NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 vs. TI Mobility Radeon 9700 graphics in PB

[BrianKonarsMac]

my 12" rev c powers a 1280x1024 17 apple lcd with no stuttering, choppiness, etc. It runs absolutely fine. That being said however, anything that taxes the GPU heavily will definitely not run very smooth on a 5200. For instance, when i run the iTunes visuals in full screen (1280x1024) with anti-aliasing, I get low fps (typically in the upper teens to 30, but that's a rare case, it's usually in the mid 20s), on the powerbook itself (1024x768) i get closer to 60. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE 5200 for regular applications and general use of the OS. gaming is another story. the 9700 features are more gaming oriented, but it will also show you some muscle in things such as full screen visuals etc. I chose the 12" for portability (i take it everywhere, and i can't imagine using a 15 or 17" on my actual lap) it handles anything i throw at it and I really have nothing to complain about since it's supported (albeit the bare minimum) by Core Image. I can't help but wish i had a ATI 9700 in here tho. If your just using design apps, and other software, the 9700 is overkill. Upgrading to 128mb will only help high resolution GPU tasks, but for $50, why wouldn't you upgrade?

Consensus:
FX5200Go - not as ****ty as everyone makes it out to be.
ATi 9700 - Clearly better, but overkill for non-gamers (if you play warcraft 3 only, like myself, your not really a mac gamer...just a blizzard fan boy )

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

Can you explain further between the 9700 and 5200 for non-gamers as why ATI has the edge?

it's a more "current" chip, but for non-gamers...they'll both do everything fine. I have zero complaints about my 5200.

 

[bousozoku]

Can you explain further between the 9700 and 5200 for non-gamers as why ATI has the edge?

In that case, there might not be too much of an edge. It depends on how much Quartz Extreme makes use of the GPU and whether DVD Player makes use of it for video decoding.

I was concerned about the video capabilities and, for longevity, the ATI GPU has the edge but I don't think it's going to matter that much. I was planning to use a machine for some graphic design and photography and maybe some gameplay, so I think the 12 inch machine will be more than adequate.

 

[TDM21]

My my how the tides have turned; Everybody talking praise about Ati and crap about Nvidia. Why I remember back in the day (2 to 3 years ago) when people were talking the opisite; Nvidia rocked and Ati was a load of crap. What could happen next?

 

[MikeLaRiviere]

Off-Topic

This is slighly off-topic, but I am curious whether anyone has noticed any choppiness in Expose with the latest PB 12" (nVidia card). I had an 800 MHz iBook 12" with the ATI 9200, and this PB seems to exhibit choppy Expose functioning. Perhaps I'm imagining it, or it may be an issue with vertical sync, but I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this issue.

To address the vein of the post, I must say that the 12" PowerBook can't be beat for portability. The 15" would be a great desktop replacement/light travel computer. However, I used my 12" iBook on the couch, at the desk, in the car, and in the air. So far I've used the 12" PowerBook on the couch, at the desk, in the car, and at work - it's my primary computer in every sense of the word. I can't imagine that you'd get that kind of versatility with the 15" or 17" PowerBooks.

Mike LaRiviere

 

[zakee00]

Can you explain further between the 9700 and 5200 for non-gamers as why ATI has the edge?

AKA, ati's top mobile cards have been faster than nvidias top mobile cards in the past few years. looks like its going to stay this way. i am an ati fan, just because i have had some bad experences with defective nvidas. this is with pc's though, i dunno about macs...i would still rather have an ati. yeah..there are some people here that are right, and some people that need to get theyre facts straight...the 9700 IS the fastest MOBILE card available right now. getting a 64mb version is KILLING it IMO, get the 128mb unless you REALLY dont need it. if you are doing mostly 2D work, you really dont need to worry about the graphics cards...the fx5200 does suck, but hey i think its compatable with coreimage. if you are really worried about future compatablity (coreimage), then why are you looking at a 12" in the first place? totally get a 15", they are great. i cant awnser all of your questions here, if you would like to talk, feel free to MSN me, or email me. im pretty much a gaming nerd/mac fan so i know all about this stuff

 

[zakee00]

my 12" rev c powers a 1280x1024 17 apple lcd with no stuttering, choppiness, etc. It runs absolutely fine. That being said however, anything that taxes the GPU heavily will definitely not run very smooth on a 5200. For instance, when i run the iTunes visuals in full screen (1280x1024) with anti-aliasing, I get low fps (typically in the upper teens to 30, but that's a rare case, it's usually in the mid 20s), on the powerbook itself (1024x768) i get closer to 60. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE 5200 for regular applications and general use of the OS. gaming is another story. the 9700 features are more gaming oriented, but it will also show you some muscle in things such as full screen visuals etc. I chose the 12" for portability (i take it everywhere, and i can't imagine using a 15 or 17" on my actual lap) it handles anything i throw at it and I really have nothing to complain about since it's supported (albeit the bare minimum) by Core Image. I can't help but wish i had a ATI 9700 in here tho. If your just using design apps, and other software, the 9700 is overkill. Upgrading to 128mb will only help high resolution GPU tasks, but for $50, why wouldn't you upgrade?

Consensus:
FX5200Go - not as ****ty as everyone makes it out to be.
ATi 9700 - Clearly better, but overkill for non-gamers (if you play warcraft 3 only, like myself, your not really a mac gamer...just a blizzard fan boy )

ok i have a few gripes here..."the 9700 is more gaming oriented"
well, coreimage basicly is taking advantage of this. the 9700's shader proformance totally kills the 5200, so it would be much better for coreimage.
"i take it everywhere, and i can't imagine using a 15 or 17" on my actual lap"
i own a 15", and it is great for portability...i use it mostly as a desktop, but it fits fine on my lapthe extra screen space in my eyes is worth it, 12" would kill me even for doing everyday stuff.
"If your just using design apps, and other software, the 9700 is overkill. Upgrading to 128mb will only help high resolution GPU tasks, but for $50, why wouldn't you upgrade?"
when adobe intagrates coreimage into photoshop, then your extra money you spent on a 9700 isnt wasted...its put to good use (if you use adobe products). upgrading to 128mb is mostly for gaming, but i would imagine that in future os upgrades apple will take advantage of GPU's more and put this extra memory to good use. but yes, right now a 9700 is "overkill" for design apps, and probably will be for some time.
"THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE 5200 for regular applications and general use of the OS."
well, with tiger "regular use of the OS" includes expose, and GPU taxing stuff like coreimage and corevideo. the 9700 would fare (much?) better here than the 5200.
i understand your point, but im just saying that in the future GPU's are going to matter more then they do today i think.plus we are talking about laptops, you are stuck with this grafx card till you decide to upgrade. i guess if you must have the 12", then you will have to buy another computer sooner to stay "up to date" then if you bought a 15".
just my point of view.

 

[zakee00]

This is slighly off-topic, but I am curious whether anyone has noticed any choppiness in Expose with the latest PB 12" (nVidia card). I had an 800 MHz iBook 12" with the ATI 9200, and this PB seems to exhibit choppy Expose functioning. Perhaps I'm imagining it, or it may be an issue with vertical sync, but I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this issue.

To address the vein of the post, I must say that the 12" PowerBook can't be beat for portability. The 15" would be a great desktop replacement/light travel computer. However, I used my 12" iBook on the couch, at the desk, in the car, and in the air. So far I've used the 12" PowerBook on the couch, at the desk, in the car, and at work - it's my primary computer in every sense of the word. I can't imagine that you'd get that kind of versatility with the 15" or 17" PowerBooks.

Mike LaRiviere
mikelariviere@mac.com

again, my 15" is great for portability..i do all of the things you do with your 12". on the plane, its a little bit scrunched but i have a "better viewing experence" then you when im watching DVD's

 

[zakee00]

My my how the tides have turned; Everybody talking praise about Ati and crap about Nvidia. Why I remember back in the day (2 to 3 years ago) when people were talking the opisite; Nvidia rocked and Ati was a load of crap. What could happen next?

thats because recently ati has cleaned up its act, and nvidia has gotten worse lol. it happens. nvidia isnt a "load of crap", but i like ati more. same proformance essentially, better drivers and support. thats in the windows world anyway, dunno about macs.

 

[yamabushi]

If you like the 12" PB form factor, then that is what you should use. The main benefit of the 15" or 17" PB for you would be the larger display. The NV5200 has a modern feature set that will allow it to take advantage of Core Image to some degree but its performance is roughly in the same class as the Ati 9200. This is good enough for most 2D work, especially on the 12" display. The Ati will have better perfomance across the board but you may only notice the difference when spanning to a high resolution external display. Apps that use 3D hardware acceleration will have much better performance with either version of the Ati9700, with the 128MB being slightly better than the 64MB.

 

[Rod Rod]

nVidia FX Go5200 driving 2048x1536

When I first got my IBM P260 21" CRT last week, I tested it at various resolutions.

I set up my 12" 1.33GHz PowerBook on an iCurve, on top of the monitor with its lid closed.

Here are the various resolutions and refresh rates observed:

2048x1536 @ 60Hz
1920x1440 @ 75Hz
1600x1200 @ 90Hz
1280x1024 @ 100Hz
1024x768 @ 120Hz

Incidentally, IBM specifies the P260's maximum resolution as 1920x1440. But my PowerBook can drive it to an even higher resolution. I'm impressed by the high refresh rates. I run it at 1600x1200.

I'm not a gamer, as the only games on my PB are Chess and Pac the Man 2. Pac the Man 2 sometimes runs choppy on the built-in LCD, but it's perfectly smooth on the 1600x1200 CRT.

In conclusion, the nVidia FX Go5200 isn't total crap, as noted above. Also, if I had a 15" or 17" PB, I'd most likely run it with its lid closed as well, sitting on top of my huge CRT most of the time. My next CRT will hopefully be the 24" widescreen Sony GDM FW900.

 

[tekno_geek911]

The 9700 is definately superior but the 5200 isnt nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be,I actually think its pretty decent...I use to say it was garbage too when I had a Rev B 12",then I got a new Rev C 12" PB last week...It handles everything I throw at it and it runs all the games I play without any slow downs at all(UT2K4,Call Of Duty,Halo,C&C Generals,RTCW). The 5200 is in allot of the modern portables on the market(Mac&PC) so it cant be that bad!

 

[johnnyjibbs]

I have the 12" PB rev B (1GHz processor with nVidia 5200 GO 32MB VRAM).

It's ok for games - Sim City 4 is fine, Unreal 2004 runs perfectly well too. However, I'm not much of a gamer (aside from consoles) so I'm not that bothered about games performance.

I've found absolutely no problems with expose, photoshop, Quartz Extreme or dual displays. The only thing I've found is that when you hook up a second monitor and use spanning, the VRAM gets divided into 2, one for each display. In the case of my machine, that means each screen gets 16MB of VRAM to play with, which is the minimum for Quartz Extreme. I've noticed that expose is not quite as fluid, but it's hardly a big deal. The point is, the new rev C 12" PB has 64MB of VRAM now so you'd get double - 32 available to each screen.

The 5200 GO may not be anything compared to the ATI 9700 mobility but it is MORE than adequate for all uses other than perhaps the most taxing games.

Bottom line, the 12" PB is a great computer and offers great performance and portability (and style!). Don't let a few naysayers put you off because it apprently has a "crap" video card. And the 5200 GO does support Tiger CoreImage.

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

as both you and i have said, the GPU will become more important as apple continues to incorporate it into the core functions of the OS. the 5200 has no problems handling expose, core image, etc. so i don't see your rational for having to upgrade sooner, your 15" will need to be upgraded just as soon to take advantage of the next OS's features (10.5?) such as 64 bit etc. you say WHEN adobe integrates CoreImage? IF they integrate core image that is...don't forget they make software for Windows as well, and CoreImage isn't a windows technology. Not to mention Adobe isn't exactly a huge supporter of Apple since Apple has begun killing several aspects of their business, and even if they do, the 5200 supports CoreImage, so this is a moot point...CoreImage from the Tiger demo runs fine on my 12" currently, you can only assume when it's officially released it will be further optimized. Perhaps the 9700 will "fare better" but it's not as if the 5200 will run CoreImage choppily, when Apple states the card is supported, they tend to mean it can run the features AS INTENDED, not half assed. If you recall you can use hacks to aquire video mirroring and Expose on unsupported graphics cards, but HERE it runs choppily, because they are not supported (doesn't mean they AREN'T CAPABLE, they just aren't capable of running it AS INTENDED without stuttering and dropping frames).

Yes Macs can RUN games, but nowhere near on par with a PC, it's slowly getting better, but we're talking slow like glass (which yes...is a "liquid" ). I wish it weren't true since i too am a gaming nerd/mac fan, and i'd love to rock out to some Halo (2?) on my 17" lcd, but unfortunately I'm forced to use an xbox to get "decent" gaming (the library is horrible...i own two decent games, halo and ninja gaiden). Alot of it has to do with M$ and DirectX 9 support, because Mac's are excellent at floating point calculations...which is what games use heavily, so a Mac SHOULD crush a PC in a perfect world.

I'm glad you enjoy your 15" it's an excellent computer, but it's not exactly a true portable in my opinion. I'm already cramped as it is on a train with my 12", the 15" wouldn't even fit (the monitor would be pressed up against the seat in front of me) and the 17...well forget about it. I do agree the 15" screen is GORGEOUS (wide aspect ratio) but I travel alot and really appreciate the small size. When i'm not traveling I connect to an external monitor because I have to agree that 1024x768 is FAR TOO SMALL to do serious design work. It does however make an excellent palette screen . For web browsing, email, chat, video, etc. it's perfect, but when I have Director open with the stage, score, cast, etc. it can get ugly really quick. the 12" is not what i'd consider a true DESKTOP replacement (meaning no external monitor, keyboard, or mouse) but it makes an excellent slim CPU when i'm at my desk and can hook up to my LCD, Apple keyboard and bluetooth mouse.

To answer Chips question again...both graphics cards support CoreImage and all the features of the current OS (10.3) as well as Tiger (10.4). If you really want a 12" DO NOT FRET OVER THE 5200fx, many people like to crap on it cuz it's Nvidia or its "only" 64mb or whatever, the truth of the matter is it handles all my tasks with aplomb, you'd see a larger speed increase by swapping the hard drive for a mobile 7200rpm. Nvidia also tends to have better OpenGL support, which is what Mac OS X uses, so i'll let you draw your conclusions from that.

i doubt you'll notice the difference between the 12" and 15" graphic cards aside from HEAVILY GPU TAXING TASKS (no expose does not heavily tax the GPU, i'm talking about full screen visuals on an external monitor with anti aliasing where you need above 30fps or it'll look slow) CoreImage isn't exactly GPU taxing either, it requires the latest graphics technology (pixel level shaders) which is why you need a current card.

sry if i came off like a @$$ but i think people give the 5200 alot more flak then it deserves.

 

[blackfox]

Hey Chip, why might you just not wait till the next PB revision, around the beginning of 2005...only about six months to wait, and depending on timing you may get Tiger included...a revised GPU for the 12" (well, all probably)...(I choose not to speculate about CPU changes)...just a thought. Just in case you were not willing to settle...

 

[Chip NoVaMac]

Hey Chip, why might you just not wait till the next PB revision, around the beginning of 2005...only about six months to wait, and depending on timing you may get Tiger included...a revised GPU for the 12" (well, all probably)...(I choose not to speculate about CPU changes)...just a thought. Just in case you were not willing to settle...

Actually, I was thinking along those lines. But I was assuming that the next updates would be Sept or Oct of this year.

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

i wouldn't assume anything, we all expected the G5 to be at 3ghz by now, but they're having issues with the 90nm at 2.5, and that is a full year after they hit 2.0 (while they still sell a 2.0 for mid range). the next powerbook may be delayed until they can get to the g5, which will be much longer than everyone is expecting. although it's sound advice (wait for next revision) you may be waiting a long long time, then again, it cold only be three months, but more likely 9 to 12 until it actually ships.

take this with a grain of salt, im just saying this because i'll be bitter if they come out with Powerbook G5's in september , if your not in a rush and have no qualms about waiting, it's always better to hold off until the next revision.