dedicated graphics card on a laptop

benners

benners

Messages
1,131
Name
Ben
Edit My Images
Yes
hi everyone

I asked about buying a laptop in this thread and like the look of this Acer.

is it worth spending the extra £110 for the same laptop but with a dedicated graphics card/memory and extra 140gb of hard drive space? (which is here)

i don't use the laptop for gaming, it'll be for Adobe Creative Suite work, design, image processing, etc.
 
neil_g said:
a dedicated graphics card wont have memory and other overhead impact on the system.
Click to expand...

:shrug: hehe sorry, that kinda went over my head :shake:
 
Unless you are playing games the GFX card won't make much difference at all.

Quick question, what is thge screen resolution on those models ?
 
mrgubby said:
Unless you are playing games the GFX card won't make much difference at all.

Quick question, what is thge screen resolution on those models ?
Click to expand...

good question, can't seem to find out anywhere!

neil_g said:
onboard graphics card will take a chunk of your system memory. it will also use some of the bandwidth to that memory. so potentially your system will be slower, whether you notice that or not is another matter.
Click to expand...

hmm, wondering if it's worth the extra £110 cost from £590 to £700... i'm not going to use it for gaming, mainnly DTP and image editing... no movie editing, etc.

laptop comes with an i7 Quad processor anyway, and will upgrade to 8gb ram
 
Last edited:
benners said:
good question, can't seem to find out anywhere!
Click to expand...

15.6" (Acer CineCrystal, 1366x768 HD, High Brightness, LED Backlit)

benners said:
hmm, wondering if it's worth the extra £110 cost from £590 to £700... i'm not going to use it for gaming, mainnly DTP and image editing... no movie editing, etc.

laptop comes with an i7 Quad processor anyway, and will upgrade to 8gb ram
Click to expand...

If you're going to be using it for DTP & image editing it would be better to spend the £110 on a model with a higher res screen (I ended up buying an Acer with 17" screen)
 
The latest laptops with graphics accelerator use Nvidia Optimus technology. This allows the onboard graphics (all the latest i3/i5/i7 have onboard) to dynamically switch between the graphics card and onchip graphics. My i7 Dell has this and when it's running PS, it uses the graphics card by default. I did an experiment and switched the graphics card off (it's an option in the nvidia drivers) and reran the photoshop Retouch Artists benchmark. I couldn't detect any difference in performance. To be honest, I wouldn't expect to see any difference as the onboard graphics is plenty powerful enough for Photoshop/lightroom as it's only used for 2D image manipulation. DTP won't use the graphics card at all.

The only problem I have had with the Optimus drivers are that I can't use the video decode pipeline on the onchip graphics successfully. I get macroblocking if I try and use the pipeline on the i7, but it's fine if I use the GT525. I think this is a driver issue and probably doesn't exist on the latest Intel only release as the Intel & Nvidia drivers need to be developed in tandem. When I tried to update the graphics driver for the G3000 from the intel site, it said it wasn't compatible with the hardware I'm using. BTW, the onboard G3000 is a perfectly acceptable 2D engine.

My conclusion, unless you're gaming or doing something that uses the CUDA engine of the graphics card (some of the 3D stuff in Photoshop Extended does I believe), you won't notice any difference in performance. IMHO, the only reason to pay more than the machine you are looking at would be to get a 1080p display (I love my 1080p display now and wouldn't go back to a 1366 x 768 if I could possibly avoid it).
 
arad85 said:
My conclusion, unless you're gaming or doing something that uses the CUDA engine of the graphics card (some of the 3D stuff in Photoshop Extended does I believe), you won't notice any difference in performance. IMHO, the only reason to pay more than the machine you are looking at would be to get a 1080p display (I love my 1080p display now and wouldn't go back to a 1366 x 768 if I could possibly avoid it).
Click to expand...

great reply, thank you! hmm not considered the 1080p display factor... to be honest not even come onto my radar!

though i fear that to get the i7 processor AND 1080p display is going to go over budget...
 
benners said:
though i fear that to get the i7 processor AND 1080p display is going to go over budget...
Click to expand...
Possibly. Cheapest I could find is the Asus N53SV at £830 + delivery - if you can find any in stock. Dell also do a (supposedly better) full HD screen. Mine was £930 inc delivery (with a couple of adders like better Wifi and backlit keyboard).

Part of the hike in price is that all 1080p systems come with Nvidia graphics, so you have to add that first, then the 1080p display....
 
arad85 said:
Possibly. Cheapest I could find is the Asus N53SV at £830 + delivery - if you can find any in stock. Dell also do a (supposedly better) full HD screen. Mine was £930 inc delivery (with a couple of adders like better Wifi and backlit keyboard).

Part of the hike in price is that all 1080p systems come with Nvidia graphics, so you have to add that first, then the 1080p display....
Click to expand...

hmm probably going to be too pricey... could always hook it up to the tv if i need to! :)
 
Just looked on the Dell site and they're giving 15% off with coupon at the moment (only had 10% of when I ordered mine) which would bring my bundle down to £880. You could save £70 and stick with 6G of memory and/or upgrade it yourself. You could save an extra £40 on that price by opting not to take better wifi/backlit keyboard so would end up sub £800 for 1080p display/17-2630QM
 
Last edited:
arad85 said:
Just looked on the Dell site and they're giving 15% off with coupon at the moment (only had 10% of when I ordered mine) which would bring my bundle down to £880. You could save £70 and stick with 6G of memory and/or upgrade it yourself. You could save an extra £40 on that price by opting not to take better wifi/backlit keyboard so would end up sub £800 for 1080p display/17-2630QM
Click to expand...

interesting! do you have a link to the model you have?
 
benners said:
interesting! do you have a link to the model you have?
Click to expand...

Goto:

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/performance-deals?~ck=anav

and configure up the one starting at £699 to the spec you want. The 15% discount code is mentioned on that page - not sure how long it is valid for though.

I'm very, very happy with mine (most I've ever paid for a laptop but it does what it says on the tin and is a performance laptop. BTW, I only found out after I got mine that it comes with a HDSPA 3G modem and GPS, so you can also put in a 3G card for mobile internet access. I have a T-mobile one that is £20 for 6 months "all you can use".
 
arad85 said:
Goto:

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/performance-deals?~ck=anav

and configure up the one starting at £699 to the spec you want. The 15% discount code is mentioned on that page - not sure how long it is valid for though.

I'm very, very happy with mine (most I've ever paid for a laptop but it does what it says on the tin and is a performance laptop. BTW, I only found out after I got mine that it comes with a HDSPA 3G modem and GPS, so you can also put in a 3G card for mobile internet access. I have a T-mobile one that is £20 for 6 months "all you can use".
Click to expand...

ah thanks for that... having put something together, it's creeping up to near £1k, including the 15% discount which is just getting way too much... as lovely as it would be!
 
benners said:
ah thanks for that... having put something together, it's creeping up to near £1k, including the 15% discount which is just getting way too much... as lovely as it would be!
Click to expand...
What are you putting together that cost that much? The basic adders are £40 for the CPU and £170 for the 1080p display so that's £910. The price quoted on the website is before the discount, so take 15% off that and you have ~ £780 (don't think the P&P which is £20 gets discounted)..

My £930 said £1034 before I applied my 10% discount...
 
Last edited:
arad85 said:
The latest laptops with graphics accelerator use Nvidia Optimus technology....

blah drivle blah blah

....you won't notice any difference in performance. IMHO, the only reason to pay more than the machine you are looking at would be to get a 1080p display (I love my 1080p display now and wouldn't go back to a 1366 x 768 if I could possibly avoid it).
Click to expand...

thats pretty nifty then :thumbs:
 
ah yes my mistake, I thought the 15% had already been knocked off... i'll go and try again!

hmm, comes to 768... which although a good price, is still really beyond what i should/could spend :(
 
Last edited:
benners said:
hmm, comes to 768... which although a good price, is still really beyond what i should/could spend :(
Click to expand...
Yup - I think it's a good price too. At least you checked :)
 
arad85 said:
Yup - I think it's a good price too. At least you checked :)
Click to expand...

it's a really good price... jut can't really justify it I don't think... I had a budget of as close to 500 as I could get, but with the extras that Acer comes with, was happy to push it to 590 but 780ish... :(
 
Have a look for a Laptop with a good screen then see what the best CPU you can get on that model is for your money.



That's what I did :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top