GPU Buying Guide - (Read first post)

Is it even possible to swap out or upgrade the chip or the graphics card in this laptop?
ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3400 Series
FUJITSU SIEMENS
AMILO Notebook Pa 3553
4.00 GB RAM 32bit 256 MB...

I really need 512 MB instead of this 256 MB I've got...
Any options?...

Look, it’s all baked right into the motherboard—just pop into the BIOS and see if you can allocate more RAM to the integrated graphics... though honestly, I’m not sure why you’d bother since an extra 256 MB is overkill for a resolution like that anyway.

Benjamin King2 said:Yeah, it's all baked right into the motherboard—just check your BIOS to see if you can allocate more RAM to the integrated graphics... though I'm not sure why you'd bother, since 256 MB extra is already overkill for that resolution.

Is there some kind of tutorial or guide for doing the addition, messing with the BIOS, and all that? I'm not exactly an expert when it comes to settings... I don't really like poking around where I might break something... but I really need 512 for this game...

Just head over to the Fujitsu website and hunt down the manual for download—it’s gotta be sitting right there alongside the drivers.

Yo, I’ve got two rigs here that desperately need an upgrade

Rig number one.

AMD Athlon 64 x2 5200
gigabyte M61PME-S2
ATI HD 4650 1GB
2GB
500W

I'm looking for a new GPU, budget is around $700 max$267. Just need it to run World of Warcraft and maybe some other light stuff without dying.
-----------------
The second rig

E5300 2.6gh
hd5570 1gb
2gb
ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5KPL-AM IN/ROEM/SI X.0x
500w

I need a card for BF3 because right now this thing is basically a slideshow. Everything is on low settings and it still stutters like crazy, probably hitting around $233 fps.

Thanks!

http://diskont24.com/product.php?pro...cat=390&page=4

Maybe grab two of those 😉

Though I guess those CPUs might bottleneck the GPU, so you’d probably want to push the overclock past 3GHz...

I'm currently torn between picking up a Zotac GeForce GTX 560 ti 170 Watts Radeon HD 6950 2 GB 200 Watts TDP or going with a Sapphire 6950 2GB—though I'd probably have to mess around with unlocking the shaders on that one. Any thoughts or recommendations?

The 560 Ti Amp sits right in the same ballpark as the 6970—we're talking about a 10% jump over the 6950—and since those unlocked shaders give you maybe a tiny 2-3% bump, the Amp takes the win again. Honestly, the only way this is actually worth your money is if you've got the patience to try and mod a 6950 into a 6970. 🙂

I’ve been sitting here mulling over whether I should actually try overclocking or if I should just play it safe, and honestly, it’s become a bit of a dilemma. From what I’ve gathered while digging around online, the feedback on pushing a 6950 up to 6970 frequencies and bumping the voltage is... well, it's mixed, to say the least. There are plenty of horror stories out there. Plus, you're basically tossing your warranty out the window the moment you start messing with those settings. I guess I’ll probably just stick with the 560 Ti Amp version for now. It seems like the less headache, I suppose.

Nvidia cards generally just have more headroom when it comes to overclocking compared to AMD.

But since the amp is already factory overclocked right out of the box, I’m not really sure how much more headroom there actually is for additional OCing...

The amp isn't really built for extra overclocking since the cooler is pretty mediocre... if you're planning on pushing past 950MHz, you'd be better off looking at an MSI Twin Frozr model.

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX series should be dropping next month, if I recall correctly. It might be worth holding off just a bit 🙂

EDIT: Just checked, looks like it's actually Q1 2012... hmm 😁

crimsonstag84 said:The NVIDIA GeForce GTX series is launching next month, if I recall correctly? It probably wouldn't hurt to hold off for a bit 🙂

EDIT: Just checked, turns out it's actually Q1 2012... hmm 😁

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/...0-specs-leaked

I'm just looking at the raw physical specs here... everything looks pretty solid on paper, but honestly, the power consumption is what catches my eye...
The 7870 seems like a better bet than the 6970, especially since it pulls half the power. I guess the real question is how much they'll actually charge for it and when it'll even hit the shelves.

If we're talking a month or two, I might actually be able to stomach waiting for a new card, or maybe just grab something cheap—maybe even some used hardware—and then upgrade once the new stuff drops. But if I have to wait six months... well, that's a different story.

crimsonstag84 said:Wait, isn't the NVIDIA GeForce GTX series dropping next month? Might be worth holding off just a little bit 🙂

EDIT: Just double-checked—it looks like Q1 2012 after all... hmm 😁

And if that happens, we might see NVIDIA Kepler architecture hitting the shelves right around then too. 🙂

Benjamin King2 said:Maybe we’ll see NVIDIA Kepler architecture hitting the shelves soon, too. 🙂

Oh yeah, I completely blanked on NVIDIA for a second there. 😬

It looks like everything is dropping almost at once—AMD is just ahead of the curve, but with Sandy Bridge-E, Ivy Bridge, and Piledriver all on the horizon, we're looking at a massive amount of new tech in just six months. 🙂

So, I stumbled upon this article last week about some research lab working with a Cray supercomputer—they’re looking at leveraging GPGPU for extra processing muscle and planning to bolt an entire field of 18,000 GTX690 cards onto that Cray setup. 🤦

I ended up picking up an HD 6670 DDR3. The clerk at the store tried to push an HD 5670 DDR5 on me because it was cheaper by $17. I looked at the performance specs for both, and the HD 6670 seemed marginally better, maybe by a few percent. However, I just realized after getting home that I actually grabbed the HD 6670 DDR3 version. I might have misread things in the shop, but that’s what happened. I was browsing online and apparently, this HD 6670 DDR3 shouldn't technically be weaker than the HD 5670 DDR5, since the HD 6670 is supposed to be a slightly improved successor to the older HD 5670 design. The problem is, I can't find any actual benchmarks or comparisons online specifically for an HD 5670 DDR5 VS HD 6670 DDR3 setup.
If anyone knows where to find that kind of data, please let me know. I can find plenty of stuff for HD 5670 DDR5 VS HD 6670 DDR5, but nothing comparing the DDR3 vs DDR5 versions specifically.

If you compare both versions with GDDR5, the HD 6670 pulls ahead slightly, while the HD 6670 GDDR3 ends up being about on par with an HD 5670 DDR5 😉

You can overclock it, and honestly, it stays pretty cool and reliable 🙂

Quick question

I’m looking at a couple of cards online right now—the HD 5670 DDR5 and the HD 5670 Ti DDR5. Besides those few extra MHz, what’s the actual deal between them? Does the Ti version come with better memory, or is it really just a clock speed difference?