7300Go or X1400?

[RazorDX]

I'm looking to get a Dell in a month or two, an Inspiron to be exact, but have come to a bit of a tough spot regarding the graphics chip.

I will be doing some light gaming, nothing heavy. The only games will probly be The Sims 2, UT2K4, Quake 3 Arena and the like. Nothing too graphics intensive... but finding proper performance ratings for notebook chips isn't as easy as desktop chips. Both are either Hypermemory or Turbocache, but that's fine with me. I'll compensate by bumping the ram up to 2 GB.

The main question is, which one actually performs better? The only benchmark comparison I could find showed the X1300 and X1400 both beating out the 7300Go, which was almost in the league of an Intel integrated chip. Does anyone have any experience with either chip? Right now I'm leaning towards the X1400.

[786ARS]

i would go for the X1400, but if i wanted gaming i would get a tosh sattellite P100 or P105

[RazorDX]

I'm on a bit of a budget though, and gaming is not a high priority. The Dell I have configured comes to about $950 with tax, shipping, and 9-cell battery. My classes last from 8AM to 7PM on some days, so battery life is crucial. I'll be able to charge in between, but having a battery that lasts 3-4 hours at a time is a huge plus.

They charge 300 dollars for 2GB of memory... couldn't I just buy 2 sticks of 1GB Notebook memory from Newegg or another place and pop 'em in there? The OCZ sticks I found are only 80 dollars with shipping and are listed as compatible with the notebook I'm looking at (E1505).

[786ARS]

yes, but it voids your warrenty
so if you get the manual upgrade, be ready for no assistance if it needs replacing.

[RazorDX]

I can live with that. I take it something like a Mobility Radeon X700 would be even better than the X1400 since it has dedicated memory?

[786ARS]

the mobility X700 is a good med-high end gamer, i have it in my acer ferrari and can play all modern games with several high settings enabled.

[swp]

RazorDX, what inspiron offers the x700 as an option?

[RazorDX]

None of them do, but I know there is an Acer with a Turion 64 in it for just under 1000 dollars.

[Steady Teddy]

I'm looking to purchase a Dell E1505 Dual Core.

I have three video card options:
128 MB X1300
256 MB x1400
256 MB Go 7300

I was told by the Dell sales rep that the Go 7300 gives the best performance for gaming and that it DOES have dedicated memory. Is this true?

[glc]

The 7300 is Turbocache, both those Radeons are Hypermemory. They all have SOME dedicated memory but ALL do share some system memory too.

http://www.pcmech.com/show//965/

[Angelus]

Originally Posted by 786ARS yes, but it voids your warrenty so if you get the manual upgrade, be ready for no assistance if it needs replacing.

I was under the impression that it doesn't void your warranty if you upgrade the ram on your laptop. Moreover, some laptop companies have specific pages in the user manual on how to upgrade the ram in the laptop, so I don't think it voids the warranty

[glc]

It only voids the warranty if you use non-Dell provided memory and it is proven that the use of that memory caused the failure.

[RazorDX]

So basically it only voids the warrenty if a guy tries to shove a stick of desktop RAM into his notebook and breaks everything... or just gets the wrong kind.

I was looking at some benchmarks, and the 7300Go is the worst performer of all of the upgrade options they offer, but its the most expensive. Even the X1300 outperforms it. I've decided to go with the E1505 and X1400.

[glc]

Core Duos seem to be pretty forgiving on ram compatibility - I just put some generic Corsair Value Select DDR2-667 into a Panasonic Toughbook and it works fine. Not bad at $80 per 1gb module.