What's in your computer?

When your graphics comes built in.
Integrated Graphics Cards
SiS Integrated
Intel GMA900 [Graphics Media Accelerator]
Intel GMA950
ATI Mobility Radeon 9000/9100 IGP
ATI Radeon Xpress 200M

Pros/Advantages of integrated GPU's:
Very light on power.
Reduce the overall cost of the notebook signifigantly.
Fine for web browsing, Office applications, watching videos/DVDs, and other basic tasks.

Cons:
Integrated graphics cards are for basic purposes.
Not what you want to have if you plan on doing 3D-related activities. (horrible for 3d gaming)

Intel GMA900 is the most common and is frequently found in lower-end mainstream notebooks.
Currently being replaced by the Intel GMA950, which is not that much faster (still useless for 3D) in newer notebooks. The GMA900/950 is only found in Intel processor based notebooks.

ATI Radeon Xpress 200M, avaliable in two versions - one with shared memory and one with dedicated
The ATI X200M is the best integrated graphics card in terms of performance today, much faster than the Intel GMA900/950. It is mainly found in AMD-based notebooks, although it is starting to make its way into the Intel-based notebooks as well. For comparison purposes, the dedicated X200M is about 2/3 as fast as a standard Mobility Radeon X300. The X200M is actually capable of some light 3D, but remember that it is integrated, and you will be very limited when it comes to games - do not buy it if you want to play games.

SiS chip - that card is by far the worst graphics card in notebooks today.



 Low-end Graphics Cards 
ATI X300 = nVidia 6200 & 6400
ATI X1300 = nVidia 7300

These cards are fine for multimedia purposes, plus light 3D, but don't expect to play the latest games at anything but lower settings. That is not what they are designed for anyway. If you are a gamer, these cards are not for you. These cards can be found in any number of notebook sizes.

The X1300/Go7300, are the replacements for the older X300/6200.

 Mainstream/Mid-end Graphics Cards
nVidia GeForce FX Go 5700:
ATI Mobility Radeon 9600 (9550) (Pro) (Turbo)
ATI Mobility Radeon 9700:
ATI X600 = nVidia 6400
ATI X1400 = nVidia 7400

A clear step up in performance from the low-end cards, these cards are good enough to play the latest games at medium settings and resolutions give or take, but do not expect blazing performance. These cards are fine for the occasional gamer, but if the prime intent of your notebook is to game, you won't get spectacular performance out of these.

Mid-end cards do not produce a large amount of heat, and therefore, can be found in smaller notebooks around 13.3-14" (such as the Sony VAIO SZ and ThinkPad T60). However, they would be more common in a larger 15.4" notebooks.

The X1400/Go7400 are the replacements for the X600/6400.

 Performance Graphics Cards
ATI X700 = nVidia 6600
ATI Mobility Radeon 9800
ATI X1600 = nVidia 7600

Designed for 3D gaming on a mobile level; you don't have to get a huge desktop replacement in order to have one of these cards.
Do not produce a huge amount of heat, but don't exactly run cool.
Battery life is balanced. A notebook equipped with one of these cards will see noticeably lower battery life when compared to one that has integrated graphics.

Performance-class cards are great for gamers wanting fast 3D performance in a mobile form factor. These cards are capable of playing the latest games with no problems, at close to or maximum settings and a balanced resolution. Typically, expect to see performance cards in a 15-15.4" screen size notebook.

The new GeForce Go7600 is replacing the current generation Go6600, and ATI also has the X1600 as a replacement for the current X700.

High-end/Desktop Replacement Graphics Cards
ATI X800 = nVidia 6800
ATI X800XT = nVidia 6800 Ultra
ATI X1800 = nVidia 7800
ATI X1800XT = nVidia 7800GTX

Not found in many notebooks, the high-end cards are at the top of their game, easily playing the latest games at maximum settings.

Cons:
A large amount of heat and considerable power consumption all add up to a notebook that requires a large cooling solution, which in turn leads to a bigger and heavier notebook.



Graphic Card Terms
HYPERMEMORY AND TURBOCACHE

"With the advent of PCI Express, ATI and nVidia have developed technologies that allow the use of system memory as a buffer for graphics data, basically extending the memory of the dedicated GPU itself into system memory. The nice thing is that this can offer a healthy and very inexpensive performance boost for chips that would otherwise be painfully crippled.

The problem is that system memory is almost always slower than dedicated GPU memory, so it's no substitute for having dedicated memory.

Worse still, low-end parts that use this technology are frequently marketed in a misleading fashion. For example, newer Sony S-series notebooks use GeForce Go 6200s that list as having 128MB of video memory when in fact they only have 32; that 96 is shared. Likewise, there's been a lot of confusion regarding the amount of actual memory on the ATI X300s used in Dell notebooks.

It's my understanding that the major culprits of this are the GeForce Go 6200, 6400, and the X300. But while the X300 may be marketed as having HyperMemory, the GeForce Go parts tend to gloss over their use of TurboCache.

One great thing about HyperMemory over TurboCache is that it's almost entirely software, so most ATI cards, with some tweaking, can use it, though the performance improvement is largely minor."