9600 64MB vs 9700 128MB

[AmigaMan]

If the CPU and HD of two different laptops are the same, but one has a 9600Pro with 64MB and the other has a 9700 with 128MB, how much of a speed increase would you expect out of the 9700 equipped laptop? ANything noticable? How much more would you pay for it?

I have a Pentium M 1.7Ghz 1MB L2 which has a 9600Pro in it that is owned by my company. I'm considering getting a Dell Inspiron 9200 with a P-M 1.6Ghz 2MB L2 with a 9700/128MB. Just wondering if I should shell out $1400 for it when I can probably buy my existing laptop for about $1000.

 

[Jassi]

Originally posted by: AmigaMan
If the CPU and HD of two different laptops are the same, but one has a 9600Pro with 64MB and the other has a 9700 with 128MB, how much of a speed increase would you expect out of the 9700 equipped laptop? ANything noticable? How much more would you pay for it?

I have a Pentium M 1.7Ghz 1MB L2 which has a 9600Pro in it that is owned by my company. I'm considering getting a Dell Inspiron 9200 with a P-M 1.6Ghz 2MB L2 with a 9700/128MB. Just wondering if I should shell out $1400 for it when I can probably buy my existing laptop for about $1000.

For $400 you are getting a Dothan core Pentium M (Very good processor and totally not the same CPU, my guess is the 1.6 will be faster by a bit because its newer and has double the cache) and 128MB 9700. What would you use the lappy for? Does your existing one have a 17 Widescreen display? How much warranty left on the company model. If you are a gamer, the Dothan and the 9700 video card will help a lot and even if you are not a gamer, the new processor will kick ass. Getting the company one would be unwise IMHO.

I would say get the 9200 or even wait a bit for the 9300 to come out and the price of the 9200 to drop (should be coming out soon).

 

[AmigaMan]

I like my company laptop, it's an HP/Compaq NC8000 which has been rock solid for me. I also have 1.5GB in it compared to the 256MB in the 9200, so I'd have to spend a little more to upgrade it as well. But yeah, it'll be used for light gaming, Madden 2005, DoomIII, that new Star Wars game when it comes out. I'm used to gaming at 800x600 with all eyecandy turned off, so anything above that is golden to me.

 

[jherber]

i have a 9200 @1.8ghz with 1.25GB ram. ut04 runs well. hl-2 runs at high res with 95% of the eye candy on. doom iii was slow at high res with all eye candy on. the screen on the 9200 is gorgeous (go for the wxga+) if you do buy it. the ati 9700 and 9600 have the same architecture, but the 9700 uses a better manufacturing process, so you can overclock the crap out of it without overheating (500mhz is no prob for gpu). the extra 128M of video ram will allow you to turn up texture details. if you are an avid gamer, wait a few months for the 9300. it will be pci-x based and support geforce6800 go (and most likely the x700 and x800.) if you must buy now, there are some 25% off coupons and some 400-500 off coupons, so you should be able to get what you want for a good deal.

 

[halfadder]

Mobility 9700 is only slightly faster than Mobility 9600, but both are far faster than Mobility 9200.

The biggest bonus would be the 128 MB.

Depending on how much you're paying for this notebook, consider looking for something with Mobility X800 graphics. They replaced the Mobility 9800, which replaced the Mobility 9700... Another option is GeForce 6800 Go, which compares well against the Mobility X800.

 

[RobsTV]

Looks like money is an issue, same as it was for me.
If so, forget about 6800 or x800 video.
The mr9700 is more then enough for any game today, and should be good enough for a couple years.
Heck, I just replaced my Desktop's 9600 Pro with a 9700 Pro, simply because it finally dropped to a price I could afford ($110). Works great, just like my i9200 with the mr9700 works great.

While not "state of the art" these 3dmark scores from my i9200 (1.8GHz, 512meg, 5400rpm) show it can play everything fine:

3dm2k1se = 14200
3dmark03 = 4201
3dmark05 = 1437

Like jherber's post above, Half-Life 2 (med to max settings), is awesome at default i9200 WXGA resolution of 1440x900 with 50-100fps (depending on location in game) the norm. Of course in a couple years I will have to lower resolution to 1024x768 or something, if I want to continue playing modern games. But, laptop video card is upgradable, so perhaps another option may appear?

 

[Wuzup101]

Really depends on if the added gaming performance is worth it to you. IMHO you won't see any difference in the processors in real world performance. The Dothan only added a small percentage performance wise to the previous Pentium-M. The Dothan you would be getting is 100mhz slower than your current P-M - you can expect similar performance. You already have a nice computer there (with 1.5gb of ram ) why bother getting something new and paying an extra $400 for only the minor upgrade in video... Now depending on how much warrany you have left... how much you get form dell... that might make the difference!

 

[RobsTV]

Wuzup101 makes some good points.
The P-M with 2 meg cache will not be much of a noticable improvement.

So then it comes down to video.
Here too, frame rates will probably not be much different because LCD's run best at their native resolutions, with the 17" WXGA i9200 running 1440x900, and your current 15" laptop probably running at a lower resolution. The extra speed of the 128 meg 9700 over the 64 meg 9600 may be eaten up by running the i9200 at the prefered resolution. Now if you aleady run your old laptop at comparable resolutions, then yes, you will see a nice improvement in framerate going from mr9600 pro to mr9700.

Then, the only noticable benefit would be going to the 17" screen, and is that worth possibly $400?
YES!!!!! 17" laptop widescreen gaming is one of those things that you can never give up once you do it.

 

[Verno5x]

I would like to tack on another related question as well. I'm currently shopping for laptops and want to pay no more than $1000-1300. I would like a laptop for gaming as well as audio editting applications. The Inspiron 9200 has perfect specs and price in my opinion, except for the fact that it's a 17" screen. Is there any laptop with similar specs but a 15" screen at the same or even a cheaper price? Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[RobsTV]

I think the i8600 is fairly close to the i9200 except for screen size and slightly reduced video.
It is not lightweight like the i9200 is though (for it's size), and weighs about average for a 15", or in other words, a few ounces less than the 17" i9200 at around 7lbs.

 

[Verno5x]

So is the weight on the 9200 really not that much of an issue? I was picturing a 17" laptop to be insanely heavy. Also, I noticed that you have one. How's the battery life, speed, etc....give me the low down please.

 

[acruxksa]

The i9200 is no light weight by any means, but when I picked mine up for the first time I was expecting it to be heavier than it is. For it's size it really isn't that bad. I have the 53Whr battery and have only had it for about 4 days now, but 2 1/2hrs. isn't a problem. I suspect I could get 3 hrs. out of it if I turned everything down and was just using it to surf the net or e-mail. The 80Whr. battery will off course lasts much longer.

 

[AmigaMan]

well I thought I'd update this old thread of mine. It turns out it would cost $2500 to buy my old HP/Compaq NC8000 from my company due to the installed software on it. I said "no thank you" and went out and bought the i9200. Spent $1496 and got a Dothan 1.8Ghz, ATI 9700 128MB, 512MB ram (2 Dimms), 17" WXGA+, and 40GB HD. It should be here in the next week or two. Should be a little bit faster than my Banias 1.7Ghz, and ATI 9600 64MB HP. Just need to buy some more memory for the Dell and I should be good to go, although 512MB should suffice for the time being.

 

[Jassi]

Good choice.