Nvidia mobile GPU?

[Panix]

Is it much better to have a notebook with a nvidia GPU?

I did post to the ATI section but I hoped that owners of notebooks with a nvidia GPU might reply. I only know about desktop nvidia cards.

I am looking at notebooks with Nvida 9300 and 9600 mobile GPU chips. I'm mostly looking at the Sony Vaio Z590 w/ Nvidia 9300M GS GPU. It can switch to the Intel X4500 mobile GPU, also.

Is this a better choice than the ATI right now? I really don't want to wait for the growing pains of ATI if they are way behind right now. However, if it is thought progress is made and they'll improve soon and that it is just a matter of time, then I still have to decide.

I am hoping for Nvidia owners to comment whether the opinion is positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Is the experience of installing Nvidia drivers for the mobile Nvidia chips relatively the same as for the desktop Nvidia cards?

I am also concerned about the alleged faulty Nvidia mobile chips (soldering issue with cheap materials) but I don't think I'll be getting one of those.

Anyway, thanks for reading my message and I appreciate advice and recommendations!

[Svartalf]

Is it much better to have a notebook with a nvidia GPU?

It depends on your goals. NVidia's parts are most certainly supported better under Linux (though AMD's support is catching up in leaps and bounds of late...) but they've been guilty of the known bad parts going out issue, coupled with the support being closed. I've little complaints about the mobile part I've had (but it's a 7600...). One thing to note about AMD's offerings until recently is that many of the GPUs that were fielded on laptops were IGPs (The NVidia ones you're talking to aren't...) and they were seriously crippled in many ways until the R600/R700 series devices.


I am looking at notebooks with Nvida 9300 and 9600 mobile GPU chips. I'm mostly looking at the Sony Vaio Z590 w/ Nvidia 9300M GS GPU. It can switch to the Intel X4500 mobile GPU, also.


The 9300 is an "okay" GPU, suitable for handling a some lower-end 3D games, compiz, that sort of thing. It's not a heavyweight in the slightest, but it's a better performer than the X4500, which is offered as a mode for the Vaio because it's definitely lower power consumption than the 9300 and offers the ability to provide the "Full Vista Experience" (Uuugggh...).

The 9600 is a better GPU for gaming and doing more 3D on a laptop. It's two generations of GPU past the one I've got. While the laptop I have won't do top-end stuff nimbly, it will do everything else aggressively- a 9600 will do things better than mine will and brings things like CUDA and OpenCL to the table in a laptop.


Is this a better choice than the ATI right now? I really don't want to wait for the growing pains of ATI if they are way behind right now. However, if it is thought progress is made and they'll improve soon and that it is just a matter of time, then I still have to decide.


It remains to be seen. I'm loathe these days to buy upon just any promise of support for Linux. Having said this, we're close, likely to be 6-12 months off, from getting something credible in the FOSS space on the AMD side of things and it's looking much better on their proprietary driver front, though there ARE issues with their stuff right now. NVidia's stuff works pretty well these days, and if you discount the gotcha they appear to have done to everyone on the G80 parts, and discount that they're dragging their feet on the FOSS front, they're probably the play to go with.


I am hoping for Nvidia owners to comment whether the opinion is positive or negative, it doesn't matter. Is the experience of installing Nvidia drivers for the mobile Nvidia chips relatively the same as for the desktop Nvidia cards?


So far, my experience has been reasonably well. No nasty surprises on Ubuntu with the 7600 I've got. Your mileage may vary (NVidia could "oops" on the G90 parts either in chips themselves like the G80 chips or in drivers...).


I am also concerned about the alleged faulty Nvidia mobile chips (soldering issue with cheap materials) but I don't think I'll be getting one of those.


Don't be too sure about that one. NVidia apparently DID ship faulty chips (not just the mobile parts, but all the G40/G60 devices- the mobile devices were exposed to much wider and regular thermal variation, accelerating the demise of those parts)- if they did it then, they could do it again. Probably not with the G90 parts you're talking about, but in a future offering.

[_txf_]

One advantage (maybe) you get with nvidia in a laptop is power management in the form of powermizer which dynamically changes gpu and vidmem clocks. Catalyst provides this, but if you're going to run prop drivers you might as well go with nvidia (I assume when referring to amd you're going to use free drivers).

The reason I said maybe is because I actually have powermizer disabled because it is a pile of s**t. If you plan on using an environment that uses xrender a lot (esp kde4... but gtk uses it a lot too), you are going to get some very irritating lag because powermizer cannot adjust freqs. fast enough or at all (leaving you stuck at level 0 with a laggy desktop).

Other advantages of nvidia are VDPAU (accelerated h.264 and VC-1).

Regarding the faulty packaging, I guess nvidia fixed the issue on new parts. I used to have a G86 laptop that fried , but I now have a G84 laptop (for a year now) and that has given me no problems.

Oh yeah...another thing to be aware of, X currently cannot deal with switching between nvidia and intel chips (easily...maybe you could do it with a bunch of scripts to,say, switch xorg.conf files) so you'd be using one or the other.

So I'll echo what svartalf said and say that it really depends on what you plan on doing with the laptop.

[Panix]

Thanks for the replies, guys! No one is even replying to the corresponding question in the ATI section. I just thought I'd ask in both since owners of either chip probably stick around in the corresponding forum of whatever their hardware is.

I don't need the (mobile) GPU for gaming. Compiz is not really important, it's nice to have but I want some video power. Good clarity or quality of the screen. It would be used for surfing and movies.

I understand you can't do mobile graphics drivers switching on the fly so you have to go into the BIOS and change it? Then you have to uinstall the one driver and install the other? Is that what you mean? For e.g., the hybrid GPU chips (nvidia and Intel or ATI and intel), you would have to uninstall the ATI driver, log out of X, use the VESA driver, reboot (go to the BIOS and change it) and then boot up again using VESA (perhaps?) and then install the Intel graphics driver? And vice versa? Or is some other procedure required?

I am leaning towards a notebook equipped with a nvidia chip. That would eliminate most Lenovos since most have ATI. I want a LED backlight and most of the Lenovo/Nvidia ones don't have that option.

I think I am looking at Dell, Sony and maybe HP. The Dells have the business version of the Nvidia chips, though.

Thanks for the replies and info!