ddr2 or ddr3

i wanted to know that how can you tell the diference between the 8600gt ddr2 or ddr3 cause i was thinking of buying a insperion 1520 and it just says 8600gt 256mb
thanks

 

All 8600GT cards advertised are DDR2 memory except those on the G1S/G2S, Macbook Pro and Sony AR48C. The thinkpad 61p has an identical professional card but it's clocked lower. The notebooks I've listed have GDDR3 video memory.

 

The DDR2 one has about 2/3 the power of the GDDR3 one

 

in practical terms what would be the difference between the two

 

GDDR3 cards are far better at running the latest games at higher resolutions with eye candy turned on. I recommend you do a search of this forum since masterchef did a comparison between the 8600GT variants.

 

at stock clocks a ddr3 cards will give you a 15 -20% improvement

 

As mentioned the complete list is:

Macbook Pro 15.4" and 17"
ASUS G1s
ASUS G2s
ASUS C90s
T61p workstation
HP Compaq 8510w workstation

Is the Sony AR48C included as well? I never heard of it, but cool

 

>.> what do you mean it comes clocked 475/700

 

DDR3 can just run faster at cooler temperatures.

GDDR3 8600m GT cards have stock speeds of GPU 475 MHz / Memory 700 MHz compared with GPU 475 MHz / 400 MHz for DDR2.

With my DDR2 8600m GT, I was able to O/C my GPU to 590 MHz (from 475)and Memory to 490 MHz (from 400) and achieve a significantly higher 3DMark score (4000) than a stock clocked GDDR3 card (3400). Mainly due to the fast GPU clock. Stock DDR2 8600m GT is about a 3100 3DMark06 score, hardly a noticeable difference anyways.

 

Higher resolutions not necessarily, that is more limited to the bandwidth, which is the same, 128bit, regardless of memory type. Basically it will be able to produce slightly better framerates since it can feed the GPU more quickly.

 

just a quick question: are u guys not tired of posting the same stuff all over again? i guess, it's a good way to increase the post count (yeah, my message does add 1 more post to me lol ). is there not a sticky on this subject yet? oh, i forgot, people never seem to read em anyway....why bother

 

Actually, 128-bit is the bus width, not the bandwith. The bandwith is found by multiplying the bus width (in bytes) with the effective memory clock speed, so having a higher memory clock speed will indeed mean having a larger memory bandwith, i.e. it can handle higher resolutions better.

 

Sorry, yes, I meant the "bus width" - was in hurry this morning.

Because it is faster speed it can handle higher resoltuions better, but not the same as if you had a fatter bus width.

 

Actually the neither the bus width or the memory clock speed mean anything on their own. Two cards that have the same core, one with a 256-bit bus width an 800MHz memory and the second with a 128-bit bus width and 1600MHz memory, will perform identically. A small bus width can be made up for by a high memory clock speed, and vice versa.

 

well isnt that interesting? i had no idea odin.

 

I've seen it and it's heavy since it's 17". Other than the graphics card I find little to go for since it's limited to 2Gb RAM max unlike other laptops with a 4Gb limit. Here's a link: http://www.sonystyle.com.cn/vaio/vaio_home_new.asp and look here for the video card memory: http://product.pconline.com.cn/notebook/sony/190589_detail.html#apitem

I don't think the North American market has updated their model yet. I'm sure it will since this is the first time I've seen my region get a more advanced version of the same laptop before the North American region.