Hmmm read this article....

I believe this has been discussed in a different thread. The alienware laptop appears to have the normal radeon mobility 9600 there is no mention of whether or no it was the pro version.I have seen on other sites where the mobility 9600 pro rocked the 5600. But if you only count performance in a chip then you are forgetting other important features like image quality and power saving features which the ATI cards usually come out on top.

In the comparison, you may notice that they have the FX5600go outperforming the desktop reference FX5600!

I dunno, alot of their numbers look really strange...

And then they give no info on driver versions or anything! Totally forget about this particular comparison, except for the fact that it tends to show the improvement of the new mobile chips...

Also, the games they tested don't take advantage of the DX9 features - the whole purpose for the new mobile chips!

Ack!

cards used..

Hello. The link to the article says the regular 9600 but if you watched the show, he says it's the 9600 pro. Every benchmark test done so far has had issues with them. We need to wait and and see two machines head to head running a DX9 game to see what the results really are. Right now, the few benchmarks out there tend to be contradictory and each site seems to get different results. When the new machines come out, then we shall see some real benchmarks that hopefully give a real indication of both of these cards.... of course, I am well aware that Sager only uses ATI and few people actually give the NVidia card a chance.... I think the cards will be close in performance....

Steve

Always one for the underdog, huh Steve.

Well I cant load the site soo I can read it

well, I guess so...

In all honesty all I want is a head to head competition between 2 identical machines.. one with the M10 Pro and one with the NVidia GeForceFX 5600 Go at 128 megs... I don't trust the websites out there with their benchmarks; each site gets different results. There needs to be a fair way to test these 2 cards out. I know ATI is considererd the reigning champ but I need to see some real head to head tests so I can pick the best card. I don't care whether it's the NVidia or the ATI; just the best one......


Steve

I also donot truse the benchmarks on websites, but trust tech tv benchmarks even less. I mean how the fudge can you provide honest answers for products that are your sponsers.

I was just making a joke by the underdog comment. Sorry if it sounder mean.

no harm, no foul...

Hello. I absolutely agree. There must be a way to get an honest head to head comparison for these cards... well as long as ATI and NVidia don't do the benchmarking we should have a better chance of a fairer review..... I took no offense to the underdog remark... I know you were joking.... well, you better have been.....


Steve

Also note their benchmark of a desktop with a Radeon 9600 Pro. Well, hate to break it to ya, but the 9600 Pro is a laptop-only card. I smell fish.

No mention anywhere of what processor the "desktop benchmarks" use either. No mention of which machines are HT-capeable, and no mention of which of those machines have had HT enabled. No mention of which graphics cards in the test may have been underclocked (generally for heat reasons).

Software-wise, no mention of version of drivers, minimal mention of which settings were used in the test software (no mention of texture detail, dynamic lighting, dynamic shadows, or any other video-card-intensive settings).

Yeah, I smell lots of fish.

Alienware seems to have a marketing agreement with nVidia (go to their site - look at all the huge nVidia graphics, nVidia cards come standard on all machines recently released). They have big marketing releases about nVida support (but not ATI support).

I agree that it would be nice to see the two cards compared in the same machine running the same software. And, obviously, don't let ATI, nVidia, or any close partner of one of those companies set up the test.

Which is my problem with testing in an Alienware system - to my mind they are potentially biased by their partnership with nVidia. I mean, when Alienware publically says nVida cards are preferred on their performance-oriented systems, wouldn't it be embarrasing if an ATI card performed better?

-phubar

corrections...

Hello. There is a desktop version of the 9600 Pro,check out ATI's site. Second, the whole idea of the show was to show off the new laptop. All I was saying was about the video card, I don't trust Techtv's benchmarks either. Nor do I trust Tom's hardware reviews. It was not even about Alienware. I just would like to see a fair comparison of these 2 cards head to head. Not whether the card is in a Sager or an Alienware; just a fair comparison. Anyway since Alienware will be offering both cards, it really does not matter; the customer will get to choose which card they want. By the way, if you want to talk about bias, how about Sager.. they only use ATI and that is why most people on this forum are so pro-ATI... I don't care which company I get the card from, I just want the best card. I believe most people would agree they simply want the best card; regarless of which company they buy their pc from...

Steve

Well, it's Clevo that uses the ATI cards, Sager, as a reseller, doesn't have much choice. But point well taken - I shouldn't have singled out Alienware, most vendors probably have an agreement with ATI or nVidia, and hence would be biased.

Which is why we'll probably never see a clearly objective test - while you can build up a desktop from individual parts to use as a unbiased testing platform, with laptops you're stuck going with someone's design - and that someone is going to be a manufacturer or retailer, and that manufacturer is going to have ties to ATI, nVidia, or both.

-phubar

Did you also notice...?

They are running at Graphics settings: 1024x768, 32-bit color/textures, no AA/8xAF. Who runs games with no AA? Are they running without 8xAF or with it? The NVidia cards really shine when you turn AA and AF on. Why buy a card that can do it if you aren't going to use it? You can get almost any graphics card to run an acceptable frame rate if you are willing to give up picture quality.

Re: Did you also notice...?

Only if the game came out within a year or two of the graphics card. My 16MB ATI Rage 128 (top of the line, 2.5 years ago) can't run Shadowbane at above 6 fps average. And I'm not even about to tryit on SWG...

-phubar