Which of these three would suck less on Linux: GMA 950, GMA X3100, or GeForce 7000M?

[Extreme Coder]

Hi,
So one of my friends was going to get me a laptop, and in the end, the choices he gave me were very similar, mainly differing in the IGP.
And they were:
Intel GMA 950
GeForce 7000M (I never heard of it untill I saw it on the laptop)
Intel GMA X3100 (I'm not even sure this one's an option, there are way too many games that don't run on it on linux)

First of all, which one of these is faster?

Also, can you even run games like Savage, Regnum Online and such on and Intel card? I tried for days on my friend's PC with a X3100 and it never worked. Even Cedega and Wine didn't work well.

Last, would any of these be able to handle running World of Warcraft or Urban Terror at 1024x768 at medium/low settings without dropping below 15~20 FPS?



Thanks!

[Extreme Coder]

BUMP
Don't have much time left, only 2 days :/

[MU_Engineer]

Hi,
So one of my friends was going to get me a laptop, and in the end, the choices he gave me were very similar, mainly differing in the IGP.
And they were:
Intel GMA 950
GeForce 7000M (I never heard of it untill I saw it on the laptop)
Intel GMA X3100 (I'm not even sure this one's an option, there are way too many games that don't run on it on linux)

First of all, which one of these is faster?

Also, can you even run games like Savage, Regnum Online and such on and Intel card? I tried for days on my friend's PC with a X3100 and it never worked. Even Cedega and Wine didn't work well.

Last, would any of these be able to handle running World of Warcraft or Urban Terror at 1024x768 at medium/low settings without dropping below 15~20 FPS?



Thanks!

The question is really between the GeForce 7000M and the GMA X3100 (GM965 Express) as the X3100 has the same advantages of the GMA 950 but is newer and faster. Also, the GeForce 7000M is for an AMD CPU and the GMA X3100 is for an Intel CPU, so there are more differences than just the chipset here.

The Intel IGP has a much better open-source driver, so you can get a better setup out of the box than with the NVIDIA GPU. However, the NVIDIA 7000M will be more powerful and perform better than the Intel setup when you use the NVIDIA driver and you'll be able to buy a better laptop for the money since it uses a more-competitively-priced AMD CPU instead of an Intel one. But sometimes you get a cruddy incompatible WLAN card with an AMD setup while it is almost unheard of to get one that's not an Intel WLAN card (and decently supported) with an Intel CPU and IGP unless you buy a Dell.

So it's all in what you value most:

1. If you want a guarantee that it will work well out of the box with very little to no fiddling, get the unit with the Intel GMA X3100 and the Centrino label as it guarantees you have an Intel WLAN card.

2. If you want a more powerful unit for less money, go for the GeForce 7000M and AMD setup. You will have to install some drivers to get things to work properly, but it's not likely going to be that big of a deal.

Good luck!

[Extreme Coder]

The question is really between the GeForce 7000M and the GMA X3100 (GM965 Express) as the X3100 has the same advantages of the GMA 950 but is newer and faster. Also, the GeForce 7000M is for an AMD CPU and the GMA X3100 is for an Intel CPU, so there are more differences than just the chipset here.

The Intel IGP has a much better open-source driver, so you can get a better setup out of the box than with the NVIDIA GPU. However, the NVIDIA 7000M will be more powerful and perform better than the Intel setup when you use the NVIDIA driver and you'll be able to buy a better laptop for the money since it uses a more-competitively-priced AMD CPU instead of an Intel one. But sometimes you get a cruddy incompatible WLAN card with an AMD setup while it is almost unheard of to get one that's not an Intel WLAN card (and decently supported) with an Intel CPU and IGP unless you buy a Dell.

So it's all in what you value most:

1. If you want a guarantee that it will work well out of the box with very little to no fiddling, get the unit with the Intel GMA X3100 and the Centrino label as it guarantees you have an Intel WLAN card.

2. If you want a more powerful unit for less money, go for the GeForce 7000M and AMD setup. You will have to install some drivers to get things to work properly, but it's not likely going to be that big of a deal.

Good luck!

Hmm, Thanks! I guess I will go for the GeForce 7000M after all

[Kano]

Well just one hint: usually you have to use forcedeth as network driver with nvidia chipset. I had here one hp laptop which had such a nic and that really sucked. It was slow as hell (something like double ISDN rate) in 1 GBit mode, only 100 MBit worked normally.

[Extreme Coder]

Well just one hint: usually you have to use forcedeth as network driver with nvidia chipset. I had here one hp laptop which had such a nic and that really sucked. It was slow as hell (something like double ISDN rate) in 1 GBit mode, only 100 MBit worked normally.

Thanks for the heads up, but my internet is barely a 512 kb connection, I think 100MBit will work OK :P

[Kano]

I don't talk about internet but my home network is usually gbit via gigabit switch. Much better for transfering huge amounts of data.

[Extreme Coder]

I don't talk about internet but my home network is usually gbit via gigabit switch. Much better for transfering huge amounts of data.

I see.. Still, 100 MBit is enough, since I only know 2 or 3 people who could be on my network and I could copy something from

[MU_Engineer]

Well just one hint: usually you have to use forcedeth as network driver with nvidia chipset. I had here one hp laptop which had such a nic and that really sucked. It was slow as hell (something like double ISDN rate) in 1 GBit mode, only 100 MBit worked normally.

My desktop runs on an NForce 4 chipset with the integrated gigabit Ethernet. It is connected to a wireless router that has gigabit LAN ports. I also have a laptop with an Intel 82573L giagbit Ethernet controller and I routinely see transfers between the two that are HDD-limited by the laptop (30 MB/sec or so.) Fake-data speed tests put the transfer speed at 930-960 Mbps between the two machines. So, whatever is going on in your case is not affecting all NVIDIA NICs.

[Svartalf]

I don't talk about internet but my home network is usually gbit via gigabit switch. Much better for transfering huge amounts of data.

Oh, rub it in... All I've got is 20Mbits.