Graphics performance for T4x range

[nfraser01]

Hi All

I've ended up with a three T42's - one with Intel graphics, one with the Mobility Radeon 7500 and one with the Fire GL T2 (same(ish) as Mobility Radeon 9600). I've run 3DMark2000, 3DMark2001 and 3DMark03 on each of them, if anyone is interested...

Intel Graphics
3DMark2000 - 4056
3DMark2001 - 2428
3DMark03 - 117*

Mobility Radeon 7500
3DMark2000 - 4531
3DMark2001 - 3950
3DMark03 - 222*

Fire GL T2 (Modility Radeon 9600)
3DMark2000 - 10907
3DMark2001 - 9593
3DMark03 - 2619

They are all running a Pentium M at 1.7GHz with the stock IBM recovery OS (Windows XP professional SP2) and default drivers. Some performance gains might be made by using the most up to date drivers?
The Intel and 7500 could not run all of the 3DMark03 benchmark as they are not DirectX 9.x compatible (hence the *)
I couldn't get 3DMark99 to run on Windows XP.

Hope that's interesting to someone?

[dr_st]

Oh yeah, the Radeon 9600 / FireGL T2 is a significant boost over the 7500. Of course, compared to modern offerings, all are beyond obsolete, but for contemporary games / rendering applications back in 2004-2005, it could have made a big difference.

What's interesting to me is how little benefit (seemingly) the Radeon 7500 offers over the Intel Graphics. Of course, back then it was not only about raw performance but also compatibility. Integrated Intel GPUs were missing some features that would make certain games/apps not run at all or experience glitches.

Thanks for running the benchmarks and sharing the results.

[TPFanatic]

Back in the day I played Need For Speed World competitively on T42p with 1.8ghz and Fire Gl T2, as well as 3D modeling programs. World despite being released 7-8 years after T42p's release was optimized for low end PCs so the T42p could handle it.

[kfzhu1229]

The thing with ThinkPad T41/T42 is that Mobile Radeon 7500 was already 2 years old graphical solution by then and by the warp speed of mobile GPU improvement back then, it lagged so much behind that an Intel Extreme graphics 2 would outperform that chip in 3DMark01 due to it being able to run DX8 tests. but it does allow high res internal LCD's and DVI outputs, both are missing on Extreme graphics 2.
Mobility Radeon 9000 should've been the standard option, like it is on the competitor Latitude D600. It is already a massive improvement and can actually do DX8 tasks.
Mobility Radeon 9600 (Or FireGL) is great though, makes that version of T42/T42p kinda the fastest Windows 98 14.1" laptop by GPU performance. T43 can be made to run Windows 98 but Win98 PCIe support is absolutely dreadful.
Sadly though, with me dealing with literally a dozen T41/T42 models I have not come across a single Radeon 9000 version and the only 9600 version I came across had severe water damage that melted 2 pins off the Super IO chip so totally useless.
And lastly IBM really should've cooled the 7500 and 9000 versions with a heatsink and/or put a support frame around this area.

[nfraser01]

A quick update - added new machine (bottom)

Intel Graphics
3DMark2000 - 4056
3DMark2001 - 2428
3DMark03 - 117*

Mobility Radeon 7500
3DMark2000 - 4531
3DMark2001 - 3950
3DMark03 - 222*

Fire GL T2 (Modility Radeon 9600)
3DMark2000 - 10907
3DMark2001 - 9593
3DMark03 - 2619

Mobility Radeon X300**
3DMark2000 - 8943
3DMark2001 - 7488
3DMark03 - 2076


Notes:
They are all running a Pentium M at 1.7GHz (except T43 at 1.83GHz**) with the stock IBM recovery OS (Windows XP professional SP2) and default drivers. Some performance gains might be made by using the most up to date drivers?
The Intel and 7500 could not run all of the 3DMark03 benchmark as they are not DirectX 9.x compatible (hence the *)
I couldn't get 3DMark99 to run on Windows XP.

[dr_st]

Fire GL T2 (Modility Radeon 9600)
3DMark2000 - 10907
3DMark2001 - 9593
3DMark03 - 2619

Mobility Radeon X300**
3DMark2000 - 8943
3DMark2001 - 7488
3DMark03 - 2076

Thanks for this comparison. I wonder if the T2 outperforming X300 is due to the extra 64MB of RAM or due to some basic advantage of 9600 core versus X300 core. I seemed to remember performance should be closer...

[nfraser01]

Thanks for this comparison. I wonder if the T2 outperforming X300 is due to the extra 64MB of RAM or due to some basic advantage of 9600 core versus X300 core. I seemed to remember performance should be closer...

I havent checked but I think it's a 64-bit vs 128-bit memory interface thing...

[nfraser01]

Thanks for this comparison. I wonder if the T2 outperforming X300 is due to the extra 64MB of RAM or due to some basic advantage of 9600 core versus X300 core. I seemed to remember performance should be closer...

I havent checked but I think it's a 64-bit vs 128-bit memory interface thing...

Looks like it might be:
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobility- ... 598.0.html

[nfraser01]

For context I have a Dell D600 running a Pentium M 1.6GHz with Mobility Radeon 9000 giving:

Mobility Radeon 900
3DMark2000 - 5815
3DMark2001 - 4415
3DMark03 - 595

Interestingly installing SP3 on windows XP reduced the 3DMark 2000 score (but not the others) by about 15% on the ThinkPad T43...

[kfzhu1229]

For context I have a Dell D600 running a Pentium M 1.6GHz with Mobility Radeon 9000 giving:

Mobility Radeon 900
3DMark2000 - 5815
3DMark2001 - 4415
3DMark03 - 595

Interestingly installing SP3 on windows XP reduced the 3DMark 2000 score (but not the others) by about 15% on the ThinkPad T43...

Actually interestingly enough while D600 exclusively shipped with Mobility Radeon 9000, you have the choice of getting it with either 32MB of VRAM or 64MB. don't know how much that'd play a role here...
That's one of my go to Windows 98 gaming laptops for sale. Smaller 14.1" form factor but no Radeon 7500 rubbish and GPU has a separate actively cooled heatsink, which means GPU is highly unlikely to fail.
In Windows 98 SE, you DO, however, need some tweaks on D600 to get the IDE controller to work properly and out of MS-DOS compatibility mode plus an working optical drive!