Graphic card question [Archive]

View Full Version : Graphic card question

CaptainRaiden

18th March 2011, 21:49

So, I've got to buy a new laptop in a week or so, and I'm looking at two. One has an Nvidia GT 420M with 2 GB RAM, and the other has an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650 1 GB RAM, and they are pretty similar on price. Now, on similar 1 GB memory, the 420M was behind on all benchmark tests. Would the extra 1 GB RAM make any difference or does it all depend on the graphic card architecture and the better benchmarking Radeon would be a better choice?

Here are the links to both of them:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html

http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-420M.35837.0.html

Daniel

18th March 2011, 21:55

Tbh probably not much difference on a laptop. Check whether they're discrete cards as well, ie whether they steal the memory from your PC :)

CaptainRaiden

18th March 2011, 22:07

Tbh probably not much difference on a laptop. Check whether they're discrete cards as well, ie whether they steal the memory from your PC :)

How would I find that out? :D Anyway, these are the only two kick-ass cards in the price range I'm interested in, and both are paired with Core i5 processors and 4 GB RAM with a frequency of 1066 Mhz. So, then what you're saying is that the extra 1 gig on the lower benchmarking Nvidia won't make any difference, what about if used for rendering on graphic intensive software like Adobe Premiere or 3DS Max, Maya etc.?

Zico

19th March 2011, 16:22

CaptainRaiden

21st March 2011, 10:11

See http://video-cards.findthebest.com/compare/12-61/GeForce-GT-420M-vs-Radeon-HD-5650

It shows the 420M as being just a 512mb card and so the remainder must be shared with the system Ram.

HD5650 hands down. ;)

Thanks a lot Zico. :up: I did some more research and yeah, looks like the Nvidia is a discrete card. So yeah, HD5650 all the way. Although I hope it doesn't crash in between games like the HD4870 in my desktop, but that was more software problem. Turns out that the ATI Catalyst software was overclocking the card by default, and since I have no heat sinks installed, it kept crashing in games. Had to use Rivatuner to underclock it, and now it runs fine.