Thinkpads Forum

How do the Quadro and Fire GL cards stack up against the nVidea Ge Force 7900 GS? I sawone in a Toshiba that looked pretty good. It had 256 dedicated and allowed up to 520 with sharing. Allother things being equal (proccessor, ram, ect) which would perform better? Anyone have any insight on the 7900 GS?

The Quadro NVS 140m that I just tested received a 1688 in 3DMark06, but this includes the CPU performance as well.

You can see some graphic performances here :

http://forum.tt-hardware.com/fichiers/u ... Image1.png

Redmumba, can you run 3D Mark 2005 with your T61 ? I would like to add it in my data base. Thank you.

Pascal_TTH wrote:You can see some graphic performances here :

http://forum.tt-hardware.com/fichiers/u ... Image1.png

Redmumba, can you run 3D Mark 2005 with your T61 ? I would like to add it in my data base. Thank you.

The numbers on the Ge Force card are nearly double that of both the Quadro and Fire cards according to that spreadsheet. Do these numbers mean actual better performance as one would assume?

By the way I am shopping for a computer for my son so I can get my G41 back, I miss it. He wants to bring it to collegs with him. I am currenly deciding if I should buy him one off the shelf at compusa or let him take it and get a T60 or 61 for myself. If I buy him one off the shelf I want to get him a performer. I don't believe in buying "just what is sufficient" when buying laptops because you are really limited in upgrading them.

No problem!

3DMark05 = 3195 3dmarks...
Driver 6.14.11.133


This is running the default quadro software. I wonder if I would see a performance improvement using other drivers?

EDIT: Planning on downloading the NGO optimized drivers and seeing if I get any improvements... wish me luck!

pardon my ignorance, but what exactly do the numbers mean. I have to know that in order to compare them.

3DMark05 is a benchmarking program designed to compare graphics cards. The free version is available here:

http://futuremark.com/

Basically, using a chart like the one Pascal posted above, you can compare the scores with cards that you know. For example, my old laptop had an ATI Mobility X700 in it, and it scored ~1700 in 3Dmark05. So I can see that the improvement the nVidia NVS 140m has over my old card.

Every single site that reviews a laptop will usually have 3DMark05 or the newer 3DMark06 benchmarks.

the lower the number the higher the performance? Don't quite understand what the number means.

It doesn't "mean" anything. Its just a rating system. It really only has any meaning when you have something to compare to.

The higher the number/score, the higher the performance.

It won't tell you if it's good or not, because it's all relative in what you compare it to, like Redmumba said.

I know you want performance but i'd avoid everything above Geforce 7600, for two reasons:

1) Like i've said in many other threads, nVidia isn't known for power efficient design - not in laptops, not in dektops either. While the cards are fast, they run hot, usually require their own dedicated fan, and available in heavier, larger laptops only. Battery life would not be good either.
If he will be using it at college, i'd pick something lighter weight with decent dedicated graphics and good battery life.

2) Now that you will buy it soon, going for something as expensive as the Geforce 7900 GS, choose the 8600 GS or GT instead. It runs cooler, has a little lower performance, and is DX10 compatible. Price range should be the same, and it is avaliable in smaller form factor notebooks too (less than 17") .
The battery life is definitely not stellar, but better than the top performers of the previous generation.

Laptops are an extremely expensive way of getting top notch performance. The graphics performance will be quite outdated in two year's time, so i'd prolly take that a little into account too.

Sorry, I forget to tell about what are those numbers. The twolast column are 3D Mark scores (2005 and 2003). 3D Mark is a benchmark application for testing graphic cards performances. It's a industrial standard benchmark. Those benchs published by Futurmark are called *very anticipative* so 3D Mark 2005 show how today games run.

3D Mark 2005 score means :
- Less then 1000 : too slow for recent games, can run oldies.
- From 1000 to 2000 : some recent games can run with very low details.
- From 2000 to 3500 : most games can run with low or middle settings.
- From 3500 to 4500 : nearly all games recent games run fine.
- Above 4500 : all games will run fine with high details.

Of course, it can change from game to game. It's just to give a guide line.


Thank you Redmumba

Redmumba, what kind of frame rates do you get for games (if you play them), particularly the relatively recent ones? I'm not sure I want to wait any longer for a T61p.

Unfortunately, I'm not a big gamer--I don't even play WoW that much anymore. If I get ahold of any newer games, I'll let you know, but don't hold your breath.

Also, as far as heat... the Quadro is beautiful. Was playing for about 4 hours last night, logged off, and sat in bed with this thing sitting against my bare legs--it was warm, but not very. It also produces (seemingly) NO heat at all, when I'm using it on my lap--so I guess the new cooling design is effective after all...

Here is a table with desktop graphics to compare. This table is about 1 year old.


http://www.tt-hardware.com/img/news5/ne ... dujour.gif

This image is very light : 8ko

How does that help? Not only are they not notebook graphics cards, but they don't even mention any workstation cards, which are the ones being considered.

Laptop graphics

http://forum.tt-hardware.com/fichiers/u ... Image1.png

After, you need to know that FireGL or Quadro are based on gaming Radeon and GeForce. For exemple, FireGL T2 is Radeon Mobility 9600, FireGL V5200 is Radeon Mobility X1600, Quadro NVS 140m is GeForce M 8400 GT. I don't know all but it can be found with google.


Here is about leatest GeForce and Quadro specs :

8600 GT = 32 Stream Processors, 8 ROPs, 128bit mem (475/950/700)
8600 GS = 16 Stream Processors, 8 ROPs?, 128bit mem (600/1200/700)
8400 GT = 16 Stream Processors, 8 ROPs?, 128bit mem (450/900/600)
8400 GS = 16 Stream Processors, 4 ROPs, 64bit mem (400/800/600)
8400 G = 8 Stream Processors, 4 ROPs, 64bit mem (400/800/600)

Fréquences : (Core clock/Shader clock/Mem clock)


Quadro NVS 320M = 8600 GS/GT
Quadro NVS 140M = 8400 GT
Quadro NVS 135M = 8400 GS
Quadro NVS 130M = 8400 G

I was aware of the mainstream counterparts of the cards, but it's also important to remember that although the hardware is nearly the same, the workstation cards are optimized for business applications, which leads to a significant drop in performance in other 3D applications, such as games.

Pocket Aces wrote:I was aware of the mainstream counterparts of the cards, but it's also important to remember that although the hardware is nearly the same, the workstation cards are optimized for business applications, which leads to a significant drop in performance in other 3D applications, such as games.

The question though, is how much is attributable to hardware differences, and how much to the workstation drivers. The workstation cards have basically the same hardware, and can perform the same functions. If anything, they are close to the same performance as the non workstation cards.

Right, I'm not a big gamer, but that's really the only reason I picked the discrete graphics solution over integrated. Plus, I know many people are curious about a laptop's gaming capability, even if they're a business or academic user (wink wink). Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to mess with different drivers.

With my T41p, I was playing Morrowind with the FireGL T2 128 Mo. It runs the same way as with my previous laptop with Radeon Mobility 9700 128 Mo. There are a lot of hacks (software or hardware) on the web to transform GeForce into Quadro and Radeon into FireGL. You can also install Radeon driver on FireGL and FireGL driver on Radeon.

I run modded Catalyst 7.5 into Mobility Catalyst with DH mod and FireGL control panel instead of Cataclysm Control Center on my T60p. I play Morrowind and Oblivion and they run better then with last Lenovo driver.