9600M GT: Overclocking & VRAM

The 9600M GT is identical to the 9700M GT in all but clock speeds, so am I right in assuming if you OC a 9600M GT to those same clocks you effectively have a 9700M GT in your box?

I'm asking as I'm very nearly definitely buying a new MacBook Pro tomorrow but I have a couple of questions.

The 9600M GT DDR3 on stock speeds isn't particularly impressive when it comes to gaming, particularly Crysis for example, from the looks of benchmarks. And that worries me about future performance with games like Dead Space and FarCry 2.

However other notebooks owners with this card have overclocked it as high as 700 core / 1750 shader / 950 over the stock 500 / 1250 / 800. That's faster than the 9700M GTs stock 625 / 1550 / 800. Some have gotten 3dmark 06 scores of 6900 and the card is still stable.

The 9700M GT can supposedly run Crysis on very high at around 25fps, coupled with the new Nvidia chipsets, the new processors and 4gb of ram in the high end 15" MBP, shouldn't I achieve similar results when overclocking to that degree?

Ok, so, given that, am I an idiot to hope to run FarCry 2 and Dead Space on similarly pretty high settings with ~30 fps?

And finally, there's either 256mb of vram or 512mb - given the 9600M GT (like the 9700M GT) is 128bit, is there any point in getting the 512?

I know this is a lot of questions but £1500 is a lot of money so if you can help, please do!

PS: Also, would I be best sticking to XP rather than Vista for gaming on this machine?

2.53GHz + 6MB L2 cache + 1066MHz frontside bus
Intel Core 2 Duo
15-inch widescreen
4GB DDR3 Memory
320GB hard drive1
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 512MB

 

u meant 2fps, did u?

 

Ha ha even I was puzzled by that insane fps in Crysis with that card. It might match the 9700m gt's performance but no away can that card run Crysis in those settings. Far Cry 2 is a less demanding game going by its official system requirements. So the performance in that game will be better than Crysis.

 

I dunno, I'm just taking this from notebookcheck:

 

No the benchmarks mentioned in that site are quite unreliable IMO.

 

Ah ok

So what kind of performance are we looking at from a 9600M GT 'clocked like that?

And what about the vram etc?

 

notebookcheck is the most inaccurate site in the world... my Rig barley manages 25 FPS Enthusiast 1440x900... and i have it optimized to the limits.. for example Windows ram Usage peak is 64mb xD

about your system.. id get Vista honestly, new cards dont have problems with Vista unlike older ones. i think you can play Crysis on some reasonable settings. the game would still look great at playable FPS.

 

There is no point in getting the 512MB RAM a the 128 bit card can't utilize more than 256MB of memory. Only 256 bit cards can use all of 512MB memory and above. So you can definitely save money by choosing the 256MB model.
Peformance wise the card might have atleast 10-15% improvement over the 8600m gt(ddr3). It might go up if you OC but then I don't recommend it.

 

Assuming you can clock a 9600GT up to a 9700GT is not a good way to start.

It is possible you will come close, but Nvidia separated the two for a reason and likely part of it is "quality" and the other part is design.

In a laptop, cooling is a huge factor and 9700GT have higher allowances set up. That Mac is going to be designed to be pretty and compact more than it is cool. The Apple people picked the lower chip for a reason... likely they decided the lower heat dissapation requirement to be more in tune with their design specs.

Will the OC work? Perhaps... but it is likely going to produce quite a bit of extra heat... also... OC slowly and monitor heat. You might get to 9700 clocks just fine, but you might also be cooking your laptop in the process.

 

HP owners can currently overclock theirs relatively easily to slightly above 9700M GT levels, probably it'll get very hot in the MBP but I'm going to have it on a desk, use a cooler and do it slowly, like I have been with my current MBPs X1600.

I really have no idea what to start with on Crysis settings for example, should I try high? Or is it crazy to think you could get 30fpx on Crysis on high with OCing a 9600?

Oh and, FarCry 2, gonna be more demanding on this card than Crysis I wonder?

 

Nope. and if it was more demanding, then this will be the last year that Companies like Nvidia and ATI will release mainstream cards, because it'll be pointless....

 

The most demanding settings for Crysis and Crysis Warhead are:
--Resolution
--Shaders quality
--Shadows quality
You can tinker all these three to obtain a reasonable framerate. Only a 8800m gts or above can run Crysis all high at a respectable frame rate and that too with a resolution of 1280 x 800 or 1440 x 900. You have to tone down the shader quality and the resolution to get 30+ fps.

Far Cry 2's recommended is a GeForce 8600. Maybe an overclocked 8700m gt or the 8800m gts will be maxing the game. So you don't need to worry as your GPU can handle it at more than average requirements.

 

Thanks a lot guys

I just realised how much less the entry level MBP is than the high end model.. I can afford either.. but I could save £300 getting the entry level model.

Games are the only way I will push this laptop so I'm wondering if that 300 quid is worth it for:

2.53 Ghz over 2.4 Ghz
6mb L2 cache over 3mb
4gb of ram over 2gb
512mb over 256mb vram

I have no idea how much the first two will affect game performance, probably games like FarCry 2 will benefit from the ram though? And so am I right in thinking that the 512mb of vram will be absolutely no better at all than 256mb for me? Not even a little?

If we're talking a difference of 10fps in the two models then I'll pay for the high end model and take the bigger HDD that comes with it. If we're talking 2 or 3 fps, nah.

 

No way there is going to be a 10fps difference. Don't go for the 512MB memory model. Go for the lower spec one and upgrade the RAM to 4 GB. The CPU will have no performance difference in the games you mentioned. Both will perform equally better. You will save wads of cash.

 

That is the biggest load of bull I`ve ever heard.Notebookcheck is a horrible place to get your facts from...so DON`T !
Even the 8800M GTX cannot do it like that.

 

Done and done my good sir.

Now to chose XP 32, XP 64, Vista 32 or Vista 64

 

Actually, 256 bit uses 512mb max. Above that, you need even more bits

 

Why I am hesitating is that I have no prior experience of using Boot Camp to run Windows in a Mac. But anyway I will try. Don't opt for xp64. Driver support is horrible. You can go for 32 bit xp for those extra fps boost. But question is whether you will get all the xp device drivers for your MBP. Call apple and remove your doubts. Also with respect to Windows Vista, I would personally recommend the 64 bit version. Better stability, better memory management in case of RAM above 3 GB and better kernel level protection from unsigned drivers.

 

I've been bootcamping on my current MBP, 2.16 Ghz C2D with a X1600 128mb, with Xp, and gaming on that with some pretty hefty overclocks.

But with this new laptop I was wondering whether Vista would yet offer gaming performance improvements over XP. But if XP still give you those few extra FPS over Vista, I'll go with Windows.

Unless it turns out that the 9400M can GeForce Boost the 9600M GT.

Happily BootCamp installs drivers for all your parts onto your Windows partition, be it Vista or XP.

 

In the possibility of installing XP, you have to get the drivers for your GPU from laptopvideo2go.com. I don't see how the integrated 9400m gt can add to the overall graphical power of the MBP. I am guessing that it is just a power saving mechanism or merely Apple's marketing strategy.

 

Yeah I guess so, arg, GeForce Boost would have made this entire day a lot more exciting..

Oh well. I am confident I can OC this thing to pretty good Crysis results.

Bootcamp should come with the GPU drivers, but I'm going to use Catalyst drivers anyway as I used Catalysts with my X1600 and they made the world of difference over the standard one.

I'll post my benchmarks in the coming days, of real world fps benefits from 9600M GT OCing. Not been able to find it online so maybe I'll be one of the first to provide that kinda info.

 

Catalyst drivers only work with ATI cards. Forceware drivers work with nvidia.Anyway all the best for your future MBP buy.

 

Yep, for nvidia cards, i definitely recommend nvidia system tools 6.02 for monitoring temps, and overclocking.

 

Can the 9600M GT in the MBP be overclocked in OS X, or only in Windows?

 

Where did you get the notion that a 128 bit card can't address more than 256MB of ram?

 

128-bit cards don't have the power to utilize all 512MB (it uses roughly half), and the 512MB is a marketing tool.

Straight from the FAQ:

 

Ooh hehe, see I went to "Omega Drivers" and downloaded their Nvidia drivers and assumed they were called Catalyst too, but now I see it's Forceware!

I've got RiverTuner and ATITools and between them I'll bump up the clocks while checking for artifacting. I'll get this nvidia system tools 6.02 now for check temps etc.

 

Hey guys hope you can help me as i can't oc my 9600m gt in my HP dv7t 1090ed.

Any advice? Because i used rivatuner but i just can't oc it for some reason.

Thanks!

 

Might be because of drivers. Which version you are using?

 

Off I go to the Apple Store!

 

9700 GT is a quite weak card and it does not deserve to be called a gaming card at all

 

Again it depends on what type of gaming you indulge in. Definitely not for the hardcore gamers but ok for the mainstream users.

 

When I finish medschool and can leave all this OCing crap behind, I'm just gonna get a Mac Pro and cram it to the eye balls with high end GPUs SLI'd up to high heaven...


Aaaanyway moving on, I'll probably upgrade from 2 to 4gb of DDR3 ram, if that'll have an performance benefit on Crysis, Fary Cry 2, Fallout and so on...

****, Fallout 3, I'll be pretty disappointed if I can't squeeze better performance out of that than I can on my PS3, I really want to play that game on a PC rather than a console..

Oh and btw, these new "Nvidia chipsets", that's the tech the processor sits on right? (along with the IGPU) I hear that it's somehow tailored toward better video performance, does that mean it'll have some kind of edge over a Montevina chipset when it comes to gaming?

 

I'm using the 178.13 drivers.

 

Try changing them from laptopvideo2go.com. You can never say which driver might be the perfect one until you test them yourself.

 

Great words coming from a guy that probably cant even run crysis on his laptop. What are you basing that on? Does Being able to run Crysis on WUXGA Ultra High settings with 16xAA mean its a gaming card? No. Even an 8400GS can be considered a gaming card, since it can PLAY (not max out) new games.

@yixian And, the nVidia Chipset does not provide a boost to gaming. Why are you bothering with the Macbook Pro? Its wayy to overpriced imho. Better off with a dv7t or a sager. (i cannot believe i just recommended a sager)

Btw, should i be able to oc my future 9700m GT to around 6900 3dmarks at default res?

Last question, will gaming on WUXGA+ (1920 by 1080) be less demanding than 1920 by 1200 (WUXGA)??

 

Sorry, I can't let go of OS X

But yeah, 6900 3dmarks on a 9700 should be easy peasy, you can push a 9600M GT that high.

 

Which drivers are those guys using to OC the 9600m GT and/or 9700m GT?

 

The 9700GT at stock (or the 9600GT OC'd) performs similarly to an 8700m GT OC'd.

Since I have the 8700m GT, I can tell you without a doubt it runs every game I have ever thrown at it and made me more than happy with the results. (especially considering my laptop's age)

Including most recently:
-Age of Conan
-Warhammer

The 9600m OC'd, the 9700, and indeed even the 8600m GT DDR3, and 8700m do just fine provided you do not ask too much out of them.
(keep it under 1280x1024 or 1440x900, turn down AA)

This isn't to say they are as powerful as an 8800 or 9700GTS or higher... but they are quite easily "gaming cards" as long as you understand their limitations.

 

I would hardly call 9700m GT a 'weak card'.

9600m GT, 9650m GT and 9700m GT (DDR3 version of course) are the most affordable mid range cards that WILL be able to play virtually any game you throw at them.

Anyone remember the fact that people even in this day and age play the most demanding games on desktop gpu's that have 128bit bus?

Not everyone can afford the latest and the greatest (especially when some notebooks are already WAY overpriced for their specs/capabilities).
The mid-range cards in laptops (at least Nvidia's 9.xxx series I mentioned) are excellent for a gamer who is on a budget but also know how far those cards can be pushed.

 

Yes, unless the computer is CPU bottlenecked (which is rare, especially at such a high resolution), the number of pixels needed to be rendered falls off by ~10%.

 

We have an MSI GX620 thread going on in these forums... the notebooks comes with a 9600M GT GDDR3 ram. Dude named Knivez got his 3DMark06 score to 7036 stable (he used arctic cooling thermal paste on his gpu) with clock settings at 720/1720/1025 from stock settings of 500/1250/800.

I'm using a standard external (zalman 2000) notebook cooler (no special thermal paste) and am hitting 6905 3dmark06 scores with clock settings at 715/1780/950 and passed nTune stress test + ATITool artifact search (all under 77 celcius... I heard under 90 is "ok".)

On paper, it seems 9600m gt has the exact same specifications as the 9700m gt (except for higher core/shader clocks). Seeing that 9600m GT overclocked received close to 2k+ (from 5k to 7k) improved benchmarks, I'm assuming 9600m gt is just an underclocked 9700m gt... its very OC friendly and maybe the 9700m gt can OC for a lot more, seeing it comes with stock settings higher than the 9600m gt.

IMO, the 9700M GTS on the otherhand seems to be on a different ballpark... 256-bit vs 128-bit 9600/9700M GT... stock settings on that monster seems to hit over 7.5k >.>;;;