8600M GT or FX 1600M, please help

Hi everyone,

Just a short question. I am buying a laptop and I am torn between 2, they are almost identical except for one thing, the graphics cards. I can either have the NVIDIA® Quadro® FX 1600M or the NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 8600M GT. I have been told that the quadro is a long way more powerful for games but are there any compatibility issues with games?

Thanks for any help

A-E

 

I believe the FX 1600m is based off of the 8700m GT, which is merely an OC'd 8600m GT. With Geforce drivers, you shouldn't have any compatibility problems.

 

Thanks mate. I was wondering if I could be a bit cheeky and ask a question about laptop screens.

17" WUXGA (1920X1200) True Life LCD add £0.00
17" WUXGA (1920 x 1200) UltraSharp display with non-reflective technology (anti-glare) add £0.00

Is there really that much difference?

 

The "Non-reflective" technology will take a little of the glare off. It's free to add, I would jump on it, being as they were both WUXGA.

 

Non reflective = matte? ...

 

Will it make the colours too dull?

As for the graphics card, do you think the quadro is better?

 

I don't think it's a matte, it will still be glossy, just cutting down on the glare.

No, the colors shouldn't be anymore dull.

 

Thanks mate. But you think the quadro is better?

 

For CAD and OpenGL the Quadro will be better because the driver optimalized for it. For games you could better use the GeForce.

 

but I thought the quadro was more powerful?

 

This is simply wrong. The Quadro will outperform it in games, just use Geforce drivers. Many, many Quadro users download Geforce drivers, as they are essentially the same core.

 

anyone else have any views?

 

"once upon a time", in the desktop realm, I believe nVidia would put a different bios in the quadro cards, making them not-as-useful for games. I think they would only accept the quadro drivers that way.

I could be wrong, or it could be different now, or it could just not be done that way in the notebook realm.

If the GeForce drivers do actually work, as some here seem to indicate, then it will probably be fine.

 

So no-one here uses a quadro card for games?

 

I have used a Quadro 1500M for games.... it performs almost identical to its Geforce 7900 GS brother.

So I would not worry about the difference too much between them [Quadros and their Geforce equivalents] for gaming performance.

Quadro's are just tweaked for OpenGL... that is the main difference.

And yes, the Quadro 1600M[~Geforce 8700M GT] will easily outperform a Geforce 8600M GT[~Quadro 570M]

 

is it difficult getting geforce drivers to work?

 

you cannot use current Geforce drivers for current Quadros.

The Quadro drivers are fine for gaming, get the latest ones from laptopvideo2go.

 

Thanks so much that means I have decided on my laptop at least. Thanks everyone.

P.s. If anyone has anything else to note please say so because this is my first laptop and help is greatly appreciated.

A-E

 

oh, quick question. Will a 64bit OS and CPU cause any issues with games?

 

not really.

Vista x64 has shown to be quite good with compatibility.

 

Nice. Thanks everyone

 

Well, I was wrong about the new drivers, but Gophn corrected me! Many people use the Quadro cards for gaming, as like I said, they are essentially a Geforce core with tweaked drivers.

 

Thanks KGann.

Out of interest is there much performance difference between the T9300 and T8300?

 

Not when gaming - difference is pretty much non-existent.

 

thanks mate