8600M GS F.E.A.R., 3dmark06, underclock, stock, OC Benchmark

Alright guys. I couldn't edit the title of my other thread, which I thought was necessary to have people looking at the post so I decided to make a new thread (don't flame please!) Anyways, it looks like the 8600M GS is giving a very unfavorable impression on this forum, and I just wanted to try to prove that it's a much better card than people think it is! Of course, it's not going to be as good as the 8600M GT but it can hold it's own against it. Anyways, I own a samsung R70 equipped with a 8600 GS(NB8P-SE). Specs are:

2.0 core 2 duo santa rosa
15.4 wxga (1280x800)
2 gigs of ram
160 sata HD
8600GS 256 dedicated + turbocache GDDR3 ram
WINDOWS VISTA HOME PREMIUM (not xp!!!)

Benchmark programs:

F.E.A.R (Max cpu, Max gpu 1024x768)
3dmark06 (default settings, 1280x800 my native res)
CS: Source stress test @ 1280x800 recommended settings and MAX settings, including 16x AA and 16x aniso
Oblivion (1280x800, for additional settings please refer below to the benchmark)
Command and Conquer 3 (refer below for settings)
Supreme commander (refer below for settings)

I had posted benchmark results before along with my clock speed, but someone on the forum told me my video card was underclocked. Lo and behold, when I checked the vid card clocks using nTune my core memory was underclocked by 100 mhz. Nvidia's website states it as 600 core/700 memory, mine was clocked at 500/700.

So here are the benchmarks on F.E.A.R. (1024x768) and 3dmark06 (1280x800) with pictures on three different clock speeds. Underclocked (500/700), Stock NVIDIA CLOCK (600/700), and OC (650/750). FEAR would NOT let me print screen so I had to take pictures with a digital camera.

Fear underclocked (500/700):



Fear stock (600/700):



Fear OC (650/750):



Now, 3dMark06 Underclocked (500/700)



3dMark06 Stock (600/700)



3dMark06 OC(650/750)



Now CS:S

First, recommended settings are these.



Underclocked (500/700):



Stock (600/700):



Overclocked (650/750):



Now Max settings which look like this:



Underclocked (500/700):



Stock (600/700):



Overclocked (650/750):



Now Oblivion (due to request)

The settings from the launcher are these:



I did bloom + AA 8x because that produced a lower FPS than HDR. I wanted to stress out my card more.
The video settings within oblivion were kept at default because I didn't want to mess with them too much. For the most part, everything was on except self shadows, shadow on grass and shadow filtering. Texture was also on LARGE, not med or small. I only took screenshots of outside because that is where I heard it lags the most. On stock, it rarely dipped below 20, and if it did, it was 18 at the minimum. It usually would float around 25-45, very playable IMO. Not too big of a difference between stock and OC, but when it was OC'ed it retained a much more stable Framerate.

Underclocked (500/700):







Stock (600/700):







Overclocked (650/750):







CS:S screenies w/ Fraps + Net_graph 3. Stock clock (600/700) with recommended settings, which is everything max except no AA or AF.











CNC 3:

Settings:



Underclocked (500/700):





Stock (600/700):





OC (650/750):





Supreme Commander:

Settings:



Underclocked (500/700):





Stock (600/700):





OC (650/750):





Alright, that's it. I hope the pictures speak for themselves. At stock speeds, 600/700, you can expect the general performance by referring to the above pictures. Also, The OC at 650/750 did not raise my temperature one bit (60 ish @ idle, 80 ish @ full load) So I could have probably overclocked a bit more. My friend has an Asus f3sv and his came clocked at 500/400 !! and when he tried to OC it to 600/600, his computer crashed. So.. Please check your clock speeds when you purchase the computer! Or ask the manufacturer Rep the exact clock speeds before you purchase the computer! I have requested to officially review my laptop here at notebookreview.com but the admin has not replied to my email. Just lettin you guys know I'm more than willing to do an in-depth review to clarify the 8600GS misunderstandings. Also, it was proven by Ken Lee that increasing your ram to 3 gb instead of 2 will have a dramatic effect on performance. If you guys have any questions, criticisms, feedback, please feel free to comment. Thanks.

 

these are great results, it makes me feel a little bit more confident in not getting a computer with gt

 

Great real world performance from an awesome looking laptop.

 

thanks for these results. I think that the 8600m GS results that made people unsatisfied were because of Vista drivers.

Would you happen to have Counter-Strike:Source/Half Life 2 or WC3?

 

Oh... Actually this IS from windows VISTA home premium, which would probably mean in XP, it would perform even better. And yes I have both CS:S and WC3 but I have to install both of them. I'll post the results later on in the day. I'll edit my post and clarify the OS. Thanks for the heads up.

 

thanks, please put net_graph 3 in console to show fps,


Cheers!

 

Does your laptop have GDDR3? I think the F3Sv is stuck with DDR2, which would explain the crashes....

 

Try to add more RAM, i heard that 3gb rams double the performance of the nvidia 8 series

 

Kk, updated with CS:S stress test results. Again, didn't notice a temp increase between the different clock speeds. Lunateck, I would like to add more ram if I had the moneyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.... maybe after a few paychecks I'll increase my ram. And sess, my vid card is GDDR3, thanks for the heads up, it's updated on the first post.

 

Pretty good, but how does the 8600M sit in the grand scheme of things? Not been keeping in touch with these new fangled cards My X1600 actually has the same results from FEARs in-game test thing, on the 8600M OC results, though my 3D mark scores aren't as good

Which goes to show its in-game performance that counts, not 3DMark. 3D Mark is nice, but its definitely not the be all and end all. That's why I thread crap every 3D Mark thread with this wisdom

 

LFC do you mind posting screenshots of your x1600 scores?

I know my card only got 13FPS average on max cpu/max gpu on F.E.A.R, I didn't think the x1600 could get to 38 at max.

 

Sorry, ignore that. I have 3 settings lowered to medium and SS off Didn't read the post, just looked at the pictures

I'm going back to sleep. Very impressive results btw

 

what program did you use to overclock it? and your drivers for the card

 

Well, it is true that in game performance matters the most. The 8x00 Nvidia series is very important because it is the first line of video cards that fully support dx10. However, it seems like the general consensus is that the 8600 shouldn't even be considered an upgrade from the go 7600/7700 line and that the results are disappointing etc etc. However, I think this should only affect people who own laptops with the 7600~7950 GTX. I will agree that for those people, if you are happy with your performance, then it is not worth upgrading, mainly because there aren't many games that support dx10 right now. But for the people who were and still are holding onto their money because they want a DX10 capable card, I think that the 8600M GS is an excellent choice because it balances performance and battery life. The reason that I'm posting my benchmark scores is so that people can get an idea of the performance, in 3dmark and games. Does anyone have any requests on games that I should benchmark?

 

I used rivatuner to overclock. I used the stock drivers that came with the samsung notebook. I get an error message whenever I try to install drivers from the nvidia website

 

Very nice, more than expected from the GSs I gotta admit.

Does the GS turbochache? Is that why the 3GB will almost double your performance/scores? Or is that because of the 1GB vista uses up.

And say you have a card with on die, how do you think the extra 1GB will do then?

 

The GS turbocaches yes. I think that may be why we see such a huge performance jump when we increase another gig. Although I am not sure, please ask ken lee, he can probably explain it better. I don't understand your last question...

 

Some good info. Thanks for your post. Shows very well how OC effects benchmarks and games etc.

 

You asked for games to benchmark.
I would like to see ES: Oblivion benchmarked on one of the 8M cards. That game is essentially the most stressful GPU game out to date. I'm sure it would put your card through it's paces. It is also going to be the first game I buy when I finally get a new DX10 notebook, though I am personally waiting for teh 8800M.

 

Most people base their opinions of the 8600M GS on the Asus F3Sv results, which are at 7600/x1600 levels at 2GB ram or less. However, going for 3GB will raise it to 8600m GT levels with 2GB ram.

 

have you tried playing any servers on the highest settings and having smooth gameplay?

 

That makes no sense to me, could you explain?

If the GS could turbocache up to 1gb of system memory my response would be why would you want to? Shared memory is so not worth it when it comes to video cards, I recently experienced such a video buffer overload when playing World in Conflict and the shared memory didn't help at all.

And if its eating up that much of system memory which in turn decreases performance as much as you said I can't see why its worth it.

we need a shared memory guide

 

I'm not sure why it does it, since everyone explains it with "it turbocaches it", and I thought turbocaching sucked. However, Ken Lee from GenTechPc tested an Asus F3Sv (8600M GS) and a G1S (8600M GT). The F3Sv with 3GB performed better than a G1S with 2GB ram. That's all I know.

 

Depends on how turbocache plays a role in the performance! A F3Sv with 3 GB (Turbocache enabled) is performing better then a G1S with 2 GB( Turbocache enabled)..

Actually we should check benchmark scores of a non turbocache F3SV and G1S first imo..

 

How can I turn turbocache off?

 

I haven't yet, but the single player so far is pretty smooth, under the OC'ed settings.

 

I've already written my opinion in that thread, but to reiterate, I don't believe those results are legit - I'm not saying Ken purposely mislead anyone - I just think there's something else at play here. Having FEAR's in game benchmark doing the test would allay some of those concerns.

On the desktop, the performance difference between 256MB and 512MB with a 7950GT is somewhere around 10%. An increase in TurboCache of all things should do less, nothing at the 50-100% increase those screenshots seem to indicate.

 

For one, turbocache gives batter tesults than ATi's hypermemory. I can't recall the source offhand, but would post it here as soon as I do. But that is beside the point. FEAR is not a very new game. IMO the 8600GS was struggling with the high resolution texture sizes. I certainly doubt dx10 games would see this much of a performance jump.

 

The reason the 8600M GS would struggle with the large textures would not be (mainly) due to memory but pure pixel/shader output. The 7950GT which has more shader power doesn't even benefit much from more dedicated memory.

 

Updated with oblivion! Sorry to bombard you guys with pics, I'm making it as small as possible. I'm just trying to help!

 

Pics load smooth even on my slow work isp connection.

If your concerned tho you can make thumbnails for people to click.

I use photohost and it makes a x400 width thumbnail for you automaticlly, and there are lots of others that make a smaller thumnail and give you the code to put into the forums to show the thumbnail and then click it for full.

If your host doesnt do that, you can always make them yourself and upload 2 pics. Up to you if you want to go thru the hassle.

 

Try www.laptopvideo2go.com they have some really good drivers. I think they have 165.01 as their latest driver (last time i checked)

Thanks for taking the time to do the benchmark and i really hope site admin does get in touch with you about doing a review (mods get in here!!)

I have upped your rep for taking the time to do the tests.

 

WOW that is a very impressive frame rate in CS:S!

It's amazing how nVidia have developed over the last 5 years. My nVidia GeForce 440 Go only handles around 35 FPS at 1600 x 1200, with all detail settings to minimum. Could you post some screenshots of CS:S?

 

yes please put ingame screenshots with net_graph 3 in console for fps eradout

 

Main Test Results

3DMark Score 2050 3DMarks

SM 2.0 Score 781 Marks

SM 3.0 Score 709 Marks

CPU Score 1921 Marks

HP dv9500t (2.2 Ghz Core 2 Duo, nVidia Go 8600m GS 256MB)
The resolution that i ran it on was 1280x1050. If someone runs 3d2k6 on their 9500 with 8600 and gets a better score please let us know.
It said on the result page "The result you just submitted was not obtained with Futuremark Approved drivers."
I have vista 64 bit driver and only the the 32 bit is approved. I wonder if that is why it could be low?
What do you think?

 

CS:S in game shots included (only had time for one map de_dust 2, if you want a particular map, just ask =]) The setting was not max but the recommended setting with stock clock 600/700.

 

Hmmm....
Check your clock speed. My friend with the asus f3sv got a 2k score as well but his was clocked at 500/400, which is very very underclocked. Also, 1280x1050 is a very odd resolution, have you tried 1280x1024 or 1280x800?

 

Could be ram, how much do you have? Could also be the 64bit vista.

 

My system is dv9500t with 8600M
- Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
- Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo T7500 (2.2GHz/4MB L2Cache)
- 17.0" WSXGA+ BrightView Widescreen (1680x1050)
- $50 off upgrade from 1GB (2 Dimm) to 2GB (2 Dimm)!
- 511MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS
- HP Imprint (Radiance) + Fingerprint Reader +Webcam
- Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 4965AGN Network w/Bluetooth
- 200GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (100GB x 2)
- FREE Upgrade - LightScribe DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer
- HP Expresscard TV Tuner for Windows Vista Notebook
- High Capacity 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
- Microsoft(R) Works 8.0

Windows rating is 4.6
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T7500 @ 2.20GHz 5.1
I did the super pi test for 2M it took 54 seconds
Memory (RAM) 2.00 GB 4.8
Graphics NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS 4.6 3dmark06 2058
Gaming graphics 1023 MB Total available graphics memory 4.9
Primary hard disk 51GB Free (83GB Total) 5.0

You would think i would get a better 3dmark06 score, no?

 

Yes, i think it would be better than that. Do you know what type of memory does the gpu carries, ddr2 or gddr3?

 

Use nTune or rivatuner and please report your clock speed. Is it at 600/700?

 

I used ntune and the factory shipped speeds are, core bus 500 and memory bus 400, with that by score was 2050. I changed it to core bus 550 and memory bus 450, with that by score was 2511. If i go higher then that the performance drop big time, a score of 600. So as high as i can go is 550/450, not 600/700. If i put the memory bus past the core 3dmark06 would freezes.
Whats up with that?

 

Yeah, my friend ran into the same problem as well... he has the asus f3sv clocked at 500/400. On the nvidia website, the stock clock according to them should be 600/700. It seems like due to the design of the laptop, it was impossible for the HP designers to have the laptop work with the stock clock, so they had to underclock it. I don't understand though why they had to underclock that much though.

 

Updated with supreme commander and Cnc 3!

 

Thanks for the update! I was impressed by how it did in oblivion and CS in that update! I wasn't so impressed with CnC3 though; mine can do 1280x800 off, medium, medium, low, medium, low, low, low, low, low with constant 25-30FPS. I guess I was expecting it could do 1280x800 at high with no dip =/ (and i know 7600s/x1600s can do it at that on high)

 

Looks like 16 SP's just won't cut it.

 

Yah, it seems like it struggles a bit with cnc3 and supreme commander... But even at 20 fps RTS games seem to be very playable, but I guess that's beside the point. btw I just found out that Supreme commander has a built in benchmark so I'm going to use that and erase some of the screenshots.

 

You got GDDR3 in your notebook but the memory in the F3SV is GDDR2. You can't clock GDDR2 that high. GDDR3 is naturally higher.

 

So it seems like both the f3sv and the dv9500t is GDDR2.

 

Supreme commander is hard to benchmark because it is so cpu intensive and that to can slow down the game. On my sager 9260 i run it all on max but it slows whenever its late in the game and i zoom in bases. how can i avoid this? I think this is a CPU issue.