HD3470 or X1350?

[Snaak]

Hello all,

Been a while since I posted here. But I could use some help, I'm buying a laptop and can't decide which one I should buy.

I narrowed everything down to two laptops basically, an HP which has got a Radeon X1350 128MB DDRAM (don't know if it's DDR2), and a Toshiba laptop with an HD3470 128 DDRAM (same goes for this one). The rest of the components in the laptops are practically the same.

I looked up some specs of the graphics cards on ati.com and I found out the X1350 has a 128-bit bus, while the HD3470 only has a bus that is 64-bit. I still don't know much about what kind of RAM is installed on those cards, though, as the site only says "DDR/DDR2/DDR3" which is not really helping. Of course the HD3470 does support DX10.1

But that's not really important to me, as I will use it for programs mostly (video editing, After Effects, Photoshop), and a few games perhaps.

I was hoping some of you people kind of knew the specifics of the RAM on those graphics cards, and which card I should go for when the most intense game I'll be playing is Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, and when looking at the 64-bit / 128-bit stuff.

The specs of both laptops:

HP - T8100 2,1GHz 3MB L2 800MHz FSB, 2GB DDR2, 160GB HD 5400RPM, 17" 1440x900
Toshiba A300-13I - T8100, 2GB DDR2, 250GB HD 5400RPM, 15,4" 1280x800

[Kibokun]

If I recall...the X1350 is super old...and the HD3470 is last year or less? If I'm correct about those two facts, HD3470 hands down.

[Evilsizer]

take the one with the 3000 in it...

[Old Thrashbarg]

From what little I can find around the net, and of course depending a bit on the memory configuration of the X1350, it seems like both cards are roughly even in 3dMark 2001, the 3470 is a bit faster in 3dMark03, and then is about 50-70% higher in 05 and 06. Still not a speed demon, but given all other things similar, I'd go with the better one. Also remember that in this case, the weaker card would also be driving a higher resolution (1440x900 vs 1280x800) hurting performance even more.

Although, as a side note, I'd go with the Toshiba anyhow just because of the screen size... have you ever actually tried carrying around a 17" notebook? Not fun.

[Snaak]

Alright, thanks for the info guys, I think I will go for the Toshiba Notebook then.

[Freezer7Pro]

From what little I can find around the net, and of course depending a bit on the memory configuration of the X1350, it seems like both cards are roughly even in 3dMark 2001, the 3470 is a bit faster in 3dMark03, and then is about 50-70% higher in 05 and 06. Still not a speed demon, but given all other things similar, I'd go with the better one. Also remember that in this case, the weaker card would also be driving a higher resolution (1440x900 vs 1280x800) hurting performance even more.

Although, as a side note, I'd go with the Toshiba anyhow just because of the screen size... have you ever actually tried carrying around a 17" notebook? Not fun.
Weakling ;)

[chrome-187]

why not get a 3850? it will blow both of them away no contest...u can get the 3850 for $80 USD

[Snaak]

why not get a 3850? it will blow both of them away no contest...u can get the 3850 for $80 USD

Yeah, but laptop graphics cards are very difficult to replace aren't they? So it comes down to buying a whole other laptop then, also, I can expect to pay a couple of hundred bucks more this way.

[Abu Som3a]

How much are you buying these laptops for? You may want to look at the deals at slickdeals.net and gotapex before buying...

[Snaak]

How much are you buying these laptops for? You may want to look at the deals at slickdeals.net and gotapex before buying...

Thank you, but I'm from the Netherlands so even if they ship to my country, I'll most likely have to pay a lot of custom fee, but thanks anyway :thup:

[Standingcow]

Might not be important to you but why only 5400 RPM HDD? 7200 RPM isnt that much more expensive is it?

[Snaak]

Might not be important to you but why only 5400 RPM HDD? 7200 RPM isnt that much more expensive is it?

Yeah, they only ship these laptops with 5400RPM harddisks. I might buy a 7200rpm or even a solid state disk later on.

But I agree, I don't really understand either why they are only available with 5400rpm disks, this is the case with a lot of notebooks I've come across.