Confusing 8600M GT

Ok guys,
I've just order a new laptop from cyberpower (X7-7500).

I upgraded the cpu to a T7700, RAM to 4gb, and vista 64bit. My only concern is the gpu. Everywhere I look I seem to see different versions of the 8600M GT. What I expect is to get 512 VRAM dedicated, but I've seen that seemingly have the same card but only have 256 VRAM.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/system/X...nfigurator_top

I've seen a toshiba laptop with the same card, but it has the potential to add turbo cache adding an extra 256 RAM to the already 512 dedicated. While I be able to do this?

As long as I am getting a full 512, I'll be happy. I hope someone can explain all this nonsense and confusion nvidia has created for me with this gpu.

 

I couldn't find any spec's and your link doesn't seem to work, but from what i found in another thread here on NBR it seems it has 512Mb of v-ram. My guess is it probably is DDR2. GDDR3 is much faster, and 256Mb of GDR3 would probably be just as fast as 512Mb of DDR2. Sometimes you can set the turbocache (Nvidia's term for 'shared memory', not to be confused with turbo-memory) in the bios, but since lots of notebooks have a limited bios this isn't always the case. But i think shared memory is overrated anyway, it steels memory of your sytem ram and usually it's real slow.

 

Okay, seems like you are mainly confused by the turbo cache concept … I myself learned a lot from this forum about this matter.

Anyway , I haven’t seen much 512Mb dedicated GDDR2 RAM on 8600M GT laptops. In general terms 8600M GT is not that much of a high-end GPU for games that may require up to 512Mb of dedicated RAM, though more dedicated RAM is always welcome.

Turbocache is a concept that takes the advantage of PCI express bus to share system RAM for the GPU when needed. Although it shares system RAM it is way better than native shared memory concept.

Lets say that your system has DDR2 RAM. And your GPU has GDDR2 dedicated 256Mb RAM. If tourbocache decides to grab some memory from the system (say 256MB). Then your GPU will have total of 256MB GDDR2 + 256MB DDR2. In general terms DDR2 is closely match the speeds of GDDR2 but may not be the case all the time. So, you will not notice much performance degrade.

If your GPU has GDDR3 and you system RAM is DDR2, then when tourbocache is active your performance will be degraded because GDDR3 is faster than DDR2.

However, dedicated Graphic memory (GDDR) is always a welcome option over turbocache.

ATI has a similar implementation of tourbocache which is called Hypermemory.

 

I don't believe a true 512MB 8600m GT exists. 8600m GT is definitely a gaming machine, just not top end. It will handle anything you throw at it that has been released to date. You may have to run at 1280x800 and medium details, but big deal. Runs great. I've been playing Crysis, Oblivion, C&C 3, Call of Duty 4, no problem.

 

Hrmm...Are these Xplorer notebooks any good? They have the new C2D CPUs too.

 

Don't the C90's have a 512 option? I think that is only for the DDR2 version, though.

 

AFAIK, there are no 512 mb 8600GT cards,just 256+256 from RAM. But then again, I could be wrong.Or not.

 

there are 4 versions of the 8600-gt (listing here frm fastest to slowest in terms of 3d marks scores and ability to overclock) :-

1. 256 MB GDDR3 VRAM Version present in Asus G1S, Dell XPS 1530
2. 512 MB GDDR2 VRAM Version present in MSI gx600, Sager np2090
3. 256 MB GDDR2 VRAM Version present in Dell 1720/1520 and Asus F8SV
4. 128 MB GDDR3 VRAM Version present in Apple MBP

thnx. to vshade

 

You forgot the 128mb from macbook pro

 

I read a great review on this notebook on this forum. The notebook used is from MSI ms-1719. It seems to have the best price comparison to all the other 17" laptops with the 8600.

I'm about to get mine and I'm very excited.

2.4 C2D + 4Gb RAM + Vista 64X + 8600M GT + 120GB 7,200 RMP HD + 17" MS-1719 = $1,600

 

Good luck. Cyberpowerpc has a terrible reputation. A few of my friends got completely screwed.

 

...

 

I second Forerunner on that. Cyberpowerpc is indeed terrible. The stuff that they sell is very cheap, but you can expect little or no support at all. My roommate previously own one of those Explorer crap that crash every one or two hrs because of overheating. On top of that, "blue screen of death" Tried calling support, got garbage reply.

 

Hey guys, It turns out that the notebook has 512 DDR2 Dedicated. Cyberpower does have cards with 256 GDDR3, but this notebook has 512 GDDR2. With nvidia turbo cache, it can actually have 512 dedicated and 512 taken from the system ram, which I'll have no problem with since I ordered Vista 64x and 4gb of RAM.

 

Buddy... VRAM amount means NOTHING in terms of performance for a card like the 8600M GT because it's too weak to use it all anyways!

Get the 256MB GDDR3 version, it's FAR faster!

That's an incorrect ranking.

It all depends on the resolution, but for most practical intents and purposes (assuming you're not playing at 1680 x 1050 with all low settings in all the games), the MBP's 128MB GDDR3 RAM is superior to Dell Vostro/Inspiron and Asus F8SV's 256MB DDR2 8600M GT. The DDR2 version for all the cards would take a harder performance hit when you enable AF and AA as compared to their GDDR3 brethrens.

Also, there's no such thing as "GDDR2" for video cards, it's simply DDR2.

@Alye: Sorry pal, but that's incorrectly reported by the OS. nVidia's TurboCache makes up the other 256MB, but the card itself is actually 256MB dedicated. My 256MB 8600M GT is also reported as having 512MB of VRAM even though it only has 256MB of DEDICATED VRAM.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=189393

When you are buying the Xplorer you're buying the same notebook as what this guy built. The ms-1719 is a fairly good build. I have not heard of overheating problems.

I went with cyberpower b/c you're still buying the ms-1719 and its cheaper than what I would buy from powernotebooks. Cyberpower screws up orders all the time and I have been hassling nonstop. I havent gotten it yet, but as long as you reassure that you are getting everything and pay close attention to your items you should be fine.

The MS-1719 got a good review, which is why I'm buying it. (I'm only a casual game, I mostly play cs:s and wow)

 

totally agree with triple_dude....

more VRAM doesn't necessarily mean it is faster card. larger VRAM means you could draw large textures on higher resolutions. however, more VRAM is always a welcome option.

e.g
- 8600M GT 256MB GDDR3 is much faster than 8600M GT 512 GDDR2
- 8600 GT 512MB GDDR2 maybe much effective than 256MB 8600M GT GDDR2 on some games

at the moment only a handful of games really require up to 512MB VRAM. most games are well on dedicated 256MB VRAM. what's important is faster VRAM. but like i said more VRAM is always a welcome option .

 

How does the:
128MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8400M GS

compare to the:
256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT

other than the differendce in MBs? Is 8600 GT worth an extra 100$ over 8400 GS?

 

The difference is you can play games on medium-high, instead of low.

 

Haha... Nicely put.

The different is simple:
With the 8600M GT, you are literally getting double the amount of stream processors, and thus around double the amount of processing power (not to mention, higher stock clocks).