Laptop vs Desktop

[chinagreenelvis]

I have a desktop from 2005. P4, 3.0 GHZ, 2 GB of RAM, 6800GT Video card. 400 Mhz FSB, DDR 400. Windows XP Pro.

My girlfriend has a laptop from 2007:

AMD Turion TL-58 processor 1.90 Ghz | 1600 MHz | 1 MB L2 cache Chipset RS690T
ATI Radeon® X1270 Up to 256 MB of HyperMemory™
2048 MB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2 × 1024)
250 GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive
Windows Vista Home

Her system specs should blow mine out of the water, right? So why do games (Left 4 Dead in particular) run so much slower on her computer than they do on mine?

 

[jsrudd]

You're desktop specs look better. Your graphics card is better and the CPU is probably better for non-multi thread games.

 

[lilotimz]

Your p4 is better than that turion (i think its that old AMD budget line isnt it?)
While the 6800gt is better than the integrated Radeon...

One big thing is that she has windows vista and you have XP, so thats another big thing for oyu...

 

[warmon6]

I have a desktop from 2005. P4, 3.0 GHZ, 2 GB of RAM, 6800GT Video card. 400 Mhz FSB, DDR 400. Windows XP Pro.

My girlfriend has a laptop from 2007:

AMD Turion TL-58 processor 1.90 Ghz | 1600 MHz | 1 MB L2 cache Chipset RS690T
ATI Radeon® X1270 Up to 256 MB of HyperMemory™
2048 MB 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM (2 × 1024)
250 GB 5400 RPM SATA hard drive
Windows Vista Home

Her system specs should blow mine out of the water, right? So why do games (Left 4 Dead in particular) run so much slower on her computer than they do on mine?

In theroy, it should. Although there several things that can make a 4 year old desktop better the a 2 year old laptop.

HDD: HDD's in laptop most of the time are slower than Desktop HDD. Desktop on average are 7200 rmp drives while most laptops are 5400 rmp drives.

Graphics chip: The laptop has integrated graphics (IGP). Which is not really meant to play graphic intensives games like "left for dead". The desktop on the other hand has a dedicated gpu that is meant to handle games.

Cpu: This may not be an issue for Left 4 dead, although the specification i'm finding is that it needs a 3 GHz single core cpu or a 2 ghz dual core cpu to play effective, which your laptop is 1.9 GHz. (although it is minor difference so i dont think this would case that much trouble.


Out of the 3 options, i would have to say that the IGP is the cause of the problems.

 

[warmon6]

Your p4 is better than that turion

According to some people on here (mainly the veterans+) Say the althon 64 (dektop cpus before the turon) had a better instruction set that aloud it to do the same amount of work that that a higher GHz p4 could do. I think it was like 2.6 GHz Althon 64 matched a P4 3.8GHz cpu's or somthing along that nature.

Scene this cpu after the athlon 64's, it probably has the same (if not better) instruction set to outdo the p4. So i dont think the cpu underpowered for the job.

 

[jivdis1x]

The Turion TL-58 is the mid grade mobile cpu. Sempron is the lowest one. The game performance difference is in the gpu setup. The Vram in the laptop is shared with system RAM. The laptop is using DDR2 sodimm which also not as fast as desktop ddr2 ram. Your 6800gt is using ddr3 vram.

 

[chinagreenelvis]

Do you guys think that we would see a significant improvement upon installing Windows XP instead?

 

[cjl]

Not really. The desktop should be faster in games. A 6800GT is a gaming card, even if it is several gens old, while an X1270 is a low end card. I'd be pretty surprised if an X1270 could keep up with the 6800. As for the CPUs, they should be pretty similar.

 

[threednonsense]

Are you people serious?!

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Radeon-Xpress-X1200.3775.0.html

That's all I have to say.

 

[shubham1401]

Your Gfx card is much much better than that Laptop's IGP .
Her laptop is limited by the Gfx card's performance.

A chain is as strong as its weakest link.
So her laptop is weak gaming wise.

 

[jitpublisher]

When it comes to gaming, you have to buy a very high end laptop to be on par with even a moderate, lowend gaming desktop. Laptops are built for running applications on the fly, and saving power, not running games.
Even so-called expensive "gaming laptops" are poor performers compared to a midrange budget desktop build.