Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

Paco500 · Feb 11, 2005, 07:54 PM

What is the general consensus on what the performance of WoW might be on the new 12"- specifically, how might:

a new 12", 1.5 GHZ, 1.25 GB of RAM, 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200.

compare to

a last rev 15", 1.33 GHZ, 1.5 GB of RAM, 64 MB Radeon 9700.

The second is my current laptop, although it belongs to my company, whom I will most likely be leaving soon. I'm going to get a new PB either way, and the size and cost of the 12" is quite appealing. But I've become a bit of a WoW junkie, and while I'm please w/ the performance on the 15", I'm not blown away and I don't want to take a step backwards.

So just how much of a difference does the extra 256MB and the Radeon make? Does the extra MHz make up for it? I can't find a comparison on the nvidia vs the radeon anywhere online.

As a side note, I stopped by the Apple Store in Tysons Corner, VA to look at the new books and see if someone could give me some info on how the video cards compared. First off, the sales guy was surprised to hear the had different cards, then went to www.radeon.com to try to get some answers. I hope they don't pay these folks much.

Paco500 · Feb 13, 2005, 09:52 PM

I'm really just bumping this- but didn't want to do so w/o adding value- so check out this clip I was sent:

boom

And come on, this forum is full of opinions- does not one have one about this?

Bump.

JoshXotic · Feb 14, 2005, 07:33 AM

Please let me know - I play on a PC at home, but I would like to know if I can play on a new 12" PB when stuck in a hotel for a few days. If not I need to cart out the TP I guess...

Thanks!

jpg71 · Feb 14, 2005, 09:01 AM

I can't speak to the performance of the video cards, but for what its worth, I've played WoW on comparably equipped Powerbooks, one with 1GB of memory and one with 1.5GB and didn't see any difference in performance.

I think at this point, the differences you perceive will be a result of the different video cards rather than CPU or Memory.

Paco500 · Feb 14, 2005, 09:58 AM

Originally posted by jpg71:
I can't speak to the performance of the video cards, but for what its worth, I've played WoW on comparably equipped Powerbooks, one with 1GB of memory and one with 1.5GB and didn't see any difference in performance.

I think at this point, the differences you perceive will be a result of the different video cards rather than CPU or Memory.

When I went from 512 to 1.5 GB ram in the 15", it made a pretty big difference, but that's a bigger jump that 1.5GB down to 1.25GB.

Still curious about the video card performance.

gbafan · Feb 14, 2005, 10:21 AM

Having just upgraded from a 1Ghz 12" PB with a 32MB GeForce FX Go5200 to a 15" PB 1.5Ghz (Last revision, got too good of a deal) with Radeon 9700 64MB, obviously the 15" PB plays the game a lot better.

The real difference between the 12" and the 15" is the video card. The Radeon 9700 is just a better card than the GeForce 5200 and in a Powerbook where performance is already lacking due to slower bus speeds and a G4 chip that Radeon is quite handy.

If you have the extra $500 for the $1999 15" I would highly recommend it if you're going to be playing games. Plus as you know, the 15" screen is fantastic. Much better than I could have imagined from the 12".

Paco500 · Feb 14, 2005, 01:11 PM

Do you know exactly what is better about the Radeon? Have you ever seen any specs? I can't find anything. It looks like the system bus is 167 Mhz across the board, so I don't see that making a difference. Plus the the new 12" would have a faster proc than I have now.

I hear what you are saying about the screen- I spent about an hour at the Apple store comparing the screens- the 12" is a step down. But the size... it's such a nice size.

It's not really about the money. If I go w/ the 15", I'll probably get the 1.67 /w 128MB video card. But with the money I would save by going w/ the 12", I could buy a mac mini for the wife. Heck, I could almost buy her an iBook.

So back to the point- has anyone ever seen any published comparisons between the NVIDIA and the ATI cards?

Originally posted by gbafan:
Having just upgraded from a 1Ghz 12" PB with a 32MB GeForce FX Go5200 to a 15" PB 1.5Ghz (Last revision, got too good of a deal) with Radeon 9700 64MB, obviously the 15" PB plays the game a lot better.

The real difference between the 12" and the 15" is the video card. The Radeon 9700 is just a better card than the GeForce 5200 and in a Powerbook where performance is already lacking due to slower bus speeds and a G4 chip that Radeon is quite handy.

If you have the extra $500 for the $1999 15" I would highly recommend it if you're going to be playing games. Plus as you know, the 15" screen is fantastic. Much better than I could have imagined from the 12".

gbafan · Feb 14, 2005, 02:59 PM

Here is a lab review from Macworld:

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/02...arks/index.php

Notice that the old 15" 1.5Ghz beats the newer 12" and 15". Odd.

As for specs on the chipsets, you'd need to look at ATI.com and nVidia.com. I've done the leg work for you

Mobility Radeon 9700: http://www.ati.com/products/mobility...700/index.html

nVidia GeForce FX Go5200: http://www.nvidia.com/page/pg_20030311775583.html

Raw numbers:

Radeon 9700 has a 400mhz RAMDAC, nVidia Go5200 is 350mhz.

Radeon is 0.13 micron, nVidia is 0.15 micron.

Both cards only have 4 pixel pipelines.

Edit:

Here's another benchmark. These are versus the older 1.33ghz Powerbooks but that doesn't matter as the machines are equal across the line.

http://www.barefeats.com/pb11.html

Notice the 5200 getting spanked by the 1.33Ghz PB with Radeon.

Aquila` · Feb 15, 2005, 05:35 AM

i have a 12" powerbook 1.33GHz, nVidia GeForce4 5200 Go, and 256 Mb Ram. Will wow be playable with a decent framerate? Will upgrading the Ram help a lot to play the game? And if anyone has almost the same configuration of powerbook -> what resolution do you play in? Can you turn details to normal?

cSurfr · Feb 15, 2005, 09:22 AM

My wife has the Rev. C 12" (1.33ghz) w/ 768MB of RAM, and WoW plays just fine. Sure she can't turn her settings all the way up, but none the less playable. IF has lag (though it always does).

cs

videian28 · Feb 15, 2005, 09:42 AM

Originally posted by Aquila`:
i have a 12" powerbook 1.33GHz, nVidia GeForce4 5200 Go, and 256 Mb Ram. Will wow be playable with a decent framerate? Will upgrading the Ram help a lot to play the game? And if anyone has almost the same configuration of powerbook -> what resolution do you play in? Can you turn details to normal?

your definatly going to need more ram

throw a 512 stick in there and things will be ok, not great but ok

Aquila` · Feb 16, 2005, 05:45 AM

i was already planning on doing that

onryou · Feb 18, 2005, 06:02 AM

Originally posted by Paco500:
What is the general consensus on what the performance of WoW might be on the new 12"- specifically, how might:

a new 12", 1.5 GHZ, 1.25 GB of RAM, 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200.

compare to

a last rev 15", 1.33 GHZ, 1.5 GB of RAM, 64 MB Radeon 9700.

The second is my current laptop, although it belongs to my company, whom I will most likely be leaving soon. I'm going to get a new PB either way, and the size and cost of the 12" is quite appealing. But I've become a bit of a WoW junkie, and while I'm please w/ the performance on the 15", I'm not blown away and I don't want to take a step backwards.

So just how much of a difference does the extra 256MB and the Radeon make? Does the extra MHz make up for it? I can't find a comparison on the nvidia vs the radeon anywhere online.

As a side note, I stopped by the Apple Store in Tysons Corner, VA to look at the new books and see if someone could give me some info on how the video cards compared. First off, the sales guy was surprised to hear the had different cards, then went to www.radeon.com to try to get some answers. I hope they don't pay these folks much.

Okay, I just got my pwrbook yesterday, and I installed wow (see my sig for what i got) with 256 mem. Well, it ran pretty damn good with just 256 all settings on low at 1024x768. I was getting anywhere from 15 to 32 fps. It hovered around 30 the whole time. (i was in STV only) I'm installing my 512 mem stick this afternoon, and I will let you know how it runs on my 12" pb.

onryou

*edit*
I'd also like to add that the new patch that blizzard released could probably have something to do with the better frame rate. They did state in the patch msg that they've inproved some shading crap with WoW.

Arkham_c · Feb 18, 2005, 08:53 AM

Originally posted by onryou:
I'd also like to add that the new patch that blizzard released could probably have something to do with the better frame rate. They did state in the patch msg that they've inproved some shading crap with WoW.

It dramatically improved performance for me (on my G5). I can set the terrain distance a lot higher now and still get better performance than I was before.