Acer 5920G

I have my eye on the Acer 5920. It has my ideal specs for gaming, though it has the Nvidia 8600 GS graphics card and turbocache. Are there any versions of this laptop around at present which have the 8600 GT as i heard that the GT model is better than the GS and with out turbocache?

 

Yes! 8600M GT is better than GS. My Model is 5920G-302G16N .Where're you from?

 

I'm from the United Kingdom. The version i have my eye on has 250GB HDD but i want this model with the 8600 GT graphics card.

 

There is a model which has 250GB HD and a 8600GT with 512MB. I'm not sure whether its released in the U.S. but we do have it here in Holland. Its the Aspire 5920G-602.

 

I found one with the GT model in the UK!

But the details suggest that the video card uses 786MB of system memory as well as having 256MB dedicated. How does that work?

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-1419.aspx

Great price i think!

 

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but the 8600M GT uses 'Turbocache'. Which means, it has 256mb of dedicated memory. But Turbocache allows it to access your system Ram, so if you have 2gb of Ram, it can access up to 768mb of system Ram, in addition to the 256mb of dedicated. So if the notebook has 2gb of system Ram, the 8600M GT has 256mb of dedicated memory, but can turbocache an ADDITIONAL 768mb, which means it would have a potential total of 1024mb of memory.

But don't expect it to perform as well as a card with 768mb or 1024mb of dedicated memory, Turbocache probably helps in demanding situations, but its not like having 768 or 1024mb of dedicated memory. Not even close. The speed of the card matters more than the extra memory at this point, the Acer I believe uses the slower speed 8600M GT, so the turbocache doesn't make your gaming experience above and beyond what it otherwise would be...just helps it out a bit I believe.

I don't have actual experience with this, just what I have read and researched...seems to be solid info. Maybe someone can chime in and confirm it.

Also, if your notebook has an 8600M GT and only 1gb of system Ram, the 'Turbocache' can only access up to an additional 128mb of system Ram, added to the 256mb of dedicated, means total of 384mb of memory.

Hope I've helped, and hopefully I haven't supplied you with bad info...someone should chime in and confirm what I've said. From what I've read the 8600M GT is by no means a bad card, even the slower version. I guess it depends on what you expect and can afford.

-Krait

 

I believe this is correct, there was a screen shot somewhere here of the 8600GT card showing this information.

But will the 8600 256MB graphics card enable me to have the graphics on the sims 2 on full settings every time i play? My last laptop had shared graphics memory and the graphics didn't look great.

It was until after i put the graphics on full settings that one time on my old laptop which made me want to upgrade because my last laptop couldn't handle the sims 2 on full settings.

I've also heard that you can turn turbocache off? Is this possible?