8400 GT vs 8600 GS/GT

I was initially looking for a laptop with at least an 8600 GS fitted. However, there are a few notebooks with the 8400 GT which have caught my eye.

Is there a large difference between the 8400 GT and 8600 GS? To make it more understandable for myself, could someone give some average 3dmarks(06) for them.


And also, will it make any difference whether the 8400GT has 512mb dedicated memory whilst an 8600 GS having only 256mb of ded memory?

Thanks people.
Jam.

 

The 8400GT is basically an 8600GS I cannot tell you the difference in 3D Marks scores but I can tell you that there is a huge difference between 8600Gs vs 8600GT. As for the 8400GT with 512 dedicated vs the 8600Gs with 246 Dedicated get the 8400GT!

 

8400M GT- 2000-2100
8600M GS- 2400-2900. OC- 3100

No, it wouldn't make any difference whatsoever. The 8400GT would not be able to play any game acceptably that requires 512 MB. Besides, I very much doubt the 8400M GT has a 512 MB memory. Which nb are you looking at? The Sony?

 

It largely depends on type of RAM used in each cards. Roughly, 8600GS/Gt with GDDR2 tend to perform similar to one tier lower cards with GDDR3. Which particular models are you thinking of?

 

Yeah there is a huge difference between the 8600gs vs 8600GT. But there is no difference between 8400GT vs 8600GS. They are the same cards. This is NVIDIA name game. In my opinion get the 8400GT if the card has 512 Dedicated memory vs 256 dedicated in the 8600GS.



BE COOL

 

I'm was initlally looking at the Asus F3SV and the Acer Aspire 5920. However, I've grown my interest in the Sony Vaio VGN-FZ11S.

The Acer is porbably the outright winner in the graphics department as its got an 8600 GT. However, I like the Sony because basically I'll know I'll get a quality product, plus it looks superb.

How do there GPU's of the models compare?

 

The 8400M GT has a core clocked at 450mhz and the 8600M GS a core at 600mhz. Also the 8400M GT has 16 shaders clocked at 900mhz and the 8600M GS 16 shaders clocked at 1200mhz. Lastly the 8400M GT has a maximum memory clock of 1200mhz and the 8600M GS 1400mhz. For the memory is depends if GDDR2 or GDDR3 is used. GDDR2 would be clocked much lower (800mhz??)

So yes they use the same chip but the 8600M GS is clocked higher. Sometimes the 8600M GS is underclocked by the notebook maker and that would bring its performance down to 8400M GT level.

 

Will the 8400 GT be able to play sports games, such as football (soccer), cricket etc. And also some games like Quake on decent settings?

 

The 8400s are based on the G86, while the 8600s are based on the G84. they use different cores.

Check this out.
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles/view.php?cid=18&id=2112

 

definitely do not bother getting an 8400m gt with 512 megs of ram over the 256 meg version.

not even a go 7950gtx sees much improvement with 512 megs, and that is a much faster card. slower cards can't handle that amount of memory. 256 is fine for either 8400 or 8600 series cards.

 

no there isn't....have you seen all the gaming scores that have been posted of both?

 

If you are looking at the Sony Vaio FZ, then doesnt it only have 128MB or 256MB of dedicated video ram? If you saw 512MB then that was the turbo cache value and it means nothing. It only has 128MB or 256MB dedicated.

 

Ah rite, thanks. So, there isn't a huge difference between the 8400 GT and the 8600 GS is there, in terms of actuall performance, (not fugures found on Nvidia's site.) right?

 

the onboard memory isn't going to make a difference with the low end parts, again. i would just get 256 megs of video memory, which is standard. anything more is overkill for the gpu itself (the gpu won't use it).

 

No, I mean irrespective of dedicated memory, does the 8400 GT perform around the same as an 8600 GS?

I'm just trying to clarify a summary I'm trying to get.

 

It does make a differance and the 8600M GS is faster. But the 8400M GT performce pretty well so I wouldnt be worried about it. Neither card is high end gameing. If you like the Vaio better then the Asus then go for it.

 

Not to discredit you, But the 5920 is quite poorly built by most accounts. The FZ is a visually beautiful machine but im worried it will be plauged by many of the problems that affected the FE along with Sony's pricey accessories and very poor support. The Asus would be my favorite among that bunch, The f3 is their budget series. If you can afford it I would look at their V1S (15.4" 8600GT), Or the cheaper V2S (14.1" 8600GS) Or wait for their f8 series which is supposed to be very well built and reasonably priced. (f8Sv). In my opinion the F3SV will be much better quality than the Acer 5920. You also get 2 years warranty as standard. I love the look of the Sony but I just dont trust their build quality after all the stories of broken and damaged laptops in the sony forum.

Also be _very_ careful when looking at the Sony's dedicated memory, They advirtised 256mb in their last incarnation of the FZ the FE, When quizzed they said it was 128mb Dedicated and 128 borrowed, It wasnt until later that people discovered it was only 64mb dedicated, Naturally people were very upset but Sony ignored them. I beleive the same thing happened with their SZ series.

 

Thanks for help guys. Lastly, just to make myself 100% sure about the 8400 GT, could someone answer my question. (up)

 

Max I can spend is £950. The V1s is £200 out my range which is a shame. I can't wait any longer aswell, I've been waiting till Novemeber last year for Dx10 compatible cards to arrive.
The latest FZ review (on this site) has impressed me a lot. Although the Acer has better performance, I feel it may wrong - i've never bought a laptop.
The Asus F3SV is £850 here whilst the sony and acer are £799. Plus the latter laptops have an HDMI port which could be useful to me, although not a mandortory feature.
Guess I'll just need to choose between the Acer and Sony.

 

The old Quakes yes... Which Quake are you talking about? Quake Wars should run too, I think it also uses the Doom III engine like Quake IV.

Sport games normaly are not too high with the requirments so i will say yes. Some raceing games might not run at very high settings. Cant really help you unless you tell which specific game.

 

Unfortunately thats not a easy question to answer, theres 3 main variables
Type of memory (DDR2/DDR3)
Clocks of memory (What speed it is clocked at, DDR3 is clocked higher but it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer)
Amount of Dedicated ram (In a low end card like the 8400GT 256mb is really the most it could use, in a 8600GS 256 would be a very good size, 512 would be overkill)
Now I had a look on sonys website and they list the Vram as 1024mb, Obviously they are referring to The borrowed system memory which in some cases actually lowers performance overall. The real amount of memory would be anywhere from 64mb to 256mb. I wouldnt trust sony on this, Ask a forum member who already has it to tell you.

The 8600GS should be faster than the 8400GT, The F3SV actually scored Very well, With 3gb of ram it demolished alot of records for mid range cards.

 

You should also figure in that the asus comes with 2 years warranty, the 5920 and FZ only come with one, The warranty means alot, Trust me.

 

Ah that makes that easier, XaviBrugal has the FZ with 8400GT, He got 2575, The F3SV gets about 2200 at 1280x1024, I cant confirm what res Xavi ran his test at.

 

Ive just had a further poke around, The 2500-2600 score seems quite normal, Unfortunately it was run on newer drivers than the F3SV Seems like 2750 is about normal for the 8600GS in this model.

 

F3SV's Core/ram is clocked at 540/400. Since Nvidia's specified clock speed for 8400GT is 450/600, it is possible that 8400Gt can perform better than F3SV, if it is using Nvidia clock. F3SV seems to overclock very well, however.

 

Link1313 your response is here!



Ok I don't think you know what I mean. First of all the 8600GT has far more room for over clocking(to back up this there is the 8700GT). The 8600GS might have room for over clocking but in the end it already is.

 

If you didn't count overclocking though

btw I wouldn't want to overclock with these cards anyways ive heard people saying they idle at 60+ and get up to 90+ degrees Celsius, thats hot!

 

someone was said that a n underclocked 8600gs would bring it down to the level of a 8400gt. Well my card is clocked at 500 core / 400 memory and it gets a 3dmark 06 score of ~2500. So unless the 8400gt is within at least 100 pts of that score, that is a false statement. Although, the too cards probably get similar frame rates in games. The 8600gs could have like a 4 fps boost

 

Errm, games like Pro Evolution Soccer 6, Need for speed and Quake 4. Will these games run well on an 8400 GT?

 

Yes they will.

 

Hardwarezone is wrong, 8600M GS is a G86, not a G84. Here's what the driver inf says:

 

Appreciate your help dude. Think I'll probably go for the Sony then. Although, I have to admit, I paying for the brand not the components. But still, I'm very confident that I'll get a succussful first laptop.

Cheers.

 

Check around some more, you may get more for for money.

 

Yeh, I mean I can get the Aspire 5920 for the same price, which performs a lot better, but I'm "trying" to like the design.

Btw, will the 8400 GT play Flight Simulator X, well?

 

Im sure it would. You also have to look at build quality, It really is a huge factor. I went with the Dell 1520, I was so indredibly disgusted with the crappy service, the flimsy build quality and the poor screen, It was a powerful laptop but it still wasnt very good. I think you would be better off with the sony that the 5920.

 

Hmm, thats whats persuading me towards the Sony. I think build quality and how the components are actually put together etc, should come before specs.

 

jam12 - where have you found the FZ11S for £799? im interested in this but can only find it for £899.

 

play.com, laptopsdirect.co.uk and technoworld.com

 

ok, i was looking at online high street stores. its quite a saving though, if sonystyle dont do a free warranty extension when i phone them up I will prob check out one of those to buy from. Just waiting for my credit card to arrive!!cheers.

 

You can always take a look at FZ owners thread, you can see FZ with 8400Gt scoring 2400-2600 in 3Dmark06, in 1280x800.

Don't be fooled by Nvidia's confusing naming scheme, 8400GT and 8600GS has very similar specification. Both have 16 stream processors and 128bit bus, their only difference is clock speeds and names. On the other hand, 8400GS has 64bit bus and 8600Gt has 32 stream processors, which gives much larger hardware difference than mere clock speeds.

 

I've tried, and I've got lost within it aswell, even with the search facility, lol. I think the 8400GT exceeds my needs anyway. I'm currently using a 7yr old 32mb nvidia card, so I'll probably be amazed at what the intel x3100 can do!!

 

http://www.hothardware.com/printarticle.aspx?articleid=964

Hardwarezone isn't wrong.. I don't remember the link to it, but Nvidia's Pre release tech specs also listed it as a G84, which it is. The inf lists it as a G86 due to the presence of 16 usable shaders. The 8400GT(G86) has the shaders removed, while the 8600GS has them disabled. The G86 and G84 are essentially the same, with the G84 having about an extra 80 Million transistors. Both of them are bear no resemblance to the G80.

 

Oh, ok. That's a bit stupid though (from nVidias side).

 

why u think that 8600 GT is better than 8600 GS? GS have better spec. (w/o stream processeor)
GeForce8600M GS GeForce8600M GT
Stream Processors 16 32
Core Clock (MHz) 600 475
Shader Clock (MHz) 1200 950
Memory Clock (MHz) 700 700
Maximum Memory 512MB 512MB
Memory Interface 128-bit 128-bit

 

The stream processors make all the difference. Besides, it's possible to clock the 8600m GT higher.

 

think of it this way. one shader clock cycle goes through 32 stream processors instead of 16.

1200x16 < 950x32

the gt should have about 1.6x the shader power of the gs, based on that.

 

In all honesty there is hardly a difference between these two cards.

In fact after taking a look at numerous real gaming scores the 8600GS GDDR3 (in samsung R70 for example) > 8600GT GDDR2 (in dell inspiron 1520 for example). And in synthetic scores the R70 hit 3600 3dmark and the dell only got up to 3500 3dmark. This was due to the 8600gs having 22.6gb/s memory bandwidth and the 8600gt in the dell only having ~12gb/s memory bandwidth.

In general both reference cards overclock exactly the same, someone must be telling you otherwise and is wrong. Both GDDR3 versions can reach ~650mhz on the core and ~750mhz on the memory, there based on the same manufacturing process after-all.

Finally if we to compare say for example the 8600gs in the R70 to the 8600gt in the asus g1s, both of which are gddr3, the 8600gt would win but not by much. In this case say in F.E.A.R the 8600gs would get ~35FPS at max and the 8600gt would get ~41FPS at max. Or in Oblivion with HDR on and all the other settings left the same the 8600gs would get ~37FPS and the 8600GT would get ~45FPS. So basically the difference between the two at nvidia stock reference settings is on average in real gaming experience between 12-20%.

12-20% is not a big difference but the price you might be paying between the two is. I think the determining factor should not come down to whether it is an 8600gs or an 8600gt...but if it has GDDR3 and other features you are looking for including price. Heck, after just overclocking my card I could get at least 10% better in-game performance. And not to mention the difference between the 7600gt and 7600 and x1600 and the crippled version of the x1600 had real game performance differences of more like 25 to almost 50% less. Basically ill re-iterate if your deciding between these two cards on two different laptops dont make it your major deciding factor.

 

wow, that makes me feel a LOT better getting an 8600M-GS. thanks

 

Yeh, an 8600 GS is a good card, but depends which laptop you get it with. The R70 seems utilise it very well, however other manufactures will underclock it.
If want the best gaming experience, ignoring other aspects i.e. CPU power, then the 8600 GT is the best you can get in a 15" laptop.

 

I wanna buy a HP View HP Pavilion dv9000t (17''). On the other side is Dell. But after that anwser i think i will buy HP... thx a lot!