How futureproof is 8600GT GDDR2?

Because I plan on using the laptop for 4-5 years, so if 8600GT GDDR2's not enough, would GDDR3 do the job?

 

About the same as the 8600 GS

 

In 5 years it wont really matter if its DDR2 or GDDR3 or SLI or whatever. No laptop is futureproof for 5 years. But I will be starting a 4 year Uni course soon and I went for the DDR2 if thats any help

 

Regardless of what latop you buy now, it'll be outdated in two years at the latest.

 

NO such thing as futureproof.. especially 4/5 years out... im also buying lappy for college, im gettin a very high end cuz i kno in 4 years it'll only be medium/low by then... Maybe you can go with the 8700 thats already out, if u didnt already order.

 

Another one of these questions. If you are wondering when the card won't meet the recommended requirements of most games you probably have 2-3 years and 1 further year before it won't meet minimum requirements. Whether any of that represents "playable" is your own opinion.

If you are wondering when the card will be technically outdated by MS standards, then it nearly is since the DX10.1 beta is out and no current GPU supports it.

 

^lol all that is good news for the OP.

I got the 8600M GT DDR2 and am enjoying it a great deal. Your Li-Ion battery will probably have a runtime of 1/2 hour in 4-5 years, I doubt you will want to still use that laptop for gaming.

 

How future proof? Easily no more than one year.

 

It is already obsolete.

 

very true

 

Well, let me clarify, my definition of futureproof is vastly different from yours.

The laptop I'm using right now has nVidia GeForce Go something 64Mb and I have 700Mb RAM on this beast. Still working alright for me, even though the specs are trash compared to today's standards. (Played WoW on lowest settings and still lagged occasionally, but I lived through that).

To me, that's futureproof because after this many years, it's still running and I'd still be using it if it weren't for the urge to "get a new laptop for university".

So, in your opinion, would a high end laptop today be able to at least hold up like my current laptop in 4-5 years?

 

For surfing the web? yes

 

So by future proof you basically mean how far into the future your machine will let you watch porn? I think you will be fine.

 

DX10.1 doesn't feature any new things, except the replacement of DirectSound by the X360's sound system, wich you'll need a DX10.1 soundcard anyway

The difference is that 4xAA & 32bit floating point are always on


In other word, games supporting DX10.1 will be X360's ports

 

By the time the 8600 GT cards can't run games, it will be because of things like shaders, so it won't really matter if you have the GDDR3 or the DDR2 as far as being future proof, but of course the GDDR3 will perform on higher settings until you reach that point. For me it's worth it knowing I'll have to turn the settings down a little more in future games vs. spending hundreds more on a laptop with the GDDR3 version over my inspiron.

 

build a desktop if you want to play dx10 games

 

Native DX10 games will run better on DX10 than DX9

 

If you want a futureproof laptop probably the best/only option is the Asus C91, which is upgradable, also in the video card. Then I would give it 5 years may be.

 

So true. A desktop is quite a bit more futureproof gaming wise.