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Need laptop video advice

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v8440

Member
Joined
Sep 5, 2001
Hi all,

I'm considering buying a new laptop to replace the one that got stolen out of my truck last year. I like to play FPS games on the laptop when I'm out of town on business, so video performance is obviously a priority. What I'm looking at right now is getting one with a c2d and a good video card. I'm not too concerned about OS or memory-if it's low on memory it will get more, and if it has any form of vista it will get XP pro installed. Some choices newegg has right now have several video cards. The ones I'm looking at are:

radeon x1600
radeon x1700
geforce 7300
geforce 7600

The geforce 7600 machine and the x1700 machine both say they have 256 MB of video memory, though the 1700 one also says "up to 512 mb of hyper memory". What is hyper memory? Is it extra ram it can commandeer out of the system ram in addition to 256 mb of dedicated video ram?

The 7600 machine is a couple hundred dollars more than the 1700 machine, and it comes with a slower processor (1.6 ghz vs 2 ghz). Is the 7600 gpu so much better that it's worth paying $200 more and getting a 400 mhz slower cpu?

The one I'm leaning toward right now is the one with the x1700 gpu. It's an asus, priced at $1298. It's also the one that comes with the 2 ghz c2d, vs slower versions of the chip on other comparably-priced machines.

Can anybody give me an idea of how these gpu's stack up against each other, and the kind of performance I can expect from them?
 
The X1700 is better then the 7600

50% more pipes... Higher clocks, and sometimes 2x the memory bit width. (7600 reads 128/64 whereas 1700 is just 128...) Plus that hyper memory, while not a good thing, could be handy in the future if your NEEDED 512MB of vram for something

EDIT: Restof the system can come into play though.. so the 7600 could be a better gamer..
 
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