No love for the 9700m GTS

I don't hear much about this card, I guess cause everyone has the 9800m gts that came with the gateway p7811fx, so it's all the rage right now, but my understanding is that the 9700m gts is the newest build in the 9 series mobile line and that the 9600s and 9800s are just older cards overclocked and renamed.

So how much potential does this 9700m gts have? I've tried laptopvid2go drivers on it but it doesn't seem as forgiving as the 8 m series in using desktop drivers since it downclocks badly when gaming on battery.

I'm on the 3rd official manufacturer graphics driver release (176.39) and each one seems to be more optimized, although with the laptopvid2go driver (178.13) I get a huge jump in 3dmark6 bench. Can someone suggest a good driver that won't downclock this card, thanks.

 

i also would like to know if its worth going from 9700 GT to 9800 GS for $350, specifically talking about Asus G50Vm-X1 and G50Vt-X1

 

This is the 9700M GTS which is much more powerful than the 9700M GT. I have the 9700M GTS in my Toshiba F55 and have done some OC with the stock drivers that it came with, and I was able to get over 10K in 3DMark2006 with a X9100 CPU and at 1024 x 800 resolution, which may not seem much to some people. This card really OC very well in my opinion. I will try to post the results when I have time. Hope this helps. God Bless

 

9800 = 256bit interface
9700 = 128bit interface
9800>9700 for a ton of reasons

 

my understanding is the 9700M GTS is 256bit

 

so its worth extra $350?
because right now i can get g50vm-x1 with 9700 gt for $900, and g50vt-x1 with 9800 gs for $1250.

is it worth the jump?
what if i just want medium setting crysis?

 

Here are the specs. Judge for yourself. And yes, the 9700 GTS has 256-bit interface. my bad. (too early in the morning)

9700M GT
32 shaders
625MHz core clock
1,550MHz shader clock
128-bit Memory interface
800MHz memory clock

(my bad)
9700M GTS
48shaders
530MHz core clock
1,325MHz shader clock
256-bit Memory interface
800MHz memory clock


9800M GTS
64 shaders
600MHz core clock
1,500MHz shader clock
256-bit Memory interface
800MHz memory clock

 

I would spend the extra $300 and get the 9800M GS. Now if the G50VM-X1 came with a 9700M GTS instead, I would just say to get that, but it does not. Again just my opinion. God Bless

 

Didn't even know there was a 9700 lol. I would also fork over the $350 but that's just me.

 

Hi!

You probably haven't heard much about this card because there probably isn't any of them in the hands of consumers. It seems in the past week Nvidia has released some refreshes (a.k.a. same old products with new clock speeds) which we are now just finding out about. We've just begun discussion on the 9800M GS and it's safe to assume we're going to be looking into the 9700M GTS.

 

So since the 9700M GTS isn't an overclocked rehash of an older product, will this new technology have some unseen potential that the other 9x00 series cards won't be able to do?

 

nope and its worse than the 9800

 

I wish i had a 9700GTS. I love brand new, untapped cards. It's too bad you can't get one in the either notebook you're looking at, because it blows the 97GT away, and it even appears to be more powerful than the gimped 9800GS.

 

I have the Toshiba x305 q701 it comes with the 9700M GTS.

 

Are you saying that the potential of the 9700M GTS is not as good as the 9800 series ?? I know that it is a bit slower, but it does have much potential when OC to be as good as a stock 9800M GTS or GT. That is what I have experienced. God Bless

 

I'm willing to bet the 9700 GTS is a gimped and under-clocked 9800.

Laptops don't really facilitate OC's like desktops; you have no control over temperatures in a laptop. Chances are, the laptop manufacturers went with a gimped 9800 because one running at normal operations was overheating like crazy.

 

there is shader processors difference, not just clocks, dont forget that.. 9800mGTS has 64 while 9700GTS has 48, while the 9800gt has 96 SPs!

 

yeah I know the number of shaders is significant to performance, but what is the difference if any with the 9700M gts not being a refresh of an older model with higher clocks? Is this the only card that doesn't downclock when unplugged?

 

The Asus G50 has a 9700m GT - this is a G96 based part

The Asus G50Vt has a 9800m GS - this is a G94 based part.

If games are important to you, yes the G50Vt is worth the extra money.

 

There's two things that matter in a graphics card: 1). Number of Shaders 2). Memory bandwidth. Clock speeds don't matter, because they are mostly software dependent (you can OC your graphics card, but you can never add more shaders). The 9700M GTS has 48 shaders and a 256-bit memory bus. The 9800M GS supposedly has 64 shaders and a 256-bit memory bus. The difference is that it is underclocked, but you can always try to OC it to higher clock speeds, you just need to get a laptop cooler.

 

Hey jacob, what's the resolution of your screen? Can you run 3dmark06 @ 1280x1024?

The 9800gs scores ~7680 @ 1280x1024.

 

well i also have a toshiba, but its an x300. it has a 9700M GTS.

i havent tried 3dmark or overclocking yet. the resolution is 1440x900 max, and i can hook it up to an external for 1680x1050.

and im just wondering, because my laptop can support 2 9800M GTX's in SLI, is there no fear in overheating of the 9700M GTS. also, will it reduce the life?

ps: max gpu temp is 65 in games, and on my custom cooler, it reaches a max of 50 degrees. - there is ALOT of room in the laptop.

also, can i get some advice on overclocking? i have no idea how to, and how to do it safely. is it possible to just switch it on and off, say when im at home on my cooler, overclock it and i can switch it off when i go out?? or is it safe with the temps.

ps again, im downloading 3d06

 

ok my score with 176.18 (2nd official release from Toshiba) is 7294 at 1280x800 and with the 178.13 laptopvid2go driver I got 7343 at 1280x854. I have the 3dm6 basic version (free one) so it defaults to those resolutions. Right now I'm running the newest release from Toshiba 176.39 which I believe was 7310. It was deleted cause all my slots were filled.

But having said this, I don't really believe in what those numbers say and just use it as a reference point to compare previous x305 benchmarks because with my Toshiba X205sli1 the highest I scored was 7575 on 3dmark06 but when I play my games and compare the dual 8600m gt's against the single 9700m gts the 9700m gts consistently outperforms the dual 8600m gt's in higher framerates and added special effects, also no more stuttering in Gears of War or modern games with high detail textures. I guess 256 bit compared to 128 is very significant, since each generation of game consoles double the last one. 8 bit to 16 bit to 32 bit etc.

But yeah I'm really tempted to use another graphics driver since it did boost my performance. I'm just afraid using an unofficial one will downclock on battery.

 

another person in the toshiba forums overclocked his system, with a 9700M GTS and a p7350@ 2.0ghz, got around 8400 3d06 score.

 

Maybe that was E-wrecked. Right now I don't really want to overclock the best and safest way would be optimized drivers I would think.

 

Did he post his temps or did his thermometer blow up?

 

lol, not sure but yeah he really tapped into the power. Anyway just to update everyone I finally built up the courage and did install Dox's 178.24 vista64 driver on my x305 q701 with the 9700m GTS. And first thing I did was to test if it would downclock and lose performance gaming on battery. It does not downclock and I can game full performance on battery. I also have a 200 pt. increase in 3dm6. The only thing I did differently was not run driver sweeper. So now I'm assuming when I run driver sweeper it get's rid of some important registry settings that allows the notebook to game on battery without losing performance. I'm happy now. Thank you Dox and your customized 178.24 driver.

 

Where can I get Dox's 178.24 driver ?? I would like to try it also and see if it improves upon my 3Dmark2006 score for my 9700M GTS. Let me know where. God Bless

 

www.laptopvideo2go.com!

 

Here's the link http://laptopvideo2go.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=21250 All I did was uninstall the Toshiba driver> reboot> then extract and install Dox's 178.24. I think if you run driver sweeper you'll lose your ability to game on battery and it'll downclock, maybe because it'll remove important registry settings, although I'm just assuming because of my last experience upgrading. Create restore point before updating though incase it downclocks. God Bless.