mr9800 vs top-of-the-line desktop cards

playing a game on a top of the line desktop with an x800 or nvidia 6800 is gonna look way better than an mr9800. Not that thats bad though, the mr9800 is the best laptop card out.

From "visual difference" point of view, I think the weakest spot of notebooks is screen - low contrast ratio, small viewing angle, big responce time... If you will play games on the notebook with connected CRT montor, I believe "visual difference" will be very small (if any). And you still will have portability of notebook.

On the other hand, performance translated into visual quality. On powerful desktop you can tern on all the effects and details, AA, AF and still get playable fps - this is not a case with a notebook - even the most powerful one.

If games is your priority then you should think of keeping you hardware up-to-date, what is much easier and chipper with desktops.

Strongest and unbeatable side of notebooks is portability, if you need it, you have no choice but get a notebook - XPS is the king here, no doubt. If you do not need it, then you can get much more power with a desktop for less money.

I have struggeled with this myself. I was going to get a powerful desktop with pci-express, x800, etc. But i decided my life is shifting mobile. If I can get a laptop that still plays the newest games, decently, AND allows me to take it places (school/work/friends apartments etc.) then that is an acceptible and welcome tradeoff. But thats just me. I am loving my 9100 and forsee it being my main PC for years to come.

/shiver...It frightens me how much the industry has marketed pci express when there is almost no difference over agp 8x right now. Currently PCI express is a joke. I wouldn't invest in pcie for at least one cycle. Besides the newest top line cards, X800 and 6800 cards weren't developed for pcie, they were made for agp. Anyway, I don't think you can compare laptop gfx cards to desktop cards. And actually the MR9800 is stronger than a 9800XT. I pull about 12.5k with my 6800GT and 7.4k with my 9800MR and about 7.2k with my 9800XT. Desktops are so much cheaper to own than a laptop, but then again they are a pain to haul around. I guess if you are planning on being a hardcore gamer and choose a laptop, then you'll be stuck with a bit slower gfx card. But then again most people with desktops are still using geforce4-geforce5 as well as ati9000 series cards and the MR9800 is a stronger card that anything in those to lines. I know that the 9800MR can handle anything that is on the market right now very well, and that's saying a lot for a notebook card. All in all I'd stick with your MR9800 at the moment and wait for PCI Express to become stronger. Right now it is limited to the hardware that is being put on it, and unfortunatly the newest cards aren't even close to showing any bandwidth increase potential for the 16x. Besides current processors are going to be a bottleneck that won't even allow you to get mind blowing performance out of a good PCIE card.


-Myhre

I suppose these numbers are 3dmark03 results, right? Did you have the same processors in these tests? The same overclocking?

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...n_9800_review/ said "In comparison to desktop graphics cards, in our testing MOBILITY RADEON 9800 performance lay somewhere between the RADEON 9700 PRO and RADEON 9800 PRO overall."

Duh!!

Now what were you thinking when you bought the XPS? Did you really think that it could keep up with modern desktop video cards??? First of all you have to think about size, second almost all modern desktop cards require a direct feed to the 12V and 5V out of the power supply, you can't provide that kind of power through a motherboard in a laptop. The MR9800 is currently the best mobile card out there, if you want a desktop card then get a desktop. Notebooks have limitations and video cards are one of them.

By the way, reading this or similar forums it's almost imposible to find out what's happening beyond notebook world (even beyond dell's notebook world in our case). But you will read very often something like "XPS kicks ass in hardcore games". So, there shouldn't be any surprises that some new owners are surprised.

Hmm, my new m9800 is faster in the 3d benchmarks then my desktop 9800. Maybe I have to download the new drivers for the desktop? My lappy gets like over 6500 and the desktop is about 4400

High-end desktops are of course faster, and if benchmarks are more important than portability, I'd stay with a desktop.

However, since I can run every game that's out right now (and run them well: turning settings up and playing at 1024x768 or 1280x1024, which is native for my LCD) on my desktop (crappy specs in sig), and an MR9800 performs roughly twice as well as my desktop (as compared with 3dMark03 scores), I'd venture to say that you would have loads of fun playing games on an MR9800.

Most of my friends that have upgraded their desktops recently, have upgraded to 9800 cards, because they are the best mainstream cards. It costs too much for too little benefit to buy cutting edge cards. The MR9800 performing on par with mainstream cards (usually higher, since most people get the Pro versions of the 9800s and not the XT) is nothing to scoff at.

If you understood all of that without having to reread stuff, you're better than me.

A 9800 Pro w/128 riding a 3 Mhx P4 w/ht and 1 Gig of ram will out perform the best MR9800 cards by a wide margin.

Daley

Not according to the 3dMark03 ORB, just for benchmarking sake, at least. Doing a search for an Intel P4 of 2950 to 3050 Mhz with a 9800 Pro, gives a highest score of 6915. We've seen posts of the MR9800 reaching 7500 by one of the Dell moderators with overclocking. Changing that to include 3.2 P4s (3250 Mhz), yields a highest score of 7196.

getting back on track. the mr9800 is somewhere between the 9800 and the 9800XT, depending on the game, the driver version, if you are oc'ing or not, etc. performance wise, if you can be happy with the performance of a 9800pro, then in eccesance you'll be fine with the mr9800.

visually

lets cover some basics: the mr9800 is not an x800 core, but it is based on the x800 core. I recall from one of the previews it was mentioned that ATI started a division who's sole purpose is developing these laptop gpu's. And the mr9800 is the first part. It was essentially co-developed with the x800, instead of waiting for the x800 to be done, then trying to manipulate the desktop part into a mobile package. So the 9800 core was designed along with the x800, but one of the reasons I don't suspect we'll be modding for more pipes is I would guess ATI didn't even design the other pipes into this chip, why waste the extra transistors?

So, understanding that the design of the mr9800 occurred along side the x800, and with the same "feature" sets, it will be visually IDENTICAL to an x800XT.

the only difference is, the mr9800 can't run at the framerates of the x800XT since it only has 8 pipelines, not 16. But "visually" they have exactly the same capabilities. There are NO features available on the x800 gpus that aren't also in the mr9800 for visual affects.

So, the more appropriate answer is, depending on the game, and the resolution you pick, there will be cases, like Doom3, where the mr9800 can not be run either in as high a resolution for high details, or at the same resolutions but medium quality as the desktop x800's. AF/AA will more greatly impact the 9800 with it's 8 pipes. This is why it seems to run even with the desktop 9800 series. They are all based on 8 pipelines. That's the most crucial number, along with the 256 bit memory path.

you won't be able to play doom 3 at 1280x1024 at ultra high settins with max AF/AA, but you will be able to play at 800x600 in ultra, and you might be able to get AF based on some of the tweaks out there.

There is of course no comparison between desktop and mobile cards. For a mobile buyer, I think the question for notebook/dtr buyers should be how long will the MR9800 be able to play the newest games at decent framerate/detail. From what I've gathered here, people figure that they'll get at least two years out of it before they won't be able to play the latest games.

Rogue, not sure what you were saying about the 256bit memory path, but the MR9800 DOES have the 256bit. Just wanted to clarify what you were saying

sorry, didn't think it was confused

i was saying that the mr9800 performs so much like the desktop 9800's because they are all 8pipeline and 256bit mem paths

where the old mr9700 and the x600 pci-e based MR card coming out are 128 bit mem paths