M1730, 8700GT are 256 or 512MB?

Can someone please tell me how much RAM the 8700GT's have on the Dell XPS M1730? You would think it would tell you on the website but it states 256MB, but shows them as "8700 GS" and the options for the laptop show GT but do not say the memory size......

I'm having a hard time believing that their top end laptop would only include 256MB per card but i guess its possible. Anyone confirm for me? Thanks.

 

I think all 8700 are 512mb

 

256mb is about all you need for the 8700M-GT, since it's bottleneck is in memory bandwith.

 

Not as much as on DDR2. There will still be an increase over a 256MB 8700GT

 

There is no DDR2 8700M-GT, so I'm not sure what you're referring to. And yes, the 512mb version will perform better, bu the increase should be minimal, not really worth worrying about. The 8700M-GT simply does not have the bandwith or fillrate to utilize 512mb of memory.

 

why get a m1730 in the first place? overpriced and horrible looking. besides as odin243 said, the 128bit bus width can't take advantage of the memory too well. wait for the 8800

 

and the m1730 uses two 256mb 8700m gt...to answer the question. i actually went on dell chat for that.

 

I did exactly what ShinAkuma135 did and got exactly the same answer.

Moreover: the following comment was, "don't you think 512mb is enough?!"
My answer: For that price, it should have twice as much.

 

Ok... hmmm. Well thanks for the info.

In response, the 8800M is out.... when? because i cant find any answers to that and the best ive heard is "next year maybe". I cant hang around forever :/

Also, the XPS is a pretty good system from what ive seen. I mean ive gone to alienware and rock, and it seems amoung the best gaming systems i can find *i live in the UK*. The physics card is also a nice bonus for some games, its better to have it and not use it than not have it and want it XD but i was hoping those SLI's were 1GB in total. Im aware of the 128-bit status of the 8700 but its still slightly disapointing.

The Xtreme 770 is looking a bit more appealing now. Alienware systems do not appear to be using the 800Mhz FSB which puts me off slightly, since the other systems ive seen do, and Alienware is not exactly a "cheap" brand.

 

specially since the sli don't really doubles the memory, lots of things are duplicated, makes sense to get 2 8700gt with 512mb each, makes more sense than getting a single 512 over a single 256

 

Serious Dream Machine Desktop Replacement

Man, I'd love to run this system in 64-bit with 4GB of RAM in Vista Ultimate.
These kinds of systems are starting to mess with the limits of 32-bit operating systems.

Gah. Talk about DX10 performance.

Can you imagine running 2 SSD drives at the same time? One for the OS and one for your games? Slam down that 2.8GHz processor, 4GB of RAM, SLI 8700m and you are in gaming goodness.

What is with Dell being the cutting edge hardcore nut-jobs? Physics card in a laptop? Talk about decadent! I'd expect this from Voodoo (HP), Alienware, FalconNW... but come on... DELL?

Seriously. I guess I should've expected the mainstream guys were getting into gaming when I bought my MBP. Someone remind me again how this thing can handle an 8600m GT?

*goes off to play BioShock*


--not upgrading till he gets an octal-core, quantum processor running on a lemon battery--

 

Yeah, everyone needs to remember that two SLI'd 8700M-GT's in the M1730 still only has 256mb of total dedicated video memory, NOT 512mb (so if the Dell rep told you that, they were wrong).

 

This is the thing, any game that has no support for SLI is going to use a single 8700 GT with 256MB of RAM. That's got to hurt performance not help it.

I read somewhere that Dell worked with the devs of Bioshock to make the system able to run the most anticipated games very well.... so perhaps its not as important. Still id like to see some benchmarks for Bioshock on the M1730.

 

Actually, SLI will help in all games. Even if they don't have native support, you can create a custom nVidia SLI profile for them to force the use of both cards.