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    Can I make 8600M GT w/ 128MB SDRAM SDRAM comparable to 256MB SDRAM?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by pacers721, Jul 7, 2007.

  1. pacers721

    pacers721 Notebook Enthusiast

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    I'm going to buy a macbook pro, and I think it makes more sense for me to purchase the $1999 model rather than the $2499 model. The only problem is that I would like to play games, and I know the having 256MB video card memory is better than 128MB. I wanted to know if there was a way that I could make the 8600M GT w/ 128MB comparable to the same card w/256MB.
     
    pacers721, Jul 7, 2007
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  2. joshuaLX

    joshuaLX Notebook Evangelist

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    No, there really isn't any way for you to make it comparable to the 256mb. If there was then the 256mb card would be pointless.

    Also, you can get an education discount from Apple if you are in school. That will get $200 of the MBP.

    Hope this helps,

    Josh
     
    joshuaLX, Jul 7, 2007
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  3. wave

    wave Notebook Virtuoso

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    There are some benchmarks in the Asus forum that showed that the 256MB 8600M GS and 8600M GT card shows nice imporvemnt when you use 3GB or system ram. The turbo cache (using system ram for video ram) looks to work pretty well for this generation cards. So if you use Windows (Turbo cache doesnt work in OSX) maybe upgrading to 3GB of ram will help.

    I will do this with my macbook pro but not so much for gameing but for virtual machines.
     
    wave, Jul 7, 2007
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  4. mr.pibb

    mr.pibb Notebook Geek

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    On the contrary, you CAN bump up the clock rates of a 128 MB 8600 to those comparable of the 256 MB 8600 and get simular performance. Do a Google search for NTune from NVidia. It works fantastic for bumping up clock rates. Don't start high, just start low and slowly work your way up.

    However, I wouldn't even bother doing so as the two cards are close in performance anyways. Don't be concerned by benchmarks and such... real world gaming tests are the only tests that matter. If an nVidia GeForce Go 7200 can play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. at Medium (I've seen it), I wouldn't be too worried about a 128 MB 8600.

    As for playing DirectX 10 games on high details - forget about it with either 128 MB or 256 MB, you'll need at least 512 or 786 MB. Regard-less, the games will still look stunning even on lower details/resolution with a 128/256 MB card, and all your DirectX 9 games will run on fairly high details/resolution without a hitch.
     
    mr.pibb, Jul 7, 2007
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