The landscape of graphics cards can become confusing, but luckily we have benchmarks published in many sites that help us to assess the relative performance of each card. To help you decide which one is the optimal graphics card for your laptop, I have drawn a chart covering the most usual laptop graphics cards at the moment. The chart plots 3DMark 06 scores and data are from Notebookcheck tables: this is just an effort to make the available information more graphical and simple. If the graphics card you are interested in is not listed in the chart, it is lileky that it is in the original tables. In addition, you can find useful the laptop processor benchmark comparison, the benchmark section and the gaming laptop section.
You can also be interested on the laptop benchmarks contributed by users
Card listing: Intel GMA 950, GMA X3100, GMA 4500MHD; Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS, 9200M GS, 9300M GS, 9400M, 8600M GT (DDR2 and DDR3), 9500M GS, 9600M GT (DDR2 and DDR3), 8700M GT (single and SLI), 8800M GTX (single and SLI), 9700M GTS, 9800M GT (single and SLI) and 9800M GTX (single and SLI); ATI Mobility Radeon HD 2400, 3200, 3450, 3470, 3650, 3850 (single and CrossFire), 3870 (single and CrossFire).
Featured laptops:
- Alienware Area-51 mx17 (17″, Nvidia GeForce 9800M GT SLI)
- Toshiba Qosmio X305-725 (17″, Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTX, Quad-core)
- Alienware Area-51 mx15 (15.4″, Nvidia GeForce 9800M GT)
- Asus G50VT-X1 (15.6″, Nvidia GeForce 9800M GS)
Background color represents the ability of the card: red, not good for games (save older ones); yellow, good for games light on resources and HD movies; light green, good for most games; dark green, good for all games. This is an oversimplification, and depending on the game/card combination you may need to lower resolution or detail. But I think it’s a good approximation.
In case you have any questions, you can use the message boards to ask them.
Related posts:
- The GeForce 9500M found in the Dell Studio XPS 13 (1340) is in fact a 9400M G + 9200M GS Hybrid SLI
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3670 gaming benchmarks vs Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT
- Far Cry 2 on laptops benchmarks: what graphics card do you need to run it?
- ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3450 gaming benchmarks (Call of Duty 4, Crysis, World of Warcraft, F.E.A.R. 2, Sacred 2, Red Alert 3, Unreal Tournament 3, World in Conflict, GRID, Far Cry, Half Life 2)
- Nvidia GeForce 9400M benchmarks (Crysis, Call of Duty 4, Spore, Warhammer Online…)
Tags: ATI Radeon, graphics cards, Intel, Nvidia GeForce, performance
[...] laptop processor benchmark comparison is similar to the laptop graphics card performance comparison: it gets data from the benchmark tables at Notebookcheck, reduces the amount of data involved [...]
[...] there are no published benchmarks for this card, but it is likely close in performance to the 9300M GS (Macbook Air has got this card, too). The weight has been reduced from 2.3 to 2 kg, the screen is [...]
[...] Notebookcheck estimates a score of 2000 at default settings. No info about how the estimation was calculated. 3DMark scores of other cards. [...]
[...] Notebook Review message boards. You can look at my laptop graphics card comparison to compare these cards with [...]
Benchmarks are way too overrated these days.
What appalls me is that so many people hang on to benchmarks as if it is the final word in everything.
Benchmarks are no substitute for real-world testing. That chart above that shows that the GMA 950 and X3100 are no good for games is proof of this. You will be surprised that a lot of new games can and are being run on laptops with GMA950 and X3100 graphics solutions, just check out these two sites:
http://x3100gaming.blogspot.com/
and
http://revo945gm.blogspot.com/
Proof that even with a lot of naysayers around, gaming is possible with these two chipsets. We’re being realistic though, on the GMA950, most of the games are on the lowest settings, while on the X3100, most are on the low-to-medium settings.
Bottom line: Test it out first before you put in the final word. And with so many configurations and driver versions, what works well in one laptop might not work well in another, and vice-versa.
Those are good links, they can help people already owning a laptop with such cards get the most from them. Anyway, users looking for a laptop to play recent games should think about something more powerful, and for that reason I put them in the “red zone”.
I agree with you, syntethic benchmarks are no substitutes for real-world testing, but give a rough way to compare the overall performance of different cards.
Thanks for your contribution, feel free to share with us any benchmarks of the Intel cards.
My friend bought a new “Gaming” laptop ment to play World of Warcraft on, at maximum (or close to) performence.
But after finding this site (we got it recommended) we found out we were literally screwed over. He got a GF 8400M GS, and it was suppose to be supreme for gaming… Come in it’s in the buttom of the scales… ._.
So we’re going out to throw it back at their faces tomorrow – thanks a shitload for the assistance this homepage provided.
I’m glad you found it useful!
wow, you guys really think 8400m gs is for supremem gaming? But I bet you can play wow on max with that card though
(smile)
[...] X3100 ???????????????? ?????. ??? ??? ????? ?????????? ??????? ??????? ?????????????????? ????????? ???????…. ????? GeForce 9400M ???????????? ??????????????? Full HD (1080p) [...]
Thanks for the easy to see results, glad that that it looks like I don’t have to spend the extra money for the GTX version of the 9800 and can just stay with the GT
Well, you know, gaming results can be different to synthetic benchmarks, but anyway, at the high end things you pay a lot for a little more…
[...] warranty, if want to change new cover will cost sgd200.00 8400M GS graphics card check: Link 1: Laptop graphic card performance (GeForce 9200M 9300M 9400M 9500M 9600M 9700M 9800M, Mobility Radeon … Link 2: AnandTech: Mobile Buyer’s Guide Hope to sell at $590.00, anyone keen can pm [...]
[...] at least: Mobility Radeon HD 2600 or 3650, or Nvidia 8600 or 9600. You can be interested on the laptop graphics card comparison or on other articles in the benchmarks [...]
[...] NVIDIA GeForce Go 9600M GT. Donc en comparant les deux cartes vid?o, l’Acer l’emporte. Source : Laptop graphic card performance (GeForce 9200M 9300M 9400M 9500M 9600M 9700M 9800M, Mobility Radeon …. Bye [...]
My troublesome NVidia GeForce8600m GS Graphics Card has finally gone down and I wish to replace it with a better maybe a GF9600m or GF9700m hopefully a better gaming and less power consuming card. Can I upgrade easily into a roomy 17inch Laptop or are there serious size restrictions for these cards? No one talks about compatibility but my Everex Computer Co., seems to have gone belly-up, and no longer respond with advice. NVidia will not ofer advice and they all want you to buy brand new Laptop which I cannot aford… Are these cards all made the same size to be interchangeable, in the confined interior of a laptop?. My local repair shop say they can install if I supply the same card…..Not exactly what I want to do!
You can only upgrade the graphics card of your laptop if it uses the MXM standard. You can find the laptop makers that use it and more information at http://www.mxm-upgrade.com/ Have luck!
Thanks for the nice graph and your work.
The NVidia naming convention is a mystery to me. are there any easy rules for performance for X,Y,Z, Extra in the XY00M GZ Extra names? And how does these performance results compare to the desktop versions?
Most games have a minimum and recommended system reguirements stated in terms of desktop graphic cards. I play a game with a rather low requirement “GeForce 8 class card or higher”, and I am looking at buying a low-class Leonovo with the NVIDIA GeForce 9300M GS card. Any idea on how that would fit in with the requirement?
cheers
Well, the old gaming convention was: X=generation, Y=performance class in any given generation, and the letter was a mess. In the new gaming convention, the letters are what matter the most: G < GT < GTS < GTX (I think there is no GS now).
System requirements are usually very vague, I search for the name of the game and the card or an equivalent: i.e. if you can’t find anything for the 9300M GS, look for the 8400M GS, that is the equivalent from the older generation and is a bit slower.
Just for fun for the experts: How would a desktop Nvidia Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64MB card (2002) compare to an integrated Intel GMA 4500 (2008)?
Good question
Comparable gaming benchmarks are hard to find, but if we look at 3DMark 2001 scores, the GeForce scored around 10000 with a Pentium 4 at 2.5 GHz, while the GMA 4500MHD scores from around 4000 with a slow single core processor (SU3500) up to around 7000 with a fast dual core (T9400) 
Sadly the GeForce 4 supports DirectX 8.1 only…
I have been looking for a balance between an affordable laptop and also one that can play wow on med-high settings, my desktop is wonderful and I can not deal with a laggy laptop since I hardly ever have any on my desktop.
I have narrowed it down to a $500. laptop with GeForce 8200M and other decent qualities,
or a $690. laptop with similar qualities but a GeForce 9800M (GS i think).
I have been researching and this site was helpful.
I see the 8200M is not even on the chart, that tells me something lol. there is a review for that 8200m laptop of someone saying they play Wow on med0high settings and get 60fps etc.
It would make sense that the 9800M would be even better.
There are multiple 9800M versions on the chart which all are pretty high ranking, this gives me some relief.
Thank you!
I upgraded my desktop to a GeForce 9500 XT almost a year ago and I love it!
(The ATI Radeon 3200HD card it came with started overheating after 1 year the fan gave out.)
Hi Colleen,
Something is wrong in your data: the GeForce 9800M is a high-end card, it’s impossible to find it on a 700 USD laptop. And I seriously doubt the 8200M can get 60 FPS at medium-hig settings in WOW, I get 25-30 fps at Fair settings in low-demanding scenarios with my ATI 3450 and it’s about twice times faster than the 8200M.
Well the person who wrote the review about the 8200M said so, but I am not saying they are infallible.
I’m not a moron, I have a decent amount of computer knowledge but when it gets down to number-crunching I’m a little at a loss.
Here is the 9800M laptop – I said I think it is (Gs) if that makes a world of difference or not I am unsure. It is $689.00
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9531722&st=laptop&lp=3&type=product&cp=2&id=1218120546654
There ya have it.
Sorry if I seemed rude Colleen, it was not my intention. This laptop is a refurbished one, that explains the low price. The price is awesome for a laptop with a GeForce 9800M GS, it was priced around 1000 USD when I saw it new (it was at BB also). Maybe the 8200M issue is because of a typo. The 9800M GS is in between of a 9700M GTS and a 9800M GT, more or less.
You have some results of the 9800M GS in this other table:
http://optimitza.cat/benchmarks/laptops
If I compare G 9300M GS and GMA 4500mhd what is the difference, which one is better for full hd video and some games?
The 9300M GS is better for both uses, not a lot better, but noticeably.
How is possible that my friend on his notebook with GeForce G105M has smaller index in win7 for aero graphic than me on G 9300M ?
Hi PaKi, what 9300M do you have, the G or the GS? The 9300M G is faster than the 9300M GS (it has 16 cores instead of 8).
I have GS
So the G 105M should be a bit faster. The most important difference usually is the kind of graphics memory (DDR2 vs DDR3 vs GDDR3) and driver version, but it’s difficult to know because different manufacturers can use different clocks. Anyway, I’d not worry about WEI, it sometimes happens that a driver update lowers WEI but enhances gaming performance. WEI is very poor as a benchmark.
My 8800M GTX lasted nearly 2 years until it fried. Disassembled my laptop and noticed a darkened burnt area & also lightly melted soldering closer to one edge/corner of my graphic card. As of now, am waiting for my new 9800M GT delivery as an alternative replacement.
Can i upgrade my laptop with GMA965 and X3100 graphics with a newer graphic card?
I will to play NBA 2K10!!!
PLS ANSWER
BTW i have 2 GB ram and intel core duo T2410 2.0 Ghz and win 7 Ultimate 64-bit
I’m afraid this card is not upgradeable, it’s integrated on the motherboard. You could try to find a compatible motherboard with a better card, but the upgrade is difficult and expensive. I’d go for a new laptop or have a look to an external graphics card: http://optimitza.cat/news/2009/07/01/vidock-2-are-external-graphics-cards-finally-here/ (your laptop probably has ExpressCard slot, but make sure first).
[...] last compilation of laptop graphics card benchmarks is too old, so here you have the new version. I’m only covering the last generation of [...]
Well said Felip and Benchmarks are substitutes, YES! Because them put on prove the same things that will be used in games.
If I got the computer listed here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230056
What would probably be the newest game I could run? And also, would I be able to upgrade the graphics card to something newer?
You can’t upgrade the graphics card in that laptop (as in 95% of laptops). As for the games you can play, that’s a strange way of asking, there are old games that need a powerful card to be played at high details and newer ones that are OK with low-end cards. As a guideline, with that card you can play most games from 2-3 years ago at medium-low settings. Many current games would be unplayable.