Cpu or gpu?

[itchy_trigger 0]

Hi I'm thinking about buying a laptop computer, unfortunately I can't buy a desktop since I move around too much. I want it to have enough power to play games in it. But I’m a little confused on what should I buy. I found this site where they are selling a notebook with a 2.0 GHz P4 processor with 512MB RAM and an ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500 with 64MB memory. On the dell site I can buy one for a similar price, a 1.7 GHz P4 processor with 512MB RAM and an ATI MOBILITY RADEON 9000 or for $40 less with a 64MB DDR 4XAGP NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go.

I want to be able to play most of the recent games especially Battlefield 1942.

· Is CPU power is more important that GPU power?

· Is the ATI MOBILITY RADEON 7500 a good card or should I go with the more expensive MOBILITY RADEON 9000?

· Or maybe I should go for the 64MB DDR 4XAGP NVIDIA GeForce4 440 Go

Any comment or advice would be appreciated.

[Ex-RoNiN 0]

Hi,

not sure how these mobile gfx cards cope with games, but from my experience I think that 300 MHz difference in CPU power are almost non-noticeable, especially when the peripherals are top notch.

If I were you I would go for the 1.7 GHz with the better gfx card.

As for GFX card performance, type the exact spec into google and look through some reviews

There is one significant drawback, however - games put a huge strain on resources, as a result your lappy will heat up quite a bit, which may lead to crashing. My flatmate has that problem.

[Warin 0]

I cast a vote for the nVidia GPU.

I have never had any luck with the Radeon cards, so I will admit that i am a little prejudiced against them. I find that their silicon is as good as, or in some cases better than nVidia, but they just cant seem to hold up in the driver department.

This is just my opinion..please dont let this turn into a debate over the merits of each company.

[Frisbee 0]

Driver problems have been solved,a lot of my gamer friends use radeons.But i don't know anything about mobile graphics cards.

I'd be doubting much really.Look for low profile notebook companies,the often have versatile kit.

(BTW : heat _will_ be an issue,there's a platform for laptops with 3 fans in it,maybe a solution.)

[RED 0]

Go for the GPU, the CPU is less important in most games. I have little/no problems with a Radeon card (I have one on my server)

RED

[itchy_trigger 0]

Thanks everybody. This is very helpful. Never thought about that overheating issue. I don't really like notebooks, but I have no choise.

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

7500 is a little weak. Especially since the upcoming games such as UT2003 and Doom3 will be counting more on the Graphic card than on the CPU.

[eh remraf 0]

Ok, heres the run down. The RADDEON 9000 smokes the GeForce 440 Go. If you want an Nvidia chip I'd look into a GeF 460 Go. The 460 Go, even less powerful, beats the 9000 by 5-6fps on most games that are dependent on cpu/memory/gpu. These games include JK2, and Commanche 4. GPU dependent games like Aquanox and Quake 3, the Nvidia card gets ahead by around 15-20fps.If you want to play games like UT2k3 and DOOM 3, the only way to go is desktop. UTK2 will run somewhat good on the hottest laptops but it still wont go anywhere near a rig with a GeForce 4 Ti4600 or RADDEON 9700 Pro. DOOM 3 is another story. I hear with a P4 2.56Ghz, 1gb of RDRAM, and a RADDEON 9700 Pro you get about 30fps on full setting. So, the ability to play it on a lapto will be limited to how scalable the game is. (GeForce 2 will most likely be bare minimum)

Anyways, read up on this and make your own decision.

http://www6.tomshardware.com/mobile/02q3/020829/index.html

[MarcusJClifford 1]

My 0.02$

I had use of a Toshiba which had a P4 1.7 Mobile and a GeForce 4 420 Graphics Card, and 512 MB DDR 2100 Memory.

It ran OFP:R fine at standard settings, so I put it up to Very High Landscape and max viewdistance (while keeping Very high terrain detail - I think it was ~1200M). The game ran fairly smoothly, not brilliantly, but playable. at 5000 M the terrain detail droped (automatic) but performance was better.

UT2003 ran fine as well, ~32 FPS on Demo Outdoor map.

I would say any P4 1.7+ and any GeForce 4 420+ or Radeon 8xxx+ would be fine.

Remember though you cannot upgrade a laptop so it makes sense to pay the extra now and get a top of the range system (my desktop has had 4 Graphics Card upgrade and 2 processor upgrades in in its lifetime)