GTX260M Vs HD 4850 Vs HD 4860

[putochip0123]

all 3 with 1GB dedicated. which 1 is stronger? playing games with high resolution. 3d Graphic editing, watching movies

[NasGhost]

Take into account that the HD 4860 has yet to even be released.

[Woody]

These kind of questions come up all the time and in a desktop machine where you can swap graphics cards while all other factors remain equal it is a valid question but in a laptop where you can't just swap out these components the question is academic and mostly irrelevant.

Not only are different applications going to behave differently on different cards but on a laptop you need to take into consideration the entire package including the CPU, memory, operating system, hard drive, screen size and resolution, and even some of the other extraneous hardware may have an effect on overall system performance.

You should really just consider comparing different machines as a package rather than the individual components.

[DRY_ICE]

They are all very close. The 4860 doesn't have much info yet, but there's speculation it may be slightly worse than the 4850... which is beyond me but I prefer Nvidia to ATI so I think it's somewhat funny. I would say that the 260m may have a slight edge in the end, but they're all good cards.

@ Woody - I think he just wants to know so he can look at different machines offering a given card. Usually other things are customizable and you can match many machines exactly with cpu, memory, hard drive, screen etc. A GPU is usually the one decided factor on a given model. I personally look for a particular GPU first and build from there when looking to buy a new laptop.

[Woody]

Yes they are all good cards and close in performance so choosing the card first is probably the most important step when selecting a gaming laptop and I think any machine with any of those cards would be a good starting point.

I just wanted to point out that one must consider the rest of the machine and not just assume a blanket statement of one card making that machine superior across the board.

[NasGhost]

DRY ICE, on paper the 260m may beat the HD 4860, but dont forget that the 260m is slightly underclocked in the NP 8662, and vastly underclocked in the Asus G51, to the point where its much closer to the 9800mGTX than the GTX 260m. Since the HD 4860 will likely be closer to a desktop HD 4850 in performance, it beating the GTX 260m ( only with GDDR5 memory will this happen ) would not surprise me.

[powerpack]

The 4850 vs 4860 is going to be the same as the 9800m GT vs 9800m GTs. The GT has more shader processors the GTS is higher clocked. The 4850 has more stream processors 4860 higher clocks. Looks like ATI has copied from Nvidia's bag of confusion. But ATI has thrown in there own twist. 4850 has 256bit bus 4860 128bit. While I have read speculation that 4860 might out do 4850 by a little. Because of the 4850's greater number of stream processors and 256bit bus I am skeptical at this point. Until I see I don't believe.

That said I would consider all three as acceptable in the right package.

[wHo0p3r]

The 4850 will beat(but sometimes might be the same as) a 260m, some tests have been even going on that showed that a slightly overclocked 4850 might perform as a 280m

[Woody]

Different games will run differently on AMD vs NVidia parts. Some games tend to lean toward one type of card while other games lean toward the competitor. You can't use a single benchmark to compare cards from different manufacturers.

Then comes some major driver update that changes everything anyway.

[Anewbus]

springboarding from what Woddy just said, for what it's worth, just looking around at games and there "list of requirements" you'll find Nvidia is the "prefered" GPU. Not that this means a whole lot as I am sure you could run any game with an ATI, but perhaps it has something to do with drivers or something like that. I'm sure it's mostly marketing or branding as well.
(I happen to prefer Nvidia over ATI for a couple of reasons these days being a former ATI fan myself, but that's just me so it doesn't really mean anything).

[Woody]

I think the "preferred GPU" label is just marketing...meaning that NVidia pays for that advertising.

That said I know some devs who write 3D apps who typically write for the NVidia and then worry about AMD support later.

AMD does have some advantages in that it generally seems to have better video support and the ability to pipe audio through HDMI is a huge plus. Something that NVidia cards are lacking. I had some serious video playback problems on my 9800M GT when I first got (occasional BSOD during video playback) it but the latest drivers seem to have cleared that up.

[NasGhost]

Actually, the "preferred GPU" is generally due to an optimization. That is to say, it will run better on one chipset manufacturer than another. Crysis is a good example of this, where it runs better for Nvidia GPUs.

Assassins Creed is similar; AC was sponsored by Nvidia. So then, the Devs go and release a DX10.1 patch for it. Well, no Nvidia GPU supported DX10.1, but ATIs GPUs did. As such, ATI saw massive framerate increases; Im talking up to a 20% increase in fps from a the patch. But since Nvidia didnt have DX10.1, they got nothing ( except embarassed about how ATIs GPUs were crapping on theirs, even ones from different teirs ), and soon after the patch was released, it was also removed.

[Woody]

....and soon after the patch was released, it was also removed.

I did not know this....really? it's almost criminal.

Anyway, I just ordered a new GTX275 for my desktop since my GTX260 took a dump (getting it replaced under warranty then I'll eBay it). I need to stick with NVidia due to some proprietary software that I run that is optimized for NVidia cards but I think AMD definitely has the upper hand for price/performance in desktop parts right now.

[amdolev]

I support the posts that are for neither card. A graphic card on a laptop is 99% irreplacable. Thus, choosing the right one could be a headache. Since these 2 cards (referring to 4850 and 260 only, since i have no knowlege of the third) are basically on the same tier, I don't really believe that a frame here or there is really the issue.

nvidia is underclocked and ati are "underdrived". still overclocking is possible, and drivers will eventually address issues.

To the point, any will do...

[lovely09]

Nvidia and ATI will do.Just said here,it is somehow depends on the driver.If everything works fine then you could have your game completing the requirements needed.