256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT Vs. 256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 3650?

Question

I am not really the kind of gamer that plays top of the line games but for the games I do play (on line, fps, rpg's.. etc) I would like to have a decent enough graphics unit to play them even if it means on low settings. Here are the two computers that I have configured. Please keep in mind that I am not a huge gamer that plays heavy graphical intensive games. In other words, I don't mind playing games on low settings.

Dell Studio 17 w/ 256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 3650

cpu - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz/800Mhz FSB/6MB cache)

RAM - 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2

HDD - 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

$1344.00

Dell XPS M1530 w/ 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT

cpu - Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T8300 (2.4GHz/800Mhz FSB, 3MB Cache)

RAM - 4GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (2 Dimms)

HDD - 320GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive

$1,259.00

I personally seem to prefer the Studio 17, but I just want to make sure that the graphics unit can do what I want it to do. Here are some games that I like to play. Also note that I prefer overall system performance as well. Thank you for the help. :D

Halo 2

Half-Life 2

Garry's Mod 10-11

F.E.A.R.

WoW

Ragnarok

Unreal Tournament 2004

Everquest I and II

Answer 1

the first laptop looks alot better to me, the only downside (in my opinion) is the big screen size, but if u plan in playing some gaming (as u said), then it is not a downside, .... in ur case it is a positive thing

in the studio 17 the processor has double the cache size, and an extra 0.1ghz , both together will make some difernce in games

the ati3650 is a very good card, IMO it is better than the 8600

go with the studio 17

maybe to make sure, google for "8600 3650 benchmarks"

Answer 2

Well, most computers now a days can handle those games via ram, processor, and hdd space. Higher processor = faster loading times. Better graphics card = better graphics (obviously).

Dell xps would be better off for a "gaming" laptop of the two. Dell studio would be used more for the media arts (adobe n what not).

Of course, this is coming from a guy with gforce 8800 nvida, so it may be a bit biased.

Answer 3

As far as gaming is concerned, I've always relied on 3D benchmark scores for vid cards (typically for determining gaming performance) the 3D benchmark for the

256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GT scored in @

6175  

256MB ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 3650 scored in @

7183.

Radeon 1k higher... my neighbor plays WoW, just got his Dell S17 and it runs like a dream on maxxed settings.

If it's gameplay you're looking for I've also included a site I  turn to whenever I'm about to get myself another notebook the site is pretty useful when shopping vid cards for notebooks while trying to save some $$$  

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeFo...

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobilit...

Hope my answer helped you out. I got the Dell S17 on order right now myself - date of arrival sept 12 I'm lookin forward to some CS, DoD, HL2, and WoW on max settings and decent FPS!  

Oh BTW - the 6MB L2 Cache on the S17 is the Deal Sealer without question hands down imho.

Shredstein

Answer 4

you wouldn't see much of a difference in this games...

but the radeon 3650 is better than the 8600gt

radeon 3650 has 120 pixel/vertex shaders 600mhz core and shader speed, 700mhz  memory bus and directx 10.1

the 8600gt has 32 pixel/vertex shaders, 475mhz core, 950 mhz shaders, 700mhz memory bux and directx10

The 8600gt has fewer pixel shaders but makes up for it in speed, so the 3650 is better or equal in every other way.

its obvious go for the studio