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78 Comments
- kyle212, on 09/30/2008, -4/+37Oh how I wish you could replace laptop graphic cards
- Lane, on 10/01/2008, -0/+21well this is a huge waste of a read with a deceptive title.
- dsmx, on 09/30/2008, -1/+19If you buy a laptop that's the sacrifice you make along with more expensive parts and a higher defect rate.
- hattonn, on 10/01/2008, -1/+18Was anybody else expecting a massive list of all graphics cards and how they compared to each other?
- bloogey, on 10/01/2008, -0/+164850!
- realbudman, on 10/01/2008, -0/+13Pfft.. They don't even mention that those bigger cards work great for a heater in a small room.
or you can plug your PCI-E cards into your old NES. Try it.
Some ultimate guide. - OOOGGG, on 10/01/2008, -0/+6I like notebooks.
But every time i must buy new, no upgrade, because video card =/ - KaiUno, on 10/01/2008, -2/+12For gaming? You've got to be kidding, right? Smaller keyboard. Smaller screen. Crappy soundcard. Crappy speakers. Sitting behind that for hours at a time, cramped. No thank you.
- TheWhiteOtter, on 09/30/2008, -1/+10You can on some few models, though you have to send it back to whoever you got it off if you don't want to invalidate the warrenty.
- getrdone656, on 09/30/2008, -1/+9I find waiting for the market to shift into the next generation the best option. It's the best time to buy a chipset that is the same price as a previous one for nearly the same price. For example I'm waiting for the Nvidia GE Force 8800 to drop in price to be affordable on my budget
- mshtml, on 10/01/2008, -1/+8Nvidia will keep renaming the 8800GT for another 2 years while ATI shrinks to 40nm and releases directx 11 cards in Q2 2009.
- stklaw, on 10/01/2008, -0/+7I guess it uses 56k modems?
- AReallyGoodName, on 10/01/2008, -0/+6No they can't replace the CPU entirely -
a) You need to boot off something and GPUs don't currently have any functionality to boot from a storage device
b) Current graphics cards aren't x86 compatible, not too much of a problem if you're using software that can be recompiled but still a problem none-the-less
c) Current graphics cards want to do everything SIMD style.
But despite all this they can certainly take over some operating system functions if they wanted to and i'm not just talking about graphics and video processing.
Let me explain how the PCIE-bus works to you reepax. The CPU communicates with PCIE devices as if they were located at a memory address (usually in the top of the address range) but PCIE devices can also talk to other PCIE devices and to main memory without any assistance from the CPU using bus-mastering. So a PCIE device that can run a Turing Complete language (newer graphics cards can), could in theory do everything required to run an OS without the main CPU doing anything at all, even at the level of talking to all other devices in the system.
Of course doing so would be pointless with the current generation of graphics cards as they don't work well on non-SIMD code.
From the NVidia CUDA programming guide "Every instruction issue time, the SIMT unit selects a warp that is ready to execute and issues the next instruction to the active threads of the warp. A warp executes one common instruction at a time, so full efficiency is realized when all 32 threads of a warp agree on their execution path."
In other words unless your OS is SIMD-able to the extent it runs 32 threads of exactly the same code all the time you aren't going to make full use of the processing power.
Intels Larrabee, which is a graphics card consisting of 32 x86 CPUs will tackle most of these problems though and you may well end up with you OS running mostly on your graphics card in the future. - Richie311, on 10/01/2008, -12/+18We should defiantly buy go-carts.
- zinc6471, on 10/01/2008, -0/+6 AMD was making an external graphic card
http://www.dvhardware.net/article27705.html
*i dont' think laptops are killing gaming, look the the XPS (ya i noe its dell) but its gear for gamers, same with the alienware - defy, on 10/01/2008, -2/+7defiantly eh?
- musoka, on 10/01/2008, -2/+7definitely?
- betona, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5meh. Tom's Hardware is the place to go for charts, tests, specs and a lot more.
One example out of hundreds available:
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-graphics ... - Mungo616, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5You can't even spell it right...
- passedoutghost, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5lol computer hardware is never an investment, unless you have one over a few decades old. Then maybe you might be able to flog it off to a collector.
- passedoutghost, on 10/01/2008, -0/+5You'd be surprised, KaiUno. I've got the Asus G1 and despite the screen size I can play quite well on it. Don't knock it till you've tried it. Plus it makes going to lan conventions so much easier.
- mizarone, on 10/01/2008, -1/+6The answer is E: As soon as you buy the video card.
- inactive, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4You are too old to be playing games
- KMartSheriff, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4And you use it to make comments on digg?
- stk198323, on 10/01/2008, -0/+4Did you miss the card suggestion at the end? They suggested to buy a 4870 over the nvidia card because the ati model was cheaper!
I'm a big ATI fan and will never buy any nvidia board (bad experience with a past product), but sometimes you have to be fair and that article wasn't really biased, un less someone wrote the main article and some other person wrote the suggestion! - inactive, on 10/01/2008, -1/+5Please bury anyone who mentions how this will replace the CPU or anything related to the operating system, then explain to them how the pci-e bus works and how it communicates with the cpu and main memory.
- inactive, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3***** off *****
- fatlucy101, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3Yay spam
- stk198323, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3Don't know why you're getting dugg down because it's true! People buy laptop, realize it doesn't play any recent games and jsut say: ***** it i will buy a Wii and play wii sport for the next month and then get's bored and buy a PS3 or XBOX 360 and become a console gamer!
- treedude, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3The author keeps referring to a Radeon 4800 and 4600. Neither of which exist. Not to mention nothing is really explained in any detail. There is nothing "Ultimate" about this article.
- KaiUno, on 10/01/2008, -1/+4And eh... Asus released it.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/08/hands-on-with-t ... - stk198323, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3Fragnarg:
Oh yeah your the vast majority of people!!! Yup most people have 2-3k to spend on a laptop!! - Mungo616, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3KaiUno, most people I know who have gaming laptops got them because they are simply easier to carry to lan centres, friends houses, etc. It may not give the same experience as a desktop, but it doesn't take up the large amount of space which a desktop does, either. You can always plug in a larger monitor or better speakers.
Besides, it's easier to leech off someone elses wireless connection if you have a laptop ;) - Purin, on 10/01/2008, -0/+3Go to EVGA B-stock.
I got an 8800GTS G92 (the good one) for $99. - obliviousfool, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2How do you choose? = What can you afford?
- inactive, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2I won't debate the relative ***** of this article, but the collective name Radeon 4800 would refer to the series, inclusive of all current high end Radeon 48XX cards.
- inactive, on 10/01/2008, -1/+3or you can just buy a laptop for gaming? look at sager: sagernotebooks.com .. nvidia 9 series cards, 4gb ram, raid 5 (lol) .. basically a desktop jammed into a laptop
- rowlodge, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2my computer cant handle anything more than the integrated card it has, unless i get a better power supply.
- sanderton, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2Our plan is to keep it updated.
- FishHammer, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2buried for your resolution not being a multiple of 8
- Lunarbunny, on 10/01/2008, -0/+2...which will probably be outdone by a $50+ less expensive CrossFire HD4850 setup.
Seriously, I had nVidia for the last 3 upgrades (6800, 7800GTX, 8800GTS 512), and I see more value in the ATI cards right now. Brand loyalty is good for the company, not the consumer. - NanoStuff, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1www.gpureview.com to the rescue!
- nedzeve, on 10/03/2008, -0/+1I hope so. I like what Tom's Hardware does. A database of benchmarks past and present so I can compare the metrics of say, the a 2 generation old top of the line card with the current generation's low end card. That's more useful than the usual "roundups" of similarly marketed cards.
- frepnog, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1but will it blend?
- dbixler, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1Dugg for comparing the size of your monitor to a Fel Reaver :D.
- dantheman003, on 10/22/2008, -0/+1nice piece....now if only i had the money to buy a new graphic card =(
- stk198323, on 10/01/2008, -1/+2@mungos:
Oh please! It's not that hard to bring your desktop to a lan party! If your into gaming that much then you should make the small sacrifice of having to unplug your desktop and monitor! There's nothing more crappy then gaming on a laptop... you play and all of a sudden the fan kick's in because it's overheating and it makes that loud noise that's probably as loud as the sound coming from your speaker, then you get ***** frame rates due to the graphic card, and then your finger's get's all cramped out because you cannot move the keybord around... yeah really it makes for quite a wonderful gaming experience!
And if you suggest to me to plus in an external keyboard, mice, monitor, speaker then IK will suggest to you: why not buy a desktop if you want to plug desktop part into your laptop computer! It's not like a desktop is THAT MUCH heavier then a laptop, do some exercice and you will be able to bring your desktop to a lan party as easily as you can bring your laptop!
And as another advantage of desktop: you pay less and can upgrade each part instead of buying a new one everytime a new video game comes out! - Recidivus, on 10/01/2008, -1/+2Say that to someone who has a CMStacker case with 5 internal HDDs.
If people buy a laptop with gaming in mind, they aren't going to rush out to pick up a 13" ultramobile. - outlw6669, on 10/14/2008, -0/+1What a shaddy read.
I want the last 5min of my life refunded. - Lunarbunny, on 10/01/2008, -0/+1More specifically, 4850s in CrossFire. I just bought that for my most recent upgrade, as it seems to be the most cost-to-performance effective configuration. $330 for 2 ASUS 4850s from Newegg, as compared to $270 for a single 4870 or $250 for a single GTX260.
E8400/4GB (3GB available) DDR2 800/2x4850 512MB/ASUS P5Q Pro - 12976 3DMarks in 3DMark06, steady 80-90 FPS in CoD4 with maybe a few dips on 'expensive' scenes. -
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