how bad does dell cripple the 8600gt

i know the have it pretty held back from all the reviews and posts and honestly i didnt get to spend really any time with mine since they got sent back.. can anyone tell me how they compare to other notebooks like asus or compal's 8600gt cards??? thanks

 

It's not crippled, it's about the same for all DDR2 8600GTs, as found in the ASUS C90s, ASUS V1s, Compal IFL90/Sager 2090.

If you are referring to the GDDR3 8600GT, well, it's a differently clocked card(400mhz vs 700mhz).

 

clocking isnt the only difference, GDDR3 has larger memory bandwidth and is more efficient, but still, you always overclock the 8600, i've seen people get from 3000 to 4000 in 3Dmark without much overclocking

 

yup-
got 3010 with lvtg drivers.
:smile:

 

Clocking and bandwith are the same thing, pretty much. (Bandwith = effective memory clock times the bus width, and since all/most 8600M-GT cards have a 128-bit bus, the clock speed and bandwith differences are essentially the same).

And yes, GDDR3 cards are more power/heat efficient, but in terms of performance the clock speed is the only difference.

 

alright alright, your right odin, leame alone its 1am in my end and i'm running on 1% of my brain

 

I score a 3300 with my 8600gt w/o overclocking and thats with vista and no clean install

 

That's at nonstandard resolution though, so it doesn't count.

 

thats on the default settings which everyone uses on 3dmark06 to compare scores

 

Nope, sorry, that's on 1280x800, whereas the default setting is 1280x1024. That makes your score much higher than it should be (since it's rendering fewer pixels).

 

well the highest it offers in the 1280 field is 1280x854 is which i've been running it on. i believe i scored 3000 at my native resolution of 1440x900 though. its been awhile since i did that test though

 

Unless you payed to register it, you can't run it at 1440x900. And you can't run it at 1280x1024 because your LCD doesn't physically support that resolution, so 3dmark06 downsizes the test to the nonstandard 1280x854.

 

3301? Not even at standard resolution.

Here's my DDR2 8600GT @ 1280x1024.

 

Ah ic, well for some reason i did pay for it lol

 

The card is under clocked for the sole fact that the card stays cool in small quarters.

I personally won’t over clock it (even to standard 8600 clock speeds) until there is a decent amount of equal or better replacements available as well. If anyone knows someplace outside of eBay to look for mxm cards, let me know.

My last look on eBay, there was no 8600m's on the market yet that you can easily buy as a replacement.

So if it burns, your SOL or if your lucky a "not as good" card that might fit into the mxm (no clue about 1520 mxm yet). Only thing I see on eBay is 6600 Go's mxm-II.

MD

 

Dell does not use MXM, they use a proprietary format. You should be able to buy the cards directly from Dell. And it's not really "underclocked", it merely uses DDR2 VRAM which has lower stock clocks than GDDR3 VRAM does.

 

Hmm ok I thought it was mxm, but a different form of it. Well I hope dell has upgradeable vid cards in the future... It would be nice to upgrade past the 8600m in a year or so.

As for the stock speeds of the 8600, I was under the impression that the large amount of headroom when over clocking (and still be stable at the cost of heat) was a sign of the cards being under clocked a bit.

But if not, I stand corrected. Thanks for the input.

MD