The Radeon Xpress X1200 (RS600M or RS690M) is an onboard graphics card for notebooks / laptops and according to AMD optimized for a good price/value. It is based on a X700 design but with less pixel- and vertex-pipelines.
The exact core clock is not clear as it varies from 350 MHz (according to Wikipedia) to 500 MHz (some GPU-Z versions). The different RS600 and RS690 (Xpress X1200, X1250, and X1270) offer the same graphics core, but may have a different core clock. Still the performance should be compareable.
ATI Radeon Xpress X1200 is hardly apt for gamers. Only old games like Quake 3 Arena can be played in 1024x768 with high/medium details fluently. Even Warcraft 3 runs fluently with minimum details. Current, damanding games like FEAR, Doom3 and Quake 4 can hardly be played (e.g. 2 frames per second in battle scenes in Quake 4). Some strategy games like Age of Empires 3 can only be played with minimal details (20-25 fps, tested with a FSC Amilo Pa 2510).
The graphic chip supports Windows Vista Aero surface and all 3D effects run fluently. Due to HyperMemory Aero is supported with high resolutions (tested with 1280x800 + 1920x1200).
Technically the chip has 4 pixel-pipelines and either a texture unit (with 2 vertex shaders) or no vertex shaders (each source tells a different story).
The current consumption of the desktop version lies around 13.8 Watt (TDP) and 8 Watt average. The mobile versions could be more economic as they offer Powerplay support.
The Nvidia Quadro NVS 150M is a business graphics adapater for notebooks. It is based on the GeForce 9300M GS consumer graphics card but features special drivers which are optimized for business applications. A short list of the applications which are certified for the NVS line can be found here (including MS Office, Exceed, Notes, McAffee, pcAnywhere, Bloomberg, Reuters, Tradestation).
The gaming performance should be similar to the GeForce 9300M GS and therefore only suited for less demanding games with low details. Still the business drivers are not optimized for games and may therefore show a worse performance (or some bugs). The memory is clocked either with 700 MHz (DDR3) or 400 MHz (DDR2) which is noticable slower.
Compared to the Quadro NVS 150M, the 160M features a higher clock speed and supports higher resolutions up to 1920x1200 (digital) or 2048x1536 (analog).
As the 9300M GS, the Quadro NVS 160M also supports PureVideo HD to decode HD videos with the graphics chip (and save current).
Average Benchmarks ATI Radeon Xpress X1200 → 100%n=4
Average Benchmarks NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M → 504%n=4
- Range of benchmark values for this graphics card - Average benchmark values for this graphics card * Smaller numbers mean a higher performance 1 This benchmark is not used for the average calculation
Game Benchmarks
The following benchmarks stem from our benchmarks of review laptops. The performance depends on the used graphics memory, clock rate, processor, system settings, drivers, and operating systems. So the results don't have to be representative for all laptops with this GPU. For detailed information on the benchmark results, click on the fps number.