[metallinikil]

My friend is looking for a gaming laptop I was just wondering what teh fastest 3D card is for it. Also are there any really cool products that will come out in the next 6-9 months(mobile 3d cards)? Besides AlienWare are there any other high end gaming laptop manufacturers?

[Snyder]

Fastest mobile available for gaming at the moment (If you're not considering power consumption): I'd say Geforce4Go 440, slightly behind the Radeon7500.
Beware: both without DX8 Pixel shaders!

For the future: The only chip I'm aware of having been announced is the Trident, which has programmable PS.

[Pete]

GF4go, then Radeon Mobility 7500, then GF2go.

Alienware doesn't look exceptional, IMO. I'd rather have a mobile CPU, as if I buy a laptop, I expect it to function as a portable device. However, if your friend is just looking for a tiny desktop, and doesn't plan on travelling extensively with it, I suppose he could do with a desktop P4 in a laptop. I'd be worried about heat, though.

If a minimal desktop footprint is your concern, I'd rather get a tiny Shuttle case with a P4A, DDR, and GF4/9700 coupled with the Sharp LL-T1620B. Now that's a sweet setup.

[Gunhead]

And of course we all know that there are no 3D cards for laptops, just chips (integrated on the mobo). So until Nvidia's "mobile graphics socket" or a similar thingy comes through, you can't upgrade the laptop's graphics. Suggest to that friend to buy a small pizza box with a microATX mobo with an AGP slot, a flat panel to put on top of it, and a rugged carrying bag. ;-)

[Saem]

Well supposedly a Moiblity 9000 is being introduced, that should handidly spank everything.

[RussSchultz]

It doesn't look like it spanks the comparitive NVIDIA product in speed, but I'd prefer the DX8 capability of the mobility9000 over the GF4go-460 (who comes up with these names?).

[Saem]

If you live in Vancouver I could tell you. If I say it here, without the geographical/cultural context, it'd be taken as racist.

[RussSchultz]

Originally Posted by Saem

If you live in Vancouver I could tell you. If I say it here, without the geographical/cultural context, it'd be taken as racist.

Eh?

[Saem]

At least you're in the right dilect with the, "Eh".

I suppose I'll give it a shot.

In the GVR, there is a significant oriental population. More specifically largely from Hong Kong and much before that due to the railroads -one of those times that Canada really showed it's compassion .

In any case, we have a lot of small businesses that opened up here due to the immgrants. However, english wasn't their forte. In an attempt to market themselves quite a lot of um... "funny" store names were born. Especially all the computer stores -we have a LOT of independents- like, fly, addax, a-power, rock, atic, aspert (pronouced very close to ass-spurt)... In any case, I attribute this to much the same. And yes, I've been called a racist for calling to attention such things. =(

It's okay, I'm not a racist, I hate everyone equally - to paraphrase someone I once knew.

[Joe DeFuria]

Um, I think Russ' "eh" was short-hand for "what does any of that have to do with this thread?"

[borzwazie]

hardocp has a short review of the mobility 9000. They are apparently impressed by it's performance.


http://hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzQ5

[Joe DeFuria]

To echo everyone here, the ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 chip would be the best chip to get. Note that this has just been introduced, and you'll probably have to wait 2-4 weeks (according to Anand) before you start seeing notebooks shipping with it.

If you can't wait, and you needed something right *now*, you should probably get one with a GeForce4 440 2-go. The previously mentioned GeForce4 460 2-go is also not yet available.

Note that all of these notebook graphics chips come in several core clock and memory configurations. Make sure you ask about graphics memory speed and bus width when looking at specific notebooks!

[Dave Baumann]

I went to ATi's Pre-ECTS launch event last night. Unfortuntaly it was it was the wrong side of the river in Central London and something possessed me to drive there, meaning I ended up getting there late and missed the press conference. Also, upon entering I signed an NDA and promptly forgot to take a note of the date so I have no idea what I can or can't talk about at the moment. Needless to say there are a number of manufacturers already lined up to flog this thing.

[Fuz]

Here you go.
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=1692

The same core as the 9000, running at 250/230. Impressive to say the least. Beats the 440 go in performance and is a DX 8.1 chip.

This is what carmack had to say about it.

You know, on our current work at Id right now we're still pushing really hard to make Doom run well on various high end desk top cards. So it's pretty startling to be able to fire it up on a laptop and see it run at a really pretty startling good pace.

Fuz

[mboeller]

I like especially the "nice extra's" this chip has. When You have an 16" 1600x1200 TFT then everything is really small and hard to read (sometimes). So now with the (as it seems) very good zoom-function the R9000 supports it is possible to zoom the desktop or use an resolution of 1024x768 without "foggy" text.

Link : http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=1692&p=3

IMHO this feature will be more important to most users than the 10-20 lower fps at 1600x1200 compared to the unavailable 460Go.