8800M - worth waiting for?

I agree that there is always new tech just around the corner
My notebook isnt even two years old yet, and is old hat in comparison to todays machines.

I just want to not make the same mistake I did with this one
I bought the ACER 5672wlmi, with an ati x1400, I changed my order from the 5674 or whatever it was originally called with a geforce 7600 because there was a 4 month delay before the 7600 launch,

Patience would have paid off because in the end the ATI X1400 priced just above the nvidia 7600 laptop (£100) turned out to be slower and in fact not much better than an nvidia 7400!!!

and the X1600 travelmate was a further £400

so you can see why I thought the x1400 would have been a good idea, instead I ended up not being able to use HDR lighting in HL2 BOO HISS!

I will wait until the 256mbit memory bus geforce 8 series card comes out on a notebook and make my purchase,
Dual core is plenty the processor specs for games dont climb quite as quickly as graphics core requirements do

 

I would wait until the 9 series. 8 series is still a bit like a labrat test.

 

It's always worth waiting. As long as you can wait.

If you need a laptop now, buy the best you can get. Otherwise, wait until you need it. That's the only way to get max value for your money.

 

I've been considering getting a laptop for a couple of months now and I think I've decided to wait..

I'm in the same boat as the OP - I'd like to wait until the new generation of mobile GPUs are released before purchasing my system, but at the same time I understand it's essentially futile. Everyone knows how waiting in this market turns out....

That being said, I think I will indeed wait awhile. I'd like to see how a quad-core processor handles an Nvidia 9m series GPU. Not only that, but these new HDD technologies look promising, too, and I think they'll be well adapted to notebooks in the coming months. And while I have a big enough budget to purchase something now, I'll certainly be able to afford something much better come March or April of next year, especially once I get my tax refund. That could mean the difference between an 8700m or a potential 9m series, not to mention the processor.

If you really need to get something soon, though, you might wait until just before the holiday season. New technologies will begin being released and prices will drop - I think you'll certainly get the most for your money if you wait until then. If you can't wait, however, just get whatever looks best to you now.

 

Tangent is right on. When you examine the performance numbers and the clocks you'll see it's really just an overclocked 8600GT -- just like a 7950 is an overclocked 7900.

The reason the 3DMark06 scores are so close between an 8700 and a 7950 is due to the default test parameters: 1280x1024 screen resolution. When you review the 3DMark06 test results for higher resolutions you'll see a quicker drop off for the 8700 scores.

The 128 bit bus of the 8700 has half the bandwidth of a 7950. At high resolutions the memory bandwidth is the limiting factor in performance. We see this all the time in embedded applications.

The 8700GT is the best mobile DX10 card you can buy right now, but it's not as good as the 7950 at any resolution, but especially at native 17" resolutions like 1600x1050 or 1920x1200.

 

That might change with a DX10 benchmark??

 

7 series can't display dx10 stuff. Would be useless if u did do a comparison

 

well I have been looking at Ice-Tea's excellent mxm-upgrade website again to get myself a little more up to date.

Anyone holding for an upgrade, check out your model on there, it appears that rather than abandon MXM like I previously posted (in error)
the manufacturers are modding mxm cards to make them more proprietary.

I know however that the laptop modding community will no doubt be able to dremel mxm cards to fit.

I have decided I want to see if a new D900 chassis comes out with dual 8700's or 8800's, I love the idea of having 3 7200 rpm hdd's in raid0

 

http://www.hypersonic-pc.com/whatsnew/nvidia/slizone.asp

well this looks promising

 

aye it looks nice and promising narsnail but when you click customise you end up with geforce 7950's (booo!)
I reckon we will just have to wait

 

haha yea i know....but it says if you read the page directx 10 sli gpu's so that means there atleast something better coming, and if not 8700's in sli which is not what i know im waiting for

 

What numbers or data are you looking at please?
I am a reasonable guy... maybe you have some benchmarks I haven't seen yet... Maybe you have information I don't... Let's compare data sources.
I am comparing my 8700s performance numbers compared to other 8600s and 7950GTX... what data are you using?

My 8700 does not react as just an overclocked 8600...
Until you can show me an 8600 that gets anywhere near 5000 3dmarks your theory is going to be pretty hard to prove. (an overclocked 7900 can approach 7950 performance even when both are overclocked so if your theory holds out then a 8600 should approach my 5100+ score...)

FYI, the 7900 GTX Go is clocked at 500 and the 7950 GTX Go is clocked at 575 for a 15% factory overclock...

The 8700 is clocked at 625 and the 8600 at 475... that's a 31%+ factory overclock... That's more than TWICE the percentage factory overclock of the 7900 to 7950 comparison you just made...

I am aware of the 8700's memory interface limitations... then again, I have no way to actually test it as I do not even own a display capable of showing more than 1280x1024.

That being said, it is entirely possible that Nvidia knows something about rendering that you don't. They named it an 8700m GT instead of an 8600m GTS or 8650GT. Maybe just maybe they had a reason?

You are still forgetting the dual-rank 128-bit memory interface...
I know, I know... no one really knows what it does, but my performance numbers seem to indicate the 8600 owners will never touch what the 8700 is capable of therefore your "overclocked 8600" theory is not holding much water.

The 8600 and 8700 are built on the same technology... that I accept... but the two GPUs have some differences that at the very least result in a 31%+ boost in factory clock speed.... My bet is higher power allowances, but odds are there are other differences as well.

This 8700 OCs insanely well on top of its 31% factory advantage... I find the 68%+ difference in clock speed between the default clocked 8600 and the OC'd 8700 to be just a tad outside believable variance in chip process perfection.

I guess that depends on your definition of "better".
If higher average frame rates is your only measurement, then sure... the 7950GTX is 5-10% better at 1280x1024.

In Bioshock where the 8700 can use DX10, it performs within 10% for average frame rate up to 1280x1024 (no data for higher) and results in higher minimum frame rates, AA for free, better textures, and better particles. IMHO the 8700 is better than the 7950GTX for Bioshock at 1280x1024 (or 1440x900).

 

Naming scheme.. as a matter afact, it's similar to the desktop 8600 GTS (the 8700 still uses 8600 core but with a different memory structure). I guess the only reason they name it as the 8700 is that it wouldn't fit any 15.4" notebooks.

 

exactly, why wouldnt they call it the 8600m gts, we know its power requirements are more than mxm II can handle.

 

Lets see my HP 8510W gets almost 5K in 06 in and it has an 8600GT based core, and thats using old drivers and I am on Vista. I bet I could reach 5500 with new drivers and using XP. I am going say this once and once only. the 8600GT is the same as the 8700GT

Only differences are as follows:
1. Core voltage is higher thus allowing the 8700GT to have a higher default core clock speed
2. Second the 8700 has its shaders clocked higher thus giving it better performance over the 8600GT
3. Because the 8700GT is restricted to MXM III vs the 8600GT MXM II based cards, both the memory and core voltages are higher due to better cooling and higher allowed power consumption.

Physically these cards cores are exactly the same with the same number of stream processors.

 

Is 8600M GT MXM II?

and 8700M GT MXM III?

What's the significance in this difference?