I wish to find out what company makes the best graphics cards. It’s a large topic, so let narrow it down to the best discrete (not integrated) graphics card for laptops. Please provide support for you answer using articles, and if possible, benchmarks. Remember, a powerful card is one that os powerful, fast, and reliable!

In the mobile arena, only one thing is certain- Intel sucks compared to ATI & Nvidia. For standalone desktop cards, ATI currently has the lead with their recently introduced 5000 series cards- the only cards on the market which support DirectX 11. Nvidia will have DX11 support in their next generation of cards, but those aren’t expected until March, at least.

If you eliminate the 5000 series, then ATI simply has better pricing- to get equivalent performance from Nvidia cards you have to spend $25-$40 more. The Radeon 4850 had equivalent performance to the GTS 250 but sold for the same price as Nvidia’s lower-end 9800GT. The Radeon 4870 was comparable to a GTX 260 but sold for the same price as Nvidia’s GTS 250, and so on.

Here is a list of laptop graphics adapters ranked by benchmark performance:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

Broken down by gaming performance:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Computer-Games-on-Laptop-Graphic-Cards.13849.0.html

And overall categories/comparisons:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Graphic-Cards.130.0.html