First Nvidia Notebook DX10 cards

So, the Nvidia Go 8600 will be the first DX10 graphics card for the notebooks. It looks very interesting, but the lack of memory (only 256mb) dissapoints me. Isn't there a 512 mb version? Or a Go 8700 (if that even exists?)

I need your opinion on this... if there isn't a powerfull DX10 card for notebooks coming before august/september, i will go with single or 2 (in SLI) 7950GTX cards. Much more powerfull.... but i wan't the DX10 compatibility

 

I think that the 7950GTX will be a bit faster than a GO 8600. If i want a DX 10 card i want a much more faster card than i currently have.

 

If there isn't a 512MB version out, it can mean that it cannot take full advantage of the 512MB and will not make a real difference from the 256MB version.It can also be just a matter.(If you have waited this much, why not...)
And fill the FAQ (and post it in the "What laptop should I buy too).What are you hoping to get out of the laptop ? And how much are you going to pay ?

 

I got 2400 euros available for the notebook. Size of the notebook doesn't matter. It is mainly for gaming AND to use it at school.

 

There will be a 512mb version, but for notebooks that might be delayed a bit, I don't know. Do not fret too much, 256 is still ok, but it might be wise to wait anyway if you can...

8600gts, the upper mid-range card, is about the same or slightly better than the 7900gs. PC_pulsar is right in that the current high-end mobility cards will still outperform these, but they don't have DX10.

High-end dx10 mobility cards will be out around May/June timeframe, from both Nvidia and ATI (although the ATI release dates are a bit more uncertain). Those will be the G80M and G81M for nvidia (81m is released in fall actually), and the ATI will be M78.

 

Having more than 256MB of RAM on the Go 8600 is largely irrelevent. Even a desktop 7950GT can't use more than 256MB of VRAM and it is going to be much more powerful than the Go 8600. 512MB of VRAM is just a marketing feature for mid-range cards.

 

May/june? I can wait untill then ^^

 

While your statement has merit it is not quite true to what cards I was pointing out. Yes, some mid-range cards don't use it well, but to broaden out the G8xM varients, the 8600gts definitely can and will use 512mb. Like I mentioned its as good and a little better than the 7900gs and that certainly uses 512mb. 8300... probably not so much .

It also depends on your resolution, the higher you go (1680x1050 and above) it will definitely help.

So I guess what we're all saying here is that for these cards, yes it might help in the upper range, but don't fret on the memory over which one you get. If you can get a 512mb it will help if you're a hard-core gamer in the long-run, but if you're not, dont worry so much.

 

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gigabyte-foxconn-gf7950gt.html

Well you can read the above review. The conclusion is that the 7950GT doesn't benefit from 512MB of RAM and the 7950GT is more powerful than the 8600GTS and the 7900GS. In only 4 out of 19 tests does the 7950GT show any difference from more RAM and out of those 1 was at an unplayable resolution and the other was in a game that is known to be memory hungry due to an inefficient engine. In general, you would only benefit from 512MB of RAM if you are playing at super-high resolutions like 1920x1200, but something like the 7950GT or 8600GTS just don't have the processing power to crunch through it regardless of the amount of memory you have. The Go 8600 will of course be weaker than all of the above so more memory will be even less relevent.

 

Yep, I believe that's basically what I said in my response, although you're exaggerating a bit simplistically in the numerical crunching, yes it can. An 8600gts can do 1920x1200 in a lot of games, but it will depend on which games, and 512mb is where that will help as those benchmarks show. You have to be careful on some of these reviews, it depends on what they are running. 512mb is clearly not that important as we've been discussing, but there are definitely situations where it can be. It's all about that potential.

Oblivion will start to have problems for instance, but, with its dx10 and shader power it won't be as bad as say a dx9 equivalent. Remember that I am focusing on the higher end mid-range... those are the cards that'll give a hoot about 512mb at all. You're definitely right that any of the lower mid-range will be a waste all around.

I have a 7900gtx for instance and I can definitely tell the difference from 256 to 512, its very clear. That card should be higher performing than the 8600gts, but not by much.

Yeah, it should be interesting what the go is clocked at... that definitely won't help .

 

I'm almost sure that extra 256MB will help in some certain games. For example FEAR: i have only 256MB, when i put 4x AA on i get very low fps but when i lower it to 2x AA i get almost twice as much fps. That's a big gab, so i think it's because of only 256Mb. (i play at 1440*900)

 

Well I don't know about shader power. The 8600GTS is actually pretty weak shader-wise. It's pixel shader performance is below that of a X1950Pro. 32 scalar processors are really only the equivalent of 8 vector shaders. Granted it's clocked very high, but the peak performance regardless is below 32 PS. Synthetic tests of vertex shaders gives the 8600GTS great performance, but thats mainly because the unified architecture can devote all 32 stream processors to vertex tasks. It's really too bad that nVidia didn't include 48 or 64 stream processors as was originally rumoured.

 

Yeah, but wouldn't that have possibly inflated the chip size too much if they had? That might be why.

 

This will be an architectural failure.The main reason that people want to switch to DX10 is better visual effects.And visual effects rely heavily on the Shaders.

 

Yes, it's interesting that while the 8600 is lacking in raw shader power, it has an exorbinant amount of good old texture power at 16 TMUs. nVidia has been better than ATI at texturing for a while, a consequence of ATI's 3:1 PS to TMU ratio, so I guess nVidia is going to continue to rub it in. While the 8600 does seem to lack raw shader power, it does seem to produce better results in newer games so things might look up as new games are released even if they aren't DX10. Hopefully, driver updates will improve the performance for the rest of the DX9 games.

It's also possible that the current G86 and G84 are just stop-gap chips. They are built on a 80nm process and nVidia is going to move to 65nm soon. That will probably be their fall refresh response to ATI's upcoming 65nm mainstream chips.

 

whats really limiting the 8600 is that goddamned 128 bit memory bus

i mean COMMON NVIDIA

what were you THINKING?!?!?!?!

i think you'd see a much bigger performance gain by going from 128bit to 256 then from 256mb vram to 512 vram

the 8600 can't efficiently use that much imo

 

512 MB is an awful lot for a GPU. For a mid-range GPU, 256MB sounds fair. Yes, you'll sometimes lose some performance (but generally only at very high settings, where you won't usually use a *mid range* card), but RAM is one of the major expenses on a GPU, so only on high-end cards would it make sense to put that much.

 

I'll tell you what they were THINKING!!!!!!

They were THINKING!!!!!!!!!! "We need to be able to sell this card a lot cheaper than the 8800 GTS. So we need to cut some corners".
Would you rather they made a 8600 that was identical in cost and performance to the 8800? What would be the point in that?

Not quite. 32 scalar processors are a lot more efficient than 8 vector ones. That's why NVidia switched to using them. Yes, the *theoretical* performance is the same (or would be if they were clocked the same), but real-world performance will be *a lot* better with the scalar processors.
And of course, then comes the clockspeed difference.

 

but common, even the x1950pro has 256 bit interface ( at a lower price point and almost if not equal performance)

the 8800gts had 320 bit which is a lot more then 128