Is paying $80+ more for the Geforce Go 7300 worth de $$?

Not really sure whether tis is the rite place to be asking.

Choosing a new laptop as i'm going need it for my new school.

Do u think it's worth to pay appox $80+ more for the Geforce Go 7300 over the onboard Intel GMA 950?

I'm not going to game on this laptop but i certainly am going to watch many dvds as well as do some photoshop on it.

I heard the Geforce Go 7300 only consumes a lil bit more power over the 950. If so, i dun mind getting it at all.

Is the 950 really a hopeless?

the results i found thru googling are the same:

"for *** sake, jus get anything but the stock intel gpu''

nice fma avatar.

anyway.. maybe the price is wrong. if it's $50+ still worth?

Thanks I luv FMA. Too bad about the ending though

Fullmetal Alchemist an anime series about 2 brothers. Would recommend it to anyone, even people who normally don't go for anime.

Sorry for the hijacking. As I said if it dosen't dent your pocket go for it.

I like the way u put it. in fact thats what i was thinking. but i was worried abt the batt run time... will the 7300 greatly reduce the laptop's run compared to the stock gma950?

These GPUs have low power needs when compared to their older brothers in the same series. the desktop version of the 7300 comes without a fan in most cases.

I would guess that there is a higher power draw than the built in graphics but not too great. It all depends on your usage. If you are not playing too many 3d games it shouldn't really effect you.

I'm also in the same boat, but with the 7600 or so geforce go. It's hard to find in a 15.4" screen, though. I would recommend a card over the intel built in for overall system performance.

Lets say that you use 128 MBs of system memory for the built in intel graphics. That one gig of system memory is down to 896 MBs (and using 256 would lower usable system memory to 768 MBs). Assuming a gig of system memory is a $100 part, freeing up 128 MBs would be like a $12.50 upgrade. Freeing up 256 MBs would be like a $25 upgrade. The 7300 comes with either 128 or 256 built in memory.

Add to that there will be less for the actual processor to do. If the processor has to do everything it normally does, plus run all the graphics stuff, it will obviously be slower (though I haven't found numbers for it). It's almost like getting the next best processor.....

Like was mentioned before, it won't make your DVD watching any better or smoother, nor will it do much for photoshop, but games will definately be better.

Also, will totally help the resale value of the computer should you ever try and sell it....think of it as getting a car with a V6 rather than a I4 motor.

IF you are ever going to run games - get the Nvidia option. The Intel will not even run most games.

I would get the card just in case.

If you decide you want to play games in the future, you are SOL with the built in graphics.

But as others have pointed out it will run cooler and longer w/ the built in graphics.

If i were you and were watching movies i'd buy the 7300go and then get Intel's PureVideo playback thingie it's really rather good! Much better quality than you'll get out of the 950.

I am having trouble finding a comparison in power consumption, but I have found where this question has been asked on other forums and the answer that other are giving is that the 7300 will give you about 10-20 minutes less.

thanks for the feedback.. but could u comment on the batt life? does the 7300, or for ur case the 7400 greatly decrease the batt life as compared to the inte gma 950?

the purevideo thingy is software enabled ya?

what? the pure video thing is a seperate purchase and does not come with the card?

Purevideo is Nvidia's video enhancement software.

It does things like smooth video, deinterlace and some color correction/blending. As far as i know Nvidia made Purevideo FREE. The only time its not is some kind of audio decoding(5.1 ect) version that you pay for.

As for power consumption, Nvidia should have what they call "powermizer"(or similar) to allow the video card to clock down to save power. This will help the battery runtime.

I say go for it.

@ rdhood
where do you play et?