI Mobility HD 4870. Those are the best mobile processors available now for notebooks.
Graphics processors can make up a large portion of the cost of a laptop, so it makes sense to choose carefully. If you don’t intend to play many 3D games, don’t spend the extra money for a video processor upgrade. For those of you who do like to play 3D games, you’re best off looking at the “Recommended System Requirements” for your favorite games, and get a GPU that’s appropriate. For continued strong performance in future games, you can spend a bit extra for a card a few tiers above the recommended specs.
This chart lists some of the most prevalent mobile video devices on the market, loosely ranked from best to worst.
| Brand | Model | Casual Gaming | Heavy Gaming | HD | Power Consumption |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nvidia | GTX-280M | Extremely Good | Extremely Good | Yes | Very High |
| ATI | Mobility HD 4870 | Extremely Good | Extremely Good | Yes | Very High |
| Nvidia | GTX-260M | Extremely Good | Extremely Good | Yes | Very High |
| ATI | Mobility HD 4850 | Extremely Good | Extremely Good | Yes | Very High |
| Nvidia | GTS-250M | Extremely Good | Extremely Good | Yes | High |
| ATI | Mobility HD 3870 | Extremely Good | Very Good | Yes | High |
| Nvidia | GT-240M | Extremely Good | Very Good | Yes | High |
| ATI | Mobility HD 4670 | Extremely Good | Very Good | Yes | Moderate |
| Nvidia | GT-220M | Extremely Good | Very Good | Yes | Moderate |
| Nvidia | 9600M | Extremely Good | Very Good | Yes | Moderate |
| ATI | Mobility HD 4650 | Extremely Good | Very Good | Yes | Moderate |
| Nvidia | GT-130M | Very Good | Good | Yes | Moderate |
| ATI | Mobility HD 3670 | Very Good | Good | Yes | Moderate |
| Nvidia | 9500M | Very Good | OK | Yes | Moderate |
| ATI | Mobility HD 4550 | Very Good | OK | Yes | Moderate |
| ATI | Mobility HD 4330 | OK | Poor | Yes | Low |
| Nvidia | 9300M | OK | Poor | Yes | Low |
| Nvidia | GT-102M | Poor | Very Poor | Yes | Very Low |
| Intel | GMA 4500M | Poor | Very Poor | Yes | Very Low |
| Intel | GMA X3100 | Poor | Very Poor | Some | Very Low |
- 1. Laptop Basics
- 2. The CPU Conundrum
- 3. RAMifications
- 4. Video Processor Mayhem
- 5. Hard Drives
- 6. Displays
- 7. Recommendations
For those of you who would like some help finding your perfect laptop, feel free to ask here in the comments. I am more than willing to offer my recommendations.
Amazing article, i love the tables... help me decide performance vs. battery life
Amazing article, i love the tables... help me decide performance vs. battery life
Well first let's establish a few starting points. What do you want to be able to use the laptop for (productivity, multimedia, gaming, etc)? And what kind of price-range are you looking at?
Your biggest battery eaters will be your CPU and your GPU, followed by your display. If your budget can allow it, you should consider an LED screan instead of LCD.
If you want to play modern 3D games, you'll have to make a few sacrifices to your battery life, but if games aren't necessary, go for the light weight GPUs, like Intel's 4500 or nVidia 9300.
For your CPU, you'll probably want to go with one of the 25W models, perhaps Intel's P8600 series or similar; however, a 35W model such as the Turion II M500, will save you some money and still keep decent battery life.
u seem to have lots knowledge but... ^_^ i was just thanking Paul for the article... it would be really helpful if I wanna buy in the future.
Currently I have Asus EEE 1000HE which is used for internet when am in Costa Coffee... nothing serious... but thanks anyway
u seem to have lots knowledge but... ^_^ i was just thanking Paul for the article... it would be really helpful if I wanna buy in the future.Currently I have Asus EEE 1000HE which is used for internet when am in Costa Coffee... nothing serious... but thanks anyway
Well you are very welcome. I'm glad you liked the article
Very nice article. I was thinking about getting a Dell Studio XPS 16 for all round computing and some light gaming. With a Core i7, LED screen, Full HD, 4gb ddr3, 7200rpm hdd and a 4670 i think its quite good for the price.
Very nice article. I was thinking about getting a Dell Studio XPS 16 for all round computing and some light gaming. With a Core i7, LED screen, Full HD, 4gb ddr3, 7200rpm hdd and a 4670 i think its quite good for the price.
Yeah, that sounds like a great system. Dell's Studio line is a pretty good deal right now; however, that Core i7 may be more than you need. If you're going to be using this laptop as your primary computer, then by all means, go for it.
LED screens are similar, but are based on a newer technology, which does away with the need of a backlight, letting the pixels emit the light themselves.
This is incorrect. LED screens are LCD screens using an LED backlight, which is more energy efficient and brighter.
This description is describing the emerging OLED screen technology in which each pixel produces its own light. OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode.
This is incorrect. LED screens are LCD screens using an LED backlight, which is more energy efficient and brighter.This description is describing the emerging OLED screen technology in which each pixel produces its own light. OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode.
I'm sorry. You are correct. LED screens use a matrix of LED lights behind the pixels, creating the effect that the pixels are emitting the light, foregoing the traditional backlit screens that use side mounted lights and clever foil mirrors.
LED screens provide a more uniform lightning and give more vivid colors, as well as use less electricity. Forgive my error.
Great article. One question. If you are doing video, sound and picture editing would you optimize your system differently than for gaming, or is it like web browsing where a gaming system is more power than you need, but will do it fine? Especially pictures.
Tom, did you just confuse TDP for the power consumption for processors? That is such a common misconception that it should be an article all by itself.
Great article. One question. If you are doing video, sound and picture editing would you optimize your system differently than for gaming, or is it like web browsing where a gaming system is more power than you need, but will do it fine? Especially pictures.
Video and photo editing will rely more on your CPU than your GPU; however, it will still be beneficial to have a somewhat decent graphics processor in your system because a lot of these programs will make use of hardware acceleration (meaning it uses your video card instead of your CPU) to draw/render things to the screen. Something along the lines of a Radeon 4650 is more than enough, and even a Radeon 4300 or GeForce 9300M will work fine.
Additionally some programs (very few today) can make use of a platform called CUDA which uses your video processor for actual calculation instead of just drawing things to the screen. To use CUDA though, you will need an nVidia GPU. In this case, a more powerful GPU will make a considerable difference, but very few programs make use of CUDA today, and it will likely be several years before it become more mainstream.
Tom, did you just confuse TDP for the power consumption for processors? That is such a common misconception that it should be an article all by itself.
It's true that TDP is not the amount of power a processor uses, but it is very closely related to the amount of power the processor can use. And because TDP's are the only values that can be consistantly referenced, they can be used as a good indicator of how much power the CPU will use (compared to other CPU's).
I am constantly on a quest for maximum performance, but not because I'm a gamer, but because I hate waiting. My biggest source of stress as a business user is in boot times.
In short, what would you recommend for a laptop that will boot fast, run intensive creative apps such as CS4, multi-thread a large number of common business apps, and shutdown just as quickly? I want speed, but not for gaming. I would happily trade frame-rate for battery life.
I am constantly on a quest for maximum performance, but not because I'm a gamer, but because I hate waiting. My biggest source of stress as a business user is in boot times.
In short, what would you recommend for a laptop that will boot fast, run intensive creative apps such as CS4, multi-thread a large number of common business apps, and shutdown just as quickly? I want speed, but not for gaming. I would happily trade frame-rate for battery life.
I am constantly on a quest for maximum performance, but not because I'm a gamer, but because I hate waiting. My biggest source of stress as a business user is in boot times. In short, what would you recommend for a laptop that will boot fast, run intensive creative apps such as CS4, multi-thread a large number of common business apps, and shutdown just as quickly? I want speed, but not for gaming. I would happily trade frame-rate for battery life.
In most systems, the biggest bottleneck is the Hard Drive. It's one of the main causes for long boot times and they delays when launching applications.
If you are willing to spend the money, upgrading to an SSD (Solid State Drive). They reduce seek times and completely do away with spin-up times of your traditional hard drive disk. The biggest downside to SSDs is their capacity and price. A 250GB SSD will likely cost over $500. If you can manage with just 128GB of space though, you could get away with spending under $300.
Other than that, you'll probably want 4GB of RAM (6GB if you're editing multiple large photos or files). You may also want to consider DDR3-1333 RAM as well since RAM speed helps considerably with load times.
For your CPU, your standard Core 2 Duo around 2.4GHz should be fine, the P8600 for example. If you're doing very intensive video conversions and the like and don't want to wait as long, you may want to consider the Core i7 720QM. It's a quad core CPU with hyperthreading, meaning it has 8 logical cores. It's listed as running 1.6GHz, but it will automatically raise its speed up to 2.8GHz when it needs to.
Such a system will likely come with a perfectly suitable video card standard. You'd be fine with any of the G-100 series or Radeon 4000 series. Even the intel 4500 will work for your needs.
There are some things that don't agree with me:
For most purposes, though, a 1440x900 pixel resolution, or WXGA+, is enough.
LED screens are similar, but are based on a newer technology
The biggest nuisance, especially when running windows is the hard drive. A 5400 rpm drives performance is way below average when compared to a desktop platform where the hard drive also is a nuisance and I wouldn't recommend it for any one unless I wish him to develop hypertension and get a stroke.
Selecting a screen resolution is not a matter of purpose but a matter of preference. The screen resolutions are often annoyingly low in my opinion and I believe most people are better off with higher resolutions unless they have problems with their eye sight. On a 15" computer a WSXGA+ resolution might be acceptable but when buying a 17" it is ridiculous to have a lower resolution than WUXGA. WUXGA laptops are rare to find but when buying a build-your-own, upgrading from standard resolution to WUXGA is a matter of $150.
Another aspect of the screens is that laptop screens are generally very poor when it comes to contrast dynamic, viewing angle and color representation. I often find myself squinting when browsing through pages that experiment with hue transitions and where the text is hard to distinguish from the background. I don't have this problem with a PVA display but you rarely find these on laptops which are equipped with the cheapest and poorest type of them all; TN.
I've never heard of LED displays on desktops and even less so on laptops. From what I know there is no such thing. You find them on big electronic signposts but that's it. What has been introduced is what is known as a LED back lit LCD displays which means that it is back lit by LEDs instead of fluorescent tubes. The difference is so big that Apple is facing a lawsuit in the UK for calling its LCD-screen LED.
I'm sorry. You are correct. LED screens use a matrix of LED lights behind the pixels, creating the effect that the pixels are emitting the light, foregoing the traditional backlit screens that use side mounted lights and clever foil mirrors.LED screens provide a more uniform lightning and give more vivid colors, as well as use less electricity. Forgive my error.
This is true for desktop screens but not for laptop screens where the array of LEDs usually is located at the lower edge of the screen fitted in a similar fashion as the CCFL tubes in standard laptop TFT panels.
There are some things that don't agree with me:The biggest nuisance, especially when running windows is the hard drive. A 5400 rpm drives performance is way below average when compared to a desktop platform where the hard drive also is a nuisance and I wouldn't recommend it for any one unless I wish him to develop hypertension and get a stroke.Selecting a screen resolution is not a matter of purpose but a matter of preference. The screen resolutions are often annoyingly low in my opinion and I believe most people are better off with higher resolutions unless they have problems with their eye sight. On a 15" computer a WSXGA+ resolution might be acceptable but when buying a 17" it is ridiculous to have a lower resolution than WUXGA. WUXGA laptops are rare to find but when buying a build-your-own, upgrading from standard resolution to WUXGA is a matter of $150.Another aspect of the screens is that laptop screens are generally very poor when it comes to contrast dynamic, viewing angle and color representation. I often find myself squinting when browsing through pages that experiment with hue transitions and where the text is hard to distinguish from the background. I don't have this problem with a PVA display but you rarely find these on laptops which are equipped with the cheapest and poorest type of them all; TN.I've never heard of LED displays on desktops and even less so on laptops. From what I know there is no such thing. You find them on big electronic signposts but that's it. What has been introduced is what is known as a LED back lit LCD displays which means that it is back lit by LEDs instead of fluorescent tubes. The difference is so big that Apple is facing a lawsuit in the UK for calling its LCD-screen LED.
I basically agree with you completely. 5400 RPM HDD's are a nuisance, and most laptop screens are remarkably low resolution. But you have to remember that a lot of people can overlook those lower resolutions if it means saving $100-$200, and the power-savings of a slower hard drive may also be worth the performance hit, especially for those who are only opening word files and the like.
My goal for this article was to give people the know-how to choose their laptop compenents on their own. I purposely avoided giving speciffic recommendations and focused on outlining the uses for different features.
As for calling them LED screens, yes, the screens are not made up of LED's, but the terminology has become fairly mainstream among the manufacturers. Thanks for your feedback though, g00ey.
Do you know of any budget priced laptops with an option to upgrade the video card for more demanding gaming tasks? I know laptops in of themselves are not very upgradable, but can;t help but think it may be an option with a lower budget system.
good article and way better replies thanks for sharing :-)