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ATI Fire GL T2 vs. Mobility Radeon 9700

post #1 of 13
11/10/04 at 1:45am
Thread Starter 
Hi All... First post here

As hard as I've looked, I can't find a comparison anywhere between ATI's mobile workstation chip and it's desktop line. I assume that the Fire GL will outperform the Radeon series for specific tasks (ie DCC, CAD/CAM) but how does it fare in Gaming?

I'm trying to decide between the IBM Thinkpad T42p (128 mb Fire GL T2) and the Acer Ferrari 3400 (128 mb Radeon 9700). I believe that the Radeon 9800 will outperform both but I can't really wait for that one.

On a side note, I've narrowed it down to these two but I still have doubts about the Ferrari. I've used an Alienware Area 51-m before and it is WAY too loud. How does the Ferrari's noise level compare to the Area 51-m? My choice after these 2 would be either the Hypersonic CX-5 or the IBP E-Turbo.

Thanks in advance for your help.
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post #2 of 13
11/10/04 at 2:27pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by OpSec
Hi All... First post here

As hard as I've looked, I can't find a comparison anywhere between ATI's mobile workstation chip and it's desktop line. I assume that the Fire GL will outperform the Radeon series for specific tasks (ie DCC, CAD/CAM) but how does it fare in Gaming?

I'm trying to decide between the IBM Thinkpad T42p (128 mb Fire GL T2) and the Acer Ferrari 3400 (128 mb Radeon 9700). I believe that the Radeon 9800 will outperform both but I can't really wait for that one.

On a side note, I've narrowed it down to these two but I still have doubts about the Ferrari. I've used an Alienware Area 51-m before and it is WAY too loud. How does the Ferrari's noise level compare to the Area 51-m? My choice after these 2 would be either the Hypersonic CX-5 or the IBP E-Turbo.

Thanks in advance for your help.
you're right on the mark about the specific tasks thing. But seriously, what matters most is what u do, because there is a significant performance gap between them. The FireGL absolutely sucks at gaming. there's no way you can play a modern game well on one of those, while it's the same situation when it comes to CAD and stuff with a Mobility Radeon 9700. It all depends on what u wanna do with your lappy, though the 9700 seems to be more mainstream.
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post #3 of 13
11/10/04 at 3:06pm
The Fire GL T2 is the same basic GPU as a MR9600 except it comes with OpenGL certification.
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post #4 of 13
11/10/04 at 7:23pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NovaShine
The FireGL absolutely sucks at gaming. there's no way you can play a modern game well on one of those, while it's the same situation when it comes to CAD and stuff with a Mobility Radeon 9700. It all depends on what u wanna do with your lappy, though the 9700 seems to be more mainstream.
Not sure what you consider a modern game, but I play CoH, UT2k4, and Dawn Of War 40K just fine on the T42p I bought just last week.

It has a 128 Meg FireGL. True it's 128 Megs, and slower than a 9700 would be quite likely. Like you said it all depends what you want to do with your laptop.

Everyone has diffrent tolanrances as well, but to me the screen and graphics are very playable. Though they are definatly not the best out there for gaming, you will still be hard pressed to find something better that isn't bigger than 14.1 inches.
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post #5 of 13
11/11/04 at 1:35am
Thread Starter 
Thank you for the responses.

Mago, I wish IBM had kept the screens small for exactly the reason you mentioned - unfortunately, the new T42p with FireGL comes with a 15" screen only. At that portability level, there are several products that give the T42 a good run. My ideal machine would be a 12" SXGA or SXGA+ with a 128 mb video. I've looked hard but at the ultraportable level, it's mostly integrated Intel graphics...
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post #6 of 13
11/11/04 at 3:53pm
Uhm... I'm typing this on a 14 inch T42p with 128 meg FireGL.

IBM has a funky configuration thing, but if you browse through "All Models" you will find plenty of 14 inch laptops with 128 meg vidoe cards.

Edit: And yes, at 15 inches plenty of good stuff out there.
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post #7 of 13
11/11/04 at 5:24pm
Has anyone happened to run any 3D benchmarks on the FireGL (games or synthetic) that they could post results of? Lots of people have benchmarked the 9700.
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post #8 of 13
11/12/04 at 6:01am
Yes. I tested with the latest Fire GL drivers on HP nw8000 /w ATI Fire GL T2 128 MB and got the following results:

3dmark03: 2646
3dmark05: 1018
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post #9 of 13
11/12/04 at 10:38am
That's not too bad, some 9700 machines are getting almost that.
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post #10 of 13
11/14/04 at 12:09am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tommi
Yes. I tested with the latest Fire GL drivers on HP nw8000 /w ATI Fire GL T2 128 MB and got the following results:

3dmark03: 2646
3dmark05: 1018
Not bad, but it's still much slower than my Acer Ferrari 3200:

3DMark03: 3637
3DMark05: 1482
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post #11 of 13
11/14/04 at 6:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by snorre
Not bad, but it's still much slower than my Acer Ferrari 3200:

3DMark03: 3637
3DMark05: 1482
But snorre your notebook isnt a plain stock ferrari. Its kinda undfair to call it much slower then your notebook when it truly might not be 100 percent fair. I mean i can overclock the heck out of my note(with a big ole' desktop fan in the vent) and get right about where your at( i pulled around 3650 something) but do i call my notebook faster then yours? No, because stock to stock yours is faster but isnt much faster. Sorry to hijack the thread.
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post #12 of 13
11/14/04 at 1:39pm
Yeah, as the Fire GL T2 result are with all stock settings. The drivers are optimized for OpenGL and not 3dmark results, too. Basically, Fire GL T2 is a 128 MB Mobility Radeon 9600 Pro when it comes to gaming. The good thing about the HP lappy is that it is very silent and very cool at this performance. A great machine to use.
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post #13 of 13
11/14/04 at 2:17pm
...don't forget the Vaio S series. It's not 128meg graphics, but you can get it with a 64 meg 9700, which isn't too bad...


Quote:
Originally Posted by OpSec
Thank you for the responses.

Mago, I wish IBM had kept the screens small for exactly the reason you mentioned - unfortunately, the new T42p with FireGL comes with a 15" screen only. At that portability level, there are several products that give the T42 a good run. My ideal machine would be a 12" SXGA or SXGA+ with a 128 mb video. I've looked hard but at the ultraportable level, it's mostly integrated Intel graphics...
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