Choosing a desktop video card isn’t hard to do. There are numerous reviews available which meticulously detail the performance of every desktop video card on the market today. This sort of in-depth research is possible because it is easy to form a standard on which the cards can be compared. Most review sites have a test rig which is kept consistent among all of their tests. This allows for through and objective data to be found.
With laptops, however, it isn’t so easy. Review sites can build a standardized test laptop and then place laptop video cards into them. But this doesn’t mean that you don’t need a great laptop GPU or that some aren’t better than others. Just as with desktop parts there are certain laptop video cards which can steal everyone else’s lunch money. So, which ones are the best? Let’s look at the products currently on the market.
ATI Mobility Radeon
Budget laptops such as the Lenovo X100 often offer ATI Radeon GPUs
When it comes to desktop video cards ATI is currently the king of the hill. While Nvidia’s new GTX 470 and 480 are great cards, they’re not enough to take back the crown from ATI.
Laptops, however, are different from desktops, and ATI is notably lacking when it comes to high-performance laptop components. Most vendors of gaming laptops tend to go with Nvidia based designs. That isn’t because ATI has nothing which is competitive, but they do have less to choose from. According to Notebookcheck only three of the top ten laptop GPUs are ATI designs – the rest, of course, are Nvidia’s. There are some signs of life, however, thanks to new the Mobility Radeon 5870. Like the its desktop counter-part, the Mobility Radeon 5870 is a very fast GPU capable of playing virtually any modern game at high detail settings without issue. But availability is an issue and it appears that only ASUS has a gaming laptop using this new GPU.
If you’re not looking for the cutting edge the news is better. Products like the Mobility Radeon 4650, 4670 5470 and 5650 provide excellent mid-range graphics power at relatively low prices. Laptops equipped with these parts are available from Toshiba, Sony, and ASUS and can be had for under a grand. While these GPUs are not the fastest around they are more than adequate for most purposes including games. Going even further now the product line you’ll find more Radeon 4000 series products as well as a few Radeon 4000 series products. These are common even on budget ultraportables like the Thinkpad X100. These GPUs are no good for games but they’re more than capable of decoding high-definition video.
ASUS often uses Nvidia GPUs in their gaming laptops
Nvidia Mobile GPUs
Even thought Nvidia has been struggling to provide good low-cost desktop video cards they’ve been cleaning up in the laptop arena. Most of the gaming laptops available for purchase today use a Nvidia GTX200 series mobile GPU. While the performance of the Nvidia products doesn’t exactly put ATI to shame, there is simply more to choose from on the Nvidia side. Nvidia’s great high-end laptop GPUs include the GTX285M, GTX280M and GTX260M. These can be found in gaming laptops from Alienware, ASUS, Acer, Toshiba, and others.
On the lower end Nvidia has number products include products like the GTS350M and the GTS250M. Here the Nvidia products seem to be given stiffer competition from ATI, which also has a wide variety of excellent options which vendors frequently choose. The Nvidia options do seem to typically sell for more, however. For example, the GTS350M and the Mobility Radeon 5830 are in the same general league but the GTX350M equipped laptops sell for $100-$200 more on average.
What really sits Nvidia apart, however, is a new technology called Optimus. This originally started as a switchable graphics solution which debuted about six months ago and is, in fact, still found on some laptops. It has now transformed into an automatic solution which disables or enables the Nvidia graphics processor as required. If it is not required, the integrated graphics on the laptop takes over. This saves huge amounts of power and allows for laptops which can boast of 8 hours of mobile battery life and decent performance in games. The only downside to this new technology is that there is a lot of confusion over what does and does not have it. Right now ASUS is first, and only a few select models of a few select products have it available. I recommend that you call ASUS customer service and confirm that the model you’re looking at has Optimus before you order anything.
Verdict
To a degree, the GPU which is best for you depends on the laptop which is best for you. With that said, however, there does seem to be a clear split in the market between Nvidia and ATI. High-end products almost always use Nvidia as a provider of their laptop video card needs, but low-end products usually use an ATI Mobility Radeon series GPU. This may be because ATI’s current batch of GPUs seems to be more easily scaled down and easier on power consumption than what is on offer from Nvidia, but that is frankly speculation.
The truth is that you’ll be happy with either company’s laptop GPUs so long as you purchase a GPU which is powerful enough for your purposes. As I said above, a Mobility Radeon 3200 is not going to play games well, so if you purchase one with that in mind you will absolutely be disappointed. Nvidia, however, also has low-end parts for which the same is true. I highly recommend you make a pass by Notebookcheck’s GPU list before making any final purchase. That list will tell you if the GPU in the laptop you’re thinking about is really capable of meeting your needs.
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