geforce versus radeon

[roshan]

I can only afford one laptop which is good enough to play some neat games. The laptop should cost me around 930 pounds or so. It comes with a 64MB NVIDIA

[mkreku]

The Radeon Mobility 9600 Pro is an excellent graphics card that can handle most games without problems (I'm playing Half-Life 2 on one right now, 800x600, max details and 2xAA). ATI's latest drivers are exceptionally good and bug-free and they're (finally) very easy to install.

 

The Radeon Mobility 9600 Pro is a much stronger card than the GeforceFX Go5200, but if it's worth

[Belhawk]

KotOR 1 had less problems with the Nvdia drivers than with the ATI drivers. So, I would get a Nvdia card, but then I've always gotten Nvdia cards; I'm not impartial. "

[Judge Hades]

I used to go through ATI back in the day but I found NVidia to be better quality for the price.

[zer"0"]

I agree with mkreku here.

 

The Radeon 9600 Mobility is good at DX9 Shaders and an efficient design.

Uses less juice etc. Probably play a bit better at newer games than the 5200.

Eg. : Kotor will perform better on the 5200, but Half-Life 2, VtM:Bloodlines will perform better on the 9600.

 

ATI drivers today are very stable. Though you can still find a glitch here and there. But nVidia also has a few bugs.

 

IMO you can't really go wrong with either. Very comparable they are.

 

Personally I would go for the ATI Mobility. Just depends if the upgrade cost

is worth it for you.

[roshan]

Well 70 pounds is quite a hell of a lot to me. But whats more important is getting a laptop that will last me sometime. I dont want to buy a laptop that cant handle the next generation games.

 

BTW does anyone here have experience with dell? How soon do they deliver their laptops? Im working temporarily in coventry(near birmingham) but i will be leaving for the isle of man on the 7th of january. the problem is that dell has a free double memory upgrade for laptops going on now that i want to avail of thatv will be ending on the 29th of this month, so i was wondering how long it takes them to deliver their goods.

[Errantry]

Personally, I'd go with the Radeon. But then again, I'm biased. Radeon's worked well for me so far, and my brother chose it for me to begin with. I'm not sure it's worth dishing out the extra money, though I would.

[Torpar]

Agreed - I'd go with the Radeon 9600 Mobility as well. The GeForce FX 5200 is a relatively old card (its performance is average, probably equivalent to that of a Radeon 9000...), so if you're looking for a card that will be able to handle the new generation of games that are coming out, the FX 5200 is definitely not your best choice here...

 

On the other hand, the Radeon 9600 Mobility is - as others have said - an excellent card that can easily handle the new generation of graphically-demanding games (I've seen it in action before and its performance is top-notch, to say the least)... If you can afford the extra 70 pounds, you should probably go for this...

 

I use Radeon 9000 Mobility on my laptop myself, and I must say, you'll have to have something better than this...

[roshan]

Thanks.

 

Im now planning to get a 128MB ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 instead of the 9600. Is this a better card? If so, how much better is it?

[Torpar]

In terms of performance, the Radeon 9700 is, by far, a more powerful card than the the Radeon 9600... Exactly, how much better I cannot say.

 

This is probably how I would rate the first generation DirectX 9 ATI cards (according to the quality of their performance):

 

1. Radeon 9800XT

2. Radeon 9800Pro

3. Radeon 9700Pro

4. Radeon 9800

5. Radeon 9700

6. Radeon 9600XT

7. Radeon 9500Pro

8. Radeon 9600Pro

 

And etc...

 

Of course, there are also the new Radeon X cards avaliable as well - though they are quite pricy...

[nik_bg]

In general: NVIDIA cards are better for games with OpenGL, ATI cards are better for games with DirectX.

[EnderAndrew]

Fairly acurate generalization.