7950m GTX or 9600m GT?

My friend has a laptop with a 7950m GTX and wants to upgrade to a laptop with identical specs except it has 9600m GT and 500Gb hard drive.

Will he see a performance increase?

Also, he is looking at a lappy with an 8800m but is unwilling to part with $400 extra cash.... is it worth upgrading to the 8800m gt or just stick to the 9600m gt?

 

A 9600M is not an upgrade, if anything, it's a slight step backwards.

An 8800m GTX is however, a huge jump past both cards.

 

A 9600m gt is far superior in newer games. At high resolution, both cards suck. The 7950m has 256bit memory, while the 9600m gt only has 128bit. BUT, the 9600m gt has 32 shaders with a newer/advance core compared to the 24 shaders and outdated core of the 7950m.

I know 3dmark06 is not the best benchmark, but the 9600m gt easily with DDR3 gets 7K+ with OC.

8800m gtx will be worth the extra cash.

 

7950 GTX is not a bad GPU, the 9600 GT is a downgrade because of the 128 bit bus.

I had a DDR2 9600 GT with a T9600 (2.8 ghz) in my old HP, and got 4100 in 3dmark06. It overclocked well, and got up to ~5600 marks, but it's not designed for higher than 1280 x 800.

 

They both have 32 shaders.

The 9600 has 32 unified shaders.

The 7950 has 24 fixed/texture-only pipelines, and 8 fixed vertex-only pipelines (32 total)

The 9600m has more shader power, while the 7950 has around double the fill rate and memory bandwidth/ROPS.

 

thanks for pointing that out.

What's the max 3dmark06 a 7950m can get? I still say a 9600m gt is better then a 7950m gtx.

 

***double post -_- ***

 

9600mGT is a downgrade, I know 7950GTX gets over 5000, roughly 6000, @1280x1024.

 

My 9600M GT GDDR3 gets about 5200 on 3DMark06 @ 1280x1024

 

then how can you say it's a downgrade. Pretty much everyone in the msi forums with a 9600m gt ddr3 gets over 6k with any sort of OC, even mild ones. Most get 7k+.

Of course it's not suited for high resolution, but even a 7950m gtx will suck with new games at high resolutions.

hell, there's this one guy who overclocked to 780mhz core with an overvolt and is getting over 7300-7400.

 

IMO, it's not really fair to compare one card at factory settings and the other overclocked.

FYI, running a game at high resolutions demands 2 things most of all: fill-rate and memory bandwidth. Guess which card wins that contest...


http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=596&card2=465

 

yea lets not use 3dmark then, and the link stated above showing whats important is correct. Memory bandwidth and texture fills and such are more important than shaders in most games.

Im not sure what resolutions you say these tests are taken at in the "MSI" forums, but they are not at 1280x1024, or they have Extreme CPU's or they are overclocked, normal CPUs.

My 8800m GTS couple with a T5550, which isnt strong, got 7000 @1440x900, and the 7950GTX being couple with a very old and outdated Core2, will not benefit from the CPU score either, so 3dmark is again useless.

 

They are in fact 1280 x 1024, and yes most of them are using good cpus.
Here are some examples.

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/8469/benchmarkkn6.jpg
http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=37418&d=1250462295

Either way, the 9600m gt nor the 7950 is suitable for high resolution gaming with eye-candy on.

 

Heres a thread from awhile back that compared the 7950 and the 8700m gt which I think was used as the basis for the 9600m gt. At the time there was alot of buzz about dx10 so some were biased towards the 8700, but imho dx10 never really panned out and when it is used it requires more power than a 128-bit card can push with the exception of the 4770 that uses gddr5.

Anyway it might give you some answers if you read through it all, 19 pages I didn't really have the motivation to read it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=137521&highlight=7950+gtx

And here are impartial 9600gt benchmarks by Chaz so I think it would be beneficial for him to run the same games and compare his results.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=286033

In response to the original question I think he should either stick with the 7950gtx or save the money and get a 8800 or 9800 or 260-280 because if the 9600gt is better it will only be marginally better and not worth dropping another $1000 for a whole new laptop for.

 

My point exactly, those CPU scores in your links provide a third of the 7000 that card is getting. I know jumping from a T5550 to an X7800 it boosted my score by 2500 points.

I agree neither card is fit for high resolution gaming, in any game that favors shading will be better on the 9600m GT, but other than that it is still a downgrade by far, and I would not upgrade if you wernt going to go to the next high-end.

ps got another 7950GTX vs 8700m GT, this one was mine

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=171671&highlight=7950GTX+vs

 

Note, many of the new games use the newer shaders of the 9600 much better than those of the 7950GTX.
People are seriously underestimating the value of the newer architecture...
256-bit RAM interface is nice and all, but the 8700m GT very clearly was beating the 7950GTX at 1280x1024 or below at the end of its product cycle... the 9600GT is just a cooler running version of the 8700mGT.

If you are playing OLD games, the 7950GTX may very well perform similarly to the 9600. (above 1280x1024, it may very well seem a downgrade)
If you are playing NEW games the 9600 will win by a reasonable margin at resolutions at or below 1280x1024

Note, the 9600GT isn't really a clear upgrade... so for that reason I'd try and go with at least the 9800m GS or refurb 8800 series.
These two GPUs just made the whole 8700/9600/7950GTX thing a complete waste of time.

 

If your friend isn't willing to go for at least a 9800M series card, tell him to not bother, The 9600M isn't worth a new notebook.

 

mine scores 4800 at stock clocks, 5700 OC, DDR2 version. I wouldn't say it's a really good card, but! It let's me have fun and 4+ hours battery life. Not that bad

 

sooo i guess he should stick to his old one then, since 9600m gt about equal to a 7950m gtx?

 

It's not even equal (even worse if the 9600 GT in question is DDR2), so yes he should stay with the 7950.

 

Yeah it´s worse, forget playing with AA or any higher resolutions. I had two 8700m GT´s in SLI in my former XPS M1730 and sure at low res they are fast but higher res and that bus width begins to show how bad they performs.

Albeit old the 7950GTX will run games at higher res than the 9600m GT

 

Not the newer style ones...

Age of Conan tanked the 7950GTX and ran better on a 8700m by a reasonable margin. Neither played AoC well above 1280x1024.
(even in DX9 mode)

There is only so much the older shaders of the 7xxx series can do.

That being said, the overall advice of the thread should hold.

The 9600m is just not enough of an upgrade to justify a purchase...
I don't understand why a $900 ASUS or 1100-1200 Gateway isn't being considered though.
Those would both absolutely destroy both the 9600m and the 7950GTX and definitely would be worth the upgrade.

 

For <$1200, you can get a 9800M equivalent w/ MSI...

 

Or like me...For $750...
Refurbished G50VT-X1
And it looks as if you can stuff an GTX 260m into it...(If you can get one out of an scraped G51,of which owns all these GPUs.)

 

Given all the heat problems with the 260GTX, (its really a slightly-higher-clocked 9800GTX) I'd stick with the cooler-running 9800m GS and maybe try some moderate overclocking. The 9800m GS does a great job as long as you aren't expecting miracles.

Plugging a 260GTX in the G50VT's casing, even if physically possible, is not likely thermally healthy.

 

...We call it the G51...ever see the heat sink on the G51....its the same thing internally as the G50,same cooling and Fans.