ATI Radeon 9200 vs. 9600

Hello again,

Quick follow-up to this thread:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?p=384284#post384284

I've contacted HP about the four hardware failures in 5 months and they're sending me a new replacement laptop with "as good or better" specs.

One thing I'm worried about. I customized my laptop and paid extra for the 64MB Radeon 9600. I notice they only offer a 64 MB Radeon 9200 or a 128 MB Radeon 9600 on the customized units now. I'm assuming they'll bump me to the 128 MB and (again assuming) the 9200 isn't as good as the 9600. Correct?

I hope I'm worrying over nothing but I don't want to get stuck with the 9200 if it's not as good. And I'm pretty sure it's not but want to double check with you guys to be sure. I looked at the ATI site and really couldn't find anything that set the 2 apart so I'm looking forward to hearing from people who know about these two cards.

Thanks!

 

I would definetly say the 9600 is faster even with only 64MB of memory, compared with the 9200 with 128MB. Memory isn't everything when it comes to video cards (not saying useless!) it's the GPU that really does it. If you paid for a Radeon 9600 you should have a Radeon 9600. If they can't deliver the 64MB card they should give you the 128MB for free. It's not your fault they don't stock your card anymore!


Remember, a huge company like HP *can* afford to give you this after such inconvenience. Be tough, and be hard about it, but never raise your voice. That's the key to getting what you want.

Good luck,
/Pht

 

Thanks a bunch! This whole thing has been such a pain but I must say HP's really been great about standing behind their product. I've not had any problems with any of the customer service reps, supervisor or quality managers giving me a rough time about getting this laptop replaced. (Now if I could just get the laptop to be so reliable!)

It seems obvious to me that there's something going wrong under the hood and I shouldn't be stuck with it. But you never know what a company's actually going to do. So I can't help but feel relieved that I didn't have to get ugly to get action.

I'm sure I'm worrying over nothing about this card. But I wanted to have this info in case the new one shows up with the 9200 instead of a 9600. They didn't give me any details on what the new specs will be so that makes me kind of nervous!

I do appreciate your help!

 

Yeah, but yelling is more therapudic and gets things done faster...most of the time, and remember, if all else fails, mention legal action... ^_^

 

Just a quick update. I talked to HP's Quality Manager a week ago today and the replacement laptop arrived first thing this morning.

Here are the laptop specs from the ZX5000 that was giving me all the trouble:

Pentium 4 2.4 GHz
40GB Hard Drive
15.0" XGA
256 MB (I upgraded it to 512 MB)
4X DVD+RW/R & CDRW Combo Drive
ATI Mobilitiy Radeon 9600 with 64MB dedicated


The replacement they sent me is a ZX5280:

Pentium 4 3.2 GHz
80GB Hard Drive
15.4" WXGA
1024 MB RAM
4x DVD+RW/R & CDRW Combo Drive
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 with 124MB dedicated
USB Digital Bay and Digital Drive


I feel like HP really hooked me up with this replacement. (Totally shocked they sent me so much RAM and twice as much drive space!)

I hate it I had problems with the laptop but at least HP stands behind their product. They did in my case anyway and I didn't have to get ugly once.

Just wanted to let everyone know how it all turned out. Thanks for everyone's help through this. Never had a serious computer problem so I appreciate all the guidance!

 

I'm glad that everything worked out okay with you, that's awesome. That new system you got is great. Hopefully this one is reliable and that you don't have any problems with it because it's a really nice system

 

Well maybe even HP realizes it's better to give away a little in order to keep customers, that's great! Happy for you, you really got a great deal there. I'm actually a retailer for HP so I can tell you - you got a so much better replacement computer!

Happy gaming!