Which laptop GPU is better

General Forums Off-topic Chat
1

I have a choice of new laptops between:

AMD Athlon™ II Dual-Core Processor P340, 3Gb, 2.2Ghz ATI Radeon™ HD 4250 Graphics
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/toshiba-satellite-c660d-102-07787032-pdt.html

and

T4500 processor, 3Gb, 2.3Ghz, GMA 4500M GPU:
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.209-9076.aspx

Both are toshiba, and both the same price. Difference is the CPU and GPU, basically.

Which is going to be better for Blender and Luxrender, bearing in mind both seem to be heading towards GPU processing.

Matt

2

To be able to take advantage of GPU you need a graphics card with OpenCL support. Which neither of the laptop you linked to has.

3

Before you worry about OpenCL support buy a laptop with decent OpenGL support and this usually means an Nvidia GPU

4

If I could afford a laptop with an nVidia card, I would buy one, but they are all nearly twice the price of these. The best I could get would be a 3 year old GEforce 8800 based one, refurbished. I would think that a 3 year old nVidia is still not going to be as fast as a current ATI or Intel, - even ignoring the reliability issues of buying a 3 yr old laptop. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Both of the above cards are supposed to be OpenGl 2.1, and the 4250 definitely has OpenCL support, as my wife has one and it runs SmallLuxGPU, though not with more than a 4* speedup than over the CPU only speed.

Matt

5

Go with the AMD/ATI, Intel GPUs are often a crap shoot as whether they properly support OpenGL.

6

Go with ATI one I have a Lenovo TabletPC X61 with Intel 3100 card and I can say one thing , an dedicated card like ATI or NVIDIA it is better that one with shared memory.
My TabletPC it is good for what it is made bussines class -> drawings -> charts -> photoediting.

7

I’d find one with an Nvidia GPU inside you worry about the price difference but better drivers, better support so your spending extra cash for a reason.