Notebook graphics: Geforce4Go 420n or ATI IGP 320M/340M/345M

[Luigi88]

Hi,

I am trying to choose my new (low budget) laptop and I came across a BenQ Joybook 3000 with P4M 1.8GHz, ALI 1671 north bridge and nVidia GeForce4Go 420n graphics with 32MB dedicated video RAM.

However, for the same price there are quite a lot of other notebook models with faster CPU (P4M 2.4-2.6, AMD XP 2000-2500+), but which are using ATi's IGP 320M/340M/345M chipset with integrated graphics and UMA (Unified Memory Architecture=video memory is 'borrowed' from main memory upto 64MB).

Now my question is, how do the graphics performance of these two solutions compare. I haven't seen any positive reviews about chipsets with integrated graphics, but at the same time I do not know anything about the GeForce4Go 420n.

Also, I have seen some articles mentioning the fact that the UMA design will put an extra load on memory bus (also causing extra page misses) and thus impacting the overall performance of the system (there goes the advantage of the faster CPU?).

Anybody any ideas on this?

TIA,
Luigi

[Contemplating]

From all the benchmarks I've researched, nearly all standalone graphics solutions beat integrated graphics. For a budget laptop integrated lowers costs.

For example, I had a Toshiba m10, P-M 1.5, 512, 60gig, 15" uxga, geforce4 420 32mb, and it scored ~5100 on the 3dmark2001.

It could play ut2k3 at 1024x768 with graphics on low at 40fps.

[Luigi88]

Thanks for your reply, looks like you were very right, see below.

Looking for "toshiba m10 geforce4 420 +northbridge" on the internet I stumbled onto a very good article on notebook graphics (ao). Unfortunately it is in French, but here is the link anyway:

http://www.tt-hardware.com/article.php?sid=4884

3D Mark 2001 results (from article):

IGP 320/340M: 1300 - 1800 points (depending on config)
GeForce4 4xx (420, 440, 450 et 488): 3700 - 7100 points

I guess there's no need to speak French to understand what that means!

By the way, what northbridge does your M10 have?

[Luigi88]

For completeness, here's the overview of all mobile graphics solutions in a graph (see attached GIF).

Luigi

[Contemplating]

Here's the spec sheet:

http://www.toshiba.ca/web/specificat...1910&part=1530