Slashdot Mirror
Should a '9200' Brand Mean a 9200 GPU?
newsdee asks: "An enormous controversy is going on at the X1000 forums over laptop parts. Some Centrino-based laptops bear a label advertising the Mobility Radeon 9200 brand, but users have found out that the laptop actually contains the 9000 chip. The list of affected machines is as follows: Compaq Presario X1000, HP Pavilion ZT3000 and the HP Compaq NX7000. ATI's and HP's response have been that the label is promising performance and not a specific chip. Yet users seem to not like this at all, apparently because most of them define 'brand' as equating to product. According to reviews, there are no differences (same scores, same clock speed) between the chips other than AGP 8x support, which the Centrino chipset does not provide. I seem to remember that this is not the first time that this kind of thing has happened in PC hardware. Can anybody share insights of whether this is right or wrong? Should I complain about my 9000 chip that delivers what the 9200 brand promises, knowing it has not been overclocked?"
My 15" Titanium PowerBook, the last round of the series before they became the 15" AlPB, was advertised to contain a Radeon 9000. Nevertheless, bus scanning output from in shows I actually have an 8500. What's the difference? I really don't know. Nevertheless, seems a bit deceptive to me.
Join Tor today!
Just for you information:
Radeon 9000 = AGP 4X
Radeon 9200 = Radeon 9000 + AGP 8X
Centrino = AGP 4X
So, HP thought they might as well stick in some Radeon 9000 and no one would tell the difference.
I am not disagreeing with you by the way.
Uhh... In reality there's almost no difference between AGP 4x and 8x with current hardware. It's kinda like how SATA is faster than ATA133; it's capable of higher speeds but under current conditions you'll never see the difference.
Even with high-end hardware (think Radeon 9800s) you'll get less than a 5% performance difference by 'doubling' the AGP bus speed.
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
Also something to remember is that the highest preformance cards often contains the newest technology. This is especially true for power-saving features in laptops. A new 90nm process chip with variable voltage and memory/core clock speed will use less power than an older 130nm process chip with only core clock speed throttling. Every little bit helps.
This is not unlike digital still cameras.
Have you been to Best Buy lately? You can purchase a 5 MP camera for $300. How can that be?! Because the camera delivers an effective rating of only 2.0 MP. Somehow the manufacturers are able to tout their product as a 5 MP camera.
What's going on here is the manufacturers recognize that consumers of electronics are sensitive to product numbers. When was the last time you heard of someone walking into Sears and purchasing a dishwasher because it has an R52JU actuator servo? Never. But, how many times have you heard of someone walking into Best Buy and purchase PC133 or PC2100 memory? All the time.
HP and Toshiba know that laptop purchases are sensitive to owning a Radeon 9200 (just like how digital camera makers know that purchasers are sensitive to owning a 5MP camera). It's not surprising at all the manufacturer is willing to futz with the model number to deceive the consumer.
The real question is: what are you going to do about it?
Do it for da shorties
Many here have commented that it is no big deal that the machines are labeled 9200 when, in fact, they contain a 9000.
Ask yourself this:
If the performance and end result are the same then why claim a 9200 is present when a 9000 really is? If "everyone" knows that 9000 has the same performance as the 9200 on those particular mobos then why claim a 9200?
I can only conclude that the reason these machines are labeled 9200 is to confuse those that know just enough to perceive a performance difference that does not exist.
Companies were calling USB 1.1 USB 2. Their justification was that well USB 1.0 was the first, so 1.1 must be the second. The problem was they did this when the real USB 2 was comming out.
Face it, computer companies have doing this for a while. Cyrix did and AMD does with the performance rating. You can argue that the Athlon 2400+ is as fast as a 2.4 ghz P4, but it's still misleading.
CD-Rom drives did this with their fast speeds that were only obtainable a fraction of the time. 56k? Try 40k when I was using dialup. 200 gb hard drive where suddenly giga means billion bytes and not 2^30. Firewire and USB transfer speeds are almost never reached.
Personally, for my laptop, I want Intel to use their latest & greatest mobile technology, and then UNDERCLOCK that processor down to 700MHz, buying me more compute time on the road.
That is exactly what happens when you run on batteries, except it underclocks to 600mhz, didn't you know?
Now, imagine it's a few hours later. It's getting dark, and a lot of people are dozing off. You take out your laptop, put on the noise-cancelling headphones, and start playing GTA:VC, Morrowind, or any number of good single-player PC games. If you're really nerdy, you'll hook up to your friend's laptop and (using external mice/trackballs of course) get some UT2003 going. Obviously, there are bad times to play games on a laptop. But there are also a whole lot of good times.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Copied from the forum:
f am.ht m?iid=ipp_browse+chpsts_fe
Subject: ATI Mobility(tm) Radeon(tm) 9200 graphics solution used in select HP notebooks.
Effected models:
Compaq Presario X1000 family
HP pavilion zt3000 family
HP compaq nx7000 family
Statement:
It has come to the attention of HP that there is some confusion regarding the graphics solution in certain HP notebooks that are sold with ATI MOBILITY(tm) RADEON(tm) 9200 graphics.
The effected notebooks, when advertised and sold with MOBILITY RADEON 9200 graphics do correctly include the graphics solution specified.
The particular brand applied to a graphics solution is based on several elements, including the silicon, video memory, electrical implementation on the system board including clock frequencies, the drivers, and the video graphics BIOS. The brand is determined by a number of factors and is not solely limited to the silicon or ASIC used.
In the case of the notebooks in question, HP and ATI designed a solution inclusive of all of the above elements that are branded and sold as MOBILITY RADEON 9200 graphics in the selected notebooks. This solution was created for supply flexibility, and it has been fully tested by HP and certified by ATI to ensure that performance consistency and parity of the MOBILITY RADEON 9200 brand are achieved with these models.
The ATI chip itself contains the MOBILITY RADEON 9000 family designator, which is only one factor in determining the graphics controller brand in a notebook computer.
We apologize for any inconvenience this confusion may have caused.
-----------
Q&A
Q: Doesn't the MOBILITY RADEON 9200 graphics solution include AGP8X? Why isn't this enabled on the Presario X1000?
A: HP never advertised or made any claims the notebook or graphics controller supports AGP 8X. In the case of the Presario X1000, 8X AGP operating mode is not supported due to the feature not being present on the Intel(r) 855pm chipset which is used on the Compaq Presario X1000 notebook PC. Also, AGP 8X mode operation is not a requirement for the MOBILITY RADEON 9200 brand. More information on the Intel 855 Chipset family can be found at:
http://intel.com/design/chipsets/mobile/855_
Q: How does the graphics performance of HP's MOBILITY RADEON 9200 graphics solution compare with other ATI 9200-based graphics solutions?
A: The MOBILITY RADEON 9200 graphics solution provided on the Compaq Presario X1000 provides equivalent features and performance to other notebooks with MOBILITY RADEON 9200 graphics solutions.
Q: Is the practice of using a graphics ASIC physically marked or identified differently than the brand name for the graphics solution commonplace, or is this a unique case?
A: While not extremely common, this practice is not unusual or unique. The graphics ASIC or chip alone does not determine the final brand for the part.
Q: Why is the ATI graphics ASIC marked, "9000", if the solution is branded "9200"?
A: The "ATI MOBILITY(tm) RADEON(tm) 9200" brand comprises a complete graphics solution, including graphics ASIC, video bios, video driver, and system board implementation. The actual label on the chip doesn't in this case communicate specific features to customers.
-------------
WW Escalations Engineering
HP Mobile Computing Global Business Unit
The ENIAC Demo Competition
the part number on the other side of the card identified it as a 3rd party clone using licensed ATI parts/design. Also, it would not accept any of the drivers on ATI's site
...
So some super cheap brand didn't follows ATI's reference design properly. If you don't pay for a real ATI card, don't expect real ATI support. I'm sure the driver disk that came with the card would have had drivers that worked fine. I've come across a similar card myself, and it sucks, but it's what you end up with when you try to cut system costs to the absolute minimum.
Also, my test box at home is a K6-II with an old ATI card in it. Solaris identifies it as a RAGE PRO TURBO. Various implementations of XFree86 and/or lspci have identified it as such:
Geforce2 Pro
Geforce2 Ti
Geforce2 Ultra
Geforce2 GTS
Geforce2 MX
Geforce2 MX200
Geforce2 MX400
(Note I didn't bother listing the DDR/SDR versions)
Don't tell me that XFree86 and lspci all agree and can properly identify these cards everytime. Remember, these cards are only half as old as your ATI, the differences here are still considered somewhat important today. Yes it's a pain that there's a lot of different names for what today we consider to be essentialy the same card. However, back when these were top of the line, the differences were important, and as such needed different names.
In a typical four-cycle you need at least two valves per cylinder (there are designs which do not have this problem; some of them even have "ordinary" cylinders, but there's also the wankel rotary and the tesla turbine which can be an internal combustion engine) so a V8 has at least 16 valves. A V8 with 2 valves per cylinder is generally described as a 16-valve V8, just as a V6 with four valves per cylinder is known as a 24-valve V6; see the back of a late-model Probe GT to see the "24" badging at work.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"