ASUS F8 news - possible bad news, 8600GS?

Once again if you read my post correctly, I said that I don't care what specifications or tests say. From a MARKETING standpoint, the 8600M GT is a direct competitor with an HD2600 XT.

Don't forget the 8600M GT was the fastest available mobile card for Nvidia for a good three months before they released the 8700M GT.

I realize and completely agree with the performance being better on the HD2600 XT vs. 8600M GT, but in the market they are competing.

The HD2600 XT is available for the 15.4 " chassis, just it is more expensive in stocks of 1000s then the 8600M GT since the 8600M GT has been on the market for longer, so most vendors perferr using the slightly cheaper component, that has been around for a little longer and has had more exposure.

Well I really can't explain the phenomenon of the 8600M card issue. I will tell you though even though I played CoJ at high settings with a good fram rate (about 15-18 fps), I could barely even get Lost PLanet to run correctly.

It all depends on your configuration. I have the Asus F3sv with the 8600M gs. Another forum member, Andy15, was able to play Lost Planet at high settings with a good frame rate, and he has the same notebook as me.

The cards will be capable of playing DX10 games, when they are properly coded, and good drivers have finally been released for them. All I am saying is it is too early to judge based on demos and poorly coded games, that arent taking full advantage of Shader Model 4.0, and the SPs.

 

The HD2600XT is available in 15.4" notebooks? I didn't realize that. Which notebooks is it avaiable in? As far as I am aware, from a marketing standpoint it's a direct competitor to the 8700M-GT, as the fastest 128-bit DX10 card, which is available only in large notebooks (17" +).

 

The HD2600XT is actually pointed to the 8600M GT... The only reason i can think about the XT won't be able to fit into a 15.4 might be due to heat problems.

 

Exactly, which is the same reason why the 8700M-GT doesn't go in a 15.4" machine. Hence the similarity between the two.

 

8700 couldn't fit into a 15.4" is becoz it is based off MXM3... MXM3 is too big for 15.4"

 

And it's based off of MXM-III because the heat and power of the 8700M-GT requires it.

 

I thought the 8700M was based on MXM2. Whatever, yah I know for a fact that the 2600XT is meant for 15.4" notebooks. Currently there are non avaiable with it, but you have to realize that is has only had a very limited market exposure compared to the 8600m gt. Soon enough you will see it being released on 15.4" notebooks. I know Asus and Sager are planning to release 15.4" with the 2600XT.

The 2600XT actually cools very well from what I have read. It runs smoothly and without too much heat. Ofcourse it is still a big performer right now, so comparing it in power savings and heat to the 8600M gt or gs is pointless, since it would lose.

From what I am seeing, specs seem to indicate that it is configured pretty much the same as the 8600m gt in terms of stream processors, memory bus, and clock speeds. I have no idea why it could be performing so much better.

 

How, pray tell?

Except for the fact that it has 120 stream processors (because of ATI's different architecture and how they count them) versus the 8600GT's 32, that it's built on a 65nm chip instead of an 80nm process. Also, where are you getting clock speeds for the HD2600XT from? As far as I was aware, official ones haven't been released, and it hasn't been seen on enough post-production units yet to make any kind of a generalization.

 

The fact that the HD2600 Xt is based on the MXM2 module is how I can tell you it is meant for performance 15.4 " Notebooks.

For the second part.

8600M GT
Clocks 475 core, 700 memory
32 listed stream processors

HD 2600XT

Clocks 600 core, 700 memory
120 listed stream processors

ATI is counting lower level processors as well. If nVidia counted all the same things as ATI they would probably get the same count of stream processors. ATI is couting dedicated branch execution units and texture processing units with their whatever odd number of dynamic units for vertex, geomtery and pixels.

Using the counted processors ATI's mobility HD 2600 should be at close to the same perfromance as the Nvidia's 8800 desktop graphics chip.

The fact that the HD2600 XT is built on the 65 nm fab proc, indicates it should consume less power and out put better performance becuase of a higher count of transistors. There as been no word on the transistor count in the 8000 series GPU, but it is probably around 310-350 million. There can be no way to tell until we see the HD2600 XT at work, so it can be judged.

Until we see full tests we will not be sure of the performance differences, but I still personally think that the hd2600XT is pretty much the direct competitor of the 8700M gt as well as you guys.

 

HD 2600XT has lower stream clocks than 8600, thou the 2600 has more stream processors. Think of the 8600 as a core2duo and the 2600xt as a low end quadcore. Unless the game takes advantage of spreadin the processors, we won't see the 2600XT reach the power of a 8800 (but another fact is that the 8800 has 96 streams and high stream clock, the high end quadcores).

 

You also have to remember that most mobile 8600GT have DDR2 800 rather than GDDR3 at 1400.

I also remembered reading on ati's website that the mobile HD 2600XT's core was based on the desktop 2900.

I just hope we see some benchmarks soon.

I saw a benchmarks of the Mobility HD2600 (non XT) and in 3dmark it scores about 1000, same as the DDR2 8600MGT, the mobility X1600 and the Go 7600

 

Where are you getting this information from? Also, in general, ATI cards aren't "based" on an MXM type, although a 3rd party manufacturer (e.g., Asus) may produce an ATI chip on an MXM-II base.

 

You know, you can always check desktop HD2600 reviews, as they have been out for a while.

The performance of desktop HD2600s are rather disappointing, IMO. Now, notebook X1600 (which also was disappointing) did fare much better against 7600 than their desktop counterpart. However, notebook 8600s are not as underclocked as 7600s were, compared to desktop counterparts.

AFIAK, Desktop HD2600XT is a fairly even match for Desktop 8600GT, more often loose than win. Considering clock speeds of notebook 8600GT is lower than desktop ones, I'd say GDDR3 HD2600XT would be better than GDDR3 8600GT by a slim margin, but loose to GDDR3 8700GT.

HD2600 is basically a slower HD2600Xt without no major changes aside from clock speed. So, I think it is fair to say it would compete with 8600GS/8400GT.

 

Well, we already know that the MR HD2600XT will most likely out perform the 8600M-GT, and probably even perform similarly to, or better than, an 8700M-GT. Since the HD2600 is simply a downclocked HD2600XT, it doesn't make sense to say it will go all the way down to the performance of an 8600M-GS, since the low performance of that card is due to the small number of stream processors. If an HD2600XT performs similarly to an 8700M-GT, and then you downclock it, you should get something similar to a downclocked 8700M-GT, which is called the 8600M-GT.

 

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2151671,00.asp

As you can see, 800/1100(!) HD2600 is trailing behind 540/700 8600GT in this desktop benchmark. HD2600 needs huge clock speed advantage to even compete with 8600GT. I would not recommend having too high of hope on HD2600 series. Plus, I read that Toshiba Satellite with HD2600 (non XT) scored 4.7 in Vista index (of 3D gaming part). Not exactly promising.

 

Guys, it's not really helpful to use the desktop comparisons to predict what the mobile comparisons will be. nVidia and ATI often optimize their cards for mobile use in very different ways, not to mention the fact that we don't even know what desktop chips ATI is using for their mobile lineup.

 

Agreed. ATI has even said that the HD2600 mobility isn't even based on the desktop HD2600, but instead the HD2900.

 

WEI (Windows Experience Index) is the most useless 'benchmark' ever devised. The Intel GMA X3100 scores higher than the 8400M, so that should tell you something.

I still need to see benches of the regular HD2600, the XT version in the HP HDX Dragon is likely clocked much higher than the normal HD2600XT in actual notebooks, and the HD2600 is going to be less than that.

 

I know, but WEI is all I could find. Besides, maybe HD2600 on Satellite uses 64bit bus, as ATI specification allows HD2600/2600XT to use 64 bit bus. Too bad 64 bit bus is going strong now, I thought they were to go the way of Dodo long ago. Well anyway, I guess we will see about their performances eventually.

 

If the M2600XT is based on the HD2900 it should pretty good. If it has a 128bit bus and GDDR3 it will be really good since most 8600M seems to come with DDR2 -_-

WEI is not really good, my GF6600 128MB scores higher than the DDR2 8600M.... So I doubt it...

 

This is all extremely questionable. Unless we see actual benchmarks of real gaming perfromance, this is going to be back and forth.

I have to agree with Odin on one thing. You cannot compare a dekstop chip to a mobile chip. Mobile chips are optimized for power savings and and efficiency as opposed to perfromance. They always consider heating and power consumption before all else. So it is pointless to look at desktop counterparts.

Secondly trying to compare ATI chips with nVidia chips is a little misleading, since they are both based on different architectures and methods of processing. Overall, the performance gap is probably minimal, but I will say this much. I am absolutley sure that ATI is trying to compete with the 8600M chips with the HD2600, since the 8600M has been out for longer and has seen overall good reviews.

Which GPU variant compares to which is also completely dependent on configurations made by redistributors.

 

Hmm.... Just saw an Asus ad in PCWorld magazine. It states that F8S has GT not GS. I suppose I can scan the page if anyone is interested. Again, this can be a mistake.

 

Yeah, we've seen that. It's on the "What Asus Model is this?" thread (that was the first thread to have hard details on the F8 series) if I'm not mistaken. The issue was that after that ad came out, Asus officially announced that the two versions would be the 8600M-GS and the HD2600. However, since then several resellers have confirmed that while the global version may have the GS, the North American version will almost certainly have the GT.

 

It also gives the rest of the specs and the price, but MilestonePC was saying a couple of days back that there were no Asus confirmed specs, price or ETA. I wonder what that ad is for then...

 

Well, there clearly were specs released at one point, probably pre-production specs leaked that spawned the magazine ad, the excaliber preorder site, and such. However I doubt Asus is willing to openly confirm them a month and a half before release, especially since the special north american version might not even have finished preproduction yet.

 

it's delayed as usual.
Asus emailed me back saying to expect the V2 within 2 to 3 weeks. so the F8 would be pushed back no doubt.

 

Whats the email address you are emailing them at? I think I will send them one about the F8....

 

[email protected]

Dear my name,

I'm sorry i don't have detailed information for Asus and group buy promotions, but the V2S should be available in 2-3 weeks.

-ASUS notebook team

 

I just want to know if the F8 will even be available this month...

 

Forget this month, I want to know if it will be there by October.... Somehow, I am starting to doubt it...

 

Hm, that's end of august. I wonder if it'll be in retail by september...

Btw, I don't see V2s on the UK asus website, altough V1s is already there. Could this mean that V2 isn't coming to all the countries, but only to some?

 

Very very unlikely.

 

incase someone hasnt posted this yet

F8sv-A1
http://pacificnotebooks.com/index.php?brand=1&page=3

it's 5 down the list