Nvidia 8700M-GT discussion

so what are ur guesses on the 8800 cards? will they be 512 opposed to the 256 of the 8600 and 8700? how pricing and availability??

on the other hand, im pretty close to buying an ASUS g1s which has the 8600GT...ill be playin games like BF2, FEAR, CC3. do u guys think that that'll get worn out right away when they release the 8800 cards? hm...shoud i wait ??? cheers

 

thts exactly why i think the x205 isnt offered in WUXGA, just wsxga and wsxga+, its not a powerhouse like the 7950gtx, its till a mid range graphics card unlike the 8800 and those beyond it

 

Anyone know what kind of interface these cards in the Toshibas use.

I read on Clevo that it is MXM-IV for the M570RU.

 

if the Toshiba's 8700M GT is a modular design, then it has to be at least MXM-III

if the videocard is soldered onto the board, then its not not a modular design... making it not upgradeable.

 

Wait, so some laptops can be upgraded with the 8800 when it comes out?!

 

3dmark06 don't mean jack, 8600GT have higher 3dmark06 score than x1950pro but x1950pro outperforms the 8600GT in all but a few games.

same for the 8700M and 7950GTX, 7950GTX is pretty much a desktop 7950GT which outperforms the desktop 8600GT(8700M)

 

the 8800m will be 384 or 380 bit if following the desktop versions of 8800

all laptops with the 8800 will be 17 inch and the g1s is 15.4, so there is a sice factor to consider, but the 8800 should be a lot better than the 8700

 

The HD2900 Mobile will be interesting 65nm and 512 BIt

 

ok... when did this thread change?!?

LOL. Yet another thread for me to update. (thanks NBR gods) :twitcy:

 

So here's my situation and a question:

I'd love to wait for winter and get an 8800M, but I need a laptop for school in the fall which means I'm purchasing within the next couple weeks.

Now, I don't know anything specific about mobile card architecture, so I want to hear what you guys think about this: If I get a laptop that has a 8700M GT right now and is modular, do you think an eventual 8800M will be able to fit into that laptop? The 8800's for desktops are way chunkier, but for notebooks don't all the cards tend to be the same size? I can't imagine a big card being stuck into a notebook. It would be an extremely pricy upgrade, no doubt, but worth it (hopefully). AND if it is possible to upgrade it, would I be better to just get a 7950GTX for performance now and then upgrade to the 8800 later rather than upgrading from a 8700?

 

The best chances for future 8800M (or equivalent) upgrades is with:
- Clevo D900C/D901C (Sager 9260, Pro-Star 9191, etc...)
- Clevo M570RU (Sager 5790, Rock Xtreme 770, etc..)

 

I'm looking at the M570RU Divine-X from Eurocom... I'm assuming that means its like the same shell as the Clevo M570RU or something? So this would do? I've sent an e-mail to Eurocom with regards to the subject.

 

the 8800 would prolly be a 17" laptop card as stated. And many ppl agree with the idea to get the 7950s now and upgrade to the 8800s or wait till u need to, but in my eyes then your purchasing TWO high end cards, the 7950 now, and the future high-end card! im personally going with SLi 8700s in the D900 soon, i need it for college as well. I personally dont believe the 8700 is THAT far behind the 7950 or 8800 as many here seem to say, but thats just my opinion. going 8700 would save money and future work, unless one RELE thinks it won't even handle the DX10 games coming, meanwhile there was an article on just how stunning the 8700 handled Crysis!

 

Just imagine. When the 8800m comes out, if ever, where will you buy it from and do you imagine how much it would cost?

 

Yeah I think I've decided that I'll get the 8700 and MAYBE upgrade to the 8800 when/if it comes out. I'd be able to purchase it as an upgrade from Eurocom, assuming that they start selling laptops with the 8800.

As for Crysis looking 'stunning' on the 8700, that's really good to hear! Although I'm not particularily surprised, either, that DX10 cards play DX10 games better than they do DX9 games. Makes sense since it's all done completely differently. And I'm fully planning on purchasing Crysis like the day it comes out (hype! ) So maybe I won't even want to upgrade to the 8800 at all. We'll see. The only DX9 games I'm playing at the moment are World of Warcraft (I'm not too sure why I still am lol) and BF2142, which no doubt the 8700 can handle just fine compared to my crappy 9800Pro I have in my desktop right now.

The only thing that still erks me about the 8700 is the 128-bit memory interface.

 

Guys how does a HD 2600XT compare to an 8700GT?

 

I'm in the exact same position, dSquare. Interestingly enough I chose to go with the 7950, probably because I am, for the time being, only going to be playing DX9 games. (Related question: COD4 is going to have the option to choose between DX9 and 10 just as COD2 went between 7 and 9, right? If not, I'm in trouble...)

Anyway, as for that review of how swimmingly Crysis runs on the Toshiba, the author does mention frame rate stuttering. ( http://www.dignews.com/preview.php?story_id=24171) He also includes this somewhat ominous message at the end: "I cringe at the thought of the kind of machine that’ll be required to run it at a decent framerate. Hopefully when the game is released it’ll still be scalable enough that I’ll actually be able to play it on my PC."

I don't want to be a wet blanket, but considering the many reports I've heard of the 8 series being consummate underperformers on DX10 games, I'd be skeptical of becoming too excited yet.

I plan on keeping the 7950 for at least a year until all of the drivers and issues with the 8 series are taken care of and the 8800M is out. Hopefully then it should be a pretty simple upgrade.

Btw, if you look at those Crysis ss's, what the hell happened when they made the roads?? The trees look great, but the dirt roads look like goldeneye 64! ...or is that just me?

 

Well, Nvidia maybe somewhat hopeless, but what about ATI? What news on their cards?

 

Thats what I'm saying I want to know how this HD 2600XT stacks up to an 8700 before I jump the gun on this PC.

 

other than some of the DX10 performances, 2600XT is worse than 8600GT(talking about desktop versions)

 

ATI has gone wrong with their line of cards... they do not stack up well at all to the Nvidia cards.... especially the mobile cards.

 

you cant say that at this point, in the past yes they have, but they were not trying to directly compete with the top end cards, they were tryin to make cheaper mid range cards that performed more like a high end card for lower prices, and the majority of the market doesn not want to drop 400+ on a 7950gtx when they can have a card that does the same thing for less money, and even though 3dmark scores mean absolute **** in real world performance, the hd2600xt competes on par with a 7900gtx

 

well.. the new Pavillion HDX thats poppin out is deciding to go ATI and its said to be the beast of beasts... but i think theres a lil more hype going on, does look cool tho, thats off-topic...
back to topic, i think ATI MUST have to compete with nvidia soon to get back in the market, we'll prolly see the whole 2x00 series dropped throughout next year, and im willing to be they'll be competing with the 8900s nvidia will be droppin

 

I can confirm one thing for you, that you might not know.

The upcoming Unreal Engine 3 is not liking the new ATI cards...

Another important step to understand how amazing this game [and engine] will be with the PC Games Hardware interview of Tim Sweeny from Epic:

http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=571019

Synopsis:
Epic Games Forums have posted a thread translating an interview with Epic’s Tim Sweeney concerning Unreal Engine 3. Inside you will find interesting technical information regarding Unreal Engine 3 such as multi-core CPU support, DX10 support, lack of AA in DX9 but will support it in DX10, as well as some info that could possibly spell bad times ahead for the Radeon HD 2900 XT in Unreal Tournament 3 compared to the GeForce 8 series.

PCGH: How exactly are you utilizing the functions of Direct X 10?
Epic: Unreal Tournament 3 will ship with full DX10 support, with multi-sampling being the biggest visible benefit of the new graphics interface. Additionally, with DX10 under Vista we have the possibility to use the video memory more efficiently, to be able to display textures with a higher grade of detail as it would be possible with the DX9 path of Vista. Most effects of UT3 are more bound to the fillrate than to basic features like geometry processing. That's why DX10 has a great impact on performance, while we mostly forgo the integration of new features.

Of course, we will hold off judgments until we actually play the game, but on paper this bolded comment sure makes us think since ATI has concentrated on geometry performance over texture/fillrate performance with the R600.

 

According to 3DMark05 benchmarks the 8700M-GT and the HD 2600XT are very close.

 

i would really love if ati would step it up, competition between the two companies would finallly bring out some better deals and products for consumers, the fact that the 2600xt is supposed 2 compete with the 8600gt and is the same as a 8700gt is a good thing for ati

@gophn, would that explain ati having like 3 times as many shading processors as the nvidia cards as of late?

 

not really, look at some benchmark results.
in the desktop world, a 2600XT have trouble competing with a 8600GT let alone the 8600GTS

in the mobile world, a 8700M is pretty much identical to a desktop 8600GT, I would assume the mobile 2600XT would perform like the desktop 2600Pro.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3023&p=6

 

yes i gues you could assume that considering we dont really know, plus this isnt the desktop world

 

This link should help a few people on these forums.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

 

The desktop 8x00 cards are noticeably different from the mobile 8x00 cards as many posters in other treads have noted:

The desktop 8x00 cards have the specs listed here:
http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce8.html

While the 8600 and 8700 mobiles have the following specs:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8600M.html
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8700m.html

Meanwhile the ATI/AMD cards have the following specs:
desktop:
http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd2900/specs.html
http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd2600/specs.html

notebook:
http://ati.amd.com/products/mobilityradeonhd2600xt/specs.html

Based on the specs on those pages the the ATI mobile cards may be closer to their desktop counter parts than the Nvidia mobile cards are to the Nvidia desktop cards.

Unfortunately, it seems that no one who has posted on the forum has been able to get his/her hands on both a Nivida 8600/8700 and an ATI 2600 to compare the two in game, video, and visual performance using a statistically sound method. Probably stemming from the fact that so far the 2600 has only appeared in heavy (15-20lbs), and expensive ($3000-$5000) Dell and HP notebooks that are rare, and don't appear to appeal to the majority of people visiting the forum to seek out new notebooks. To further complicate matters a good comparison between the two would require the two systems to have similar specs (memory, HD speed, processor speeds, caches, and OSes) each of which could taint the findings.

Given all that it will probably be a while before we can draw any worthwhile conclusions between the Nvidia and ATI cards in mobile systems and which preform better in particular circumstances.

Edit: Based on Nick's post above the ATI 2600 XT appears to out preform the Nvidia 8600M GT. (Nice post Nick).

 

No problem. But let me point out that the 8700M on that graph is only 128meg, there is a more powerful 256 meg 8700M card.

Not to mention in 3dmark06 the 8700M out-performed ATI 2600 XT by quite a bit.

Also... notice how the 7950GTX is light-years ahead of both the 2600 and 8700.... If your a gamer like me and looking to purchase a laptop, isn't the bestchoice the 7950 GTX?

 

Yo I need someone to confirm this maybe is a typo error but if it is not then it is a 8700M GT on a 14" laptop
http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?h...q=Joybook+S41-K&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us

 

i was looking at just the 3d06 marks and noticed the 7950 beat he 8700 by 14 points!... thats rele not LIGHTyears ahead, the SLi's on the other hand are way up there. and i plan to get SLi 8700s in a DX10 game... that graphs shows the 7950 and 8700 are not THAT far apart. though i didnt understand why it was position number 18, dont the new 3dmarks show the power with the newer technology bein used?

 

7950 is far better in real game performances, 3dmark is not that accurate representation of real performance.

 

but is it FARR better than the 8700 in real DX10 game performances?, which is what Chaz would be testing with rite now on the toshiba.

 

well 7950 can't do DX10, and 8700M stinks at all DX10 games thats out(Call of Juarez, Lost Planet and Company of Heroes DX10 patch). As for future DX10 game performance,, you tell me

if you want to know how 8700M should/would perform in current DX10 games, goto
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3029&p=3
look at the performance of a 8600GT(8700M is pretty much equivalent to a 8600GT)

 

i think CHaz would disagree lol...
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=145438

 

Well I have my reasons to doubt that, I own a desktop 8600GT and I can tell you it's already starting to struggle with some of the newest games: Stalker(can't play at dynamic light or object dynamic lighting) and Lost Planet(mostly high settiings gets 20-24fps).
The thing is 8700M might be high end for laptop gaming, but it's mid-range in PC gaming as a whole.

But who knows, maybe Crysis will be a very optimized game.

Medium settings can still look stunning, I have difficult telling the difference between medium settings and max settings most of the time.

 

And where did you find real game benchmarks results for the 8700 laptop version compared to the 7950 laptop version?

 

Well, you have to be careful - Lost Planet is a horribly coded game - it is a port from the Xbox 360. I'm not sure about those other games you are referring to.

I didn't write that article on the 8700M-GT so I neither agree nor disagree.

Yes there is reason to doubt that - that article was promoted by Nvidia I believe.

I'll have some real gaming benchmarks for the 8700M-GT in my Toshiba Satellite X205 review to be posted this week.

Here are a few observations I've noted over the past few days.

I believe there may be a small performance difference between the 256MB and 512MB versions of the 8700M-GT. I got around 8700 or so in 3DMark05 with the 256MB version and with a 512MB Quadro FX 1600M (based on 8700M-GT) I got a bit over 9300. The notebooks were running a T7100 and a T7500 respectively. I'm not sure how much of that difference can be attributed to the different CPUs and possibly the different types of chips (GeForce vs. Quadro) but the difference is still there; 600 points or about 6.5%.

 

Here's my thoughts:

The 256bit vs 128bit memory bus data width comes into play at higher screen resolutions. Memory bandwidth is a critical bottle-neck for graphics, and higher screen resolutions == more pixels == more memory manipulations per frame. That is supported in the 3DMark06 tables at the beginning of this post. At the higher resolutions the 8700GT starts to fall behind.

The 7950 will never do DX10 -- Fact -- and I see many people trying to down-play that fact. I suspect the nay-sayers are folks who opted to buy a DX9 card instead of a DX10 and are trying to rationalize the decision. I've seen screenies of games in DX9 and DX10. The difference in shading is phenomenal. DX10 also supports more polygons.

If you want DX10, buy the 8700GT -- it's the best mobile DX10 GPU on the market right now -- period. If you can afford to wait, then wait. There's always something better on the horizon. In a couple years when all games are rocking with DX10, the 8700GT will be the low-dog because there will be better GPUs on the market.

I'm going to buy a laptop sometime in the next two months. I'm going to get the 8700GT because I want to experience DX10 in a couple years without buying a new laptop or an expensive MXM-HE card upgrade.

I like the M570RU, and actually the 8700GT is the reason I'm waiting a couple months. It should be here in August right? .

 

Yarrrrr... I can't stop second guessing.

I'm also going to be running design programs for school... for safety's sake should I just stick to XP Pro and the 7950GTX? I had wanted to get a TV tuner, with which I'd need Media Center right? That was another reason I was thinking of getting Vista and doing DX10... but I can live without TV; I haven't watched an actual TV in years. I was also considering vista because of draft-n wireless or whatever it's called, but everything at school is b/g anyway.

So, I guess XP Pro and 7950 would be my best bet eh? Better performance on the DX9 games I'm playing now, probably better performance and no doubt reliability for my design programs...

P.S. What's everyones opinions on Glossy screens vs Matte screens... I don't like the reflections on Glossy ones personally. I'm trying to decide between a 1920x1200 Glossy or a 1680x1050 Matte... I'd probably never need a resolution as high as 1920x1200 but I wonder sometimes.

 

go Kozi :yes:, im goin SLi 8700s in a few weeks, the D900, DX10 games will be optimized as well as vista and all those 7950s will be going back to their wallets to get the newer cards
as for dquare, if your doing design, i would probably go 7950 as well, as it is currently faster and more reliable (as in XP over vista), also there is already a thread matte vs glossy with a poll, i searched for it but i couldnt find it... its here tho

 

It's here now, actually. I'll be receiving my laptop equipped with one very soon.

 

Well I'm a DX10 nay sayer because I think 8700M is too weak for DX10 games. Actually all my video cards are DX10, my desktop uses a 8600GT and my laptop have a 8400 M GS.

Yeah 8700M is a high end laptop card, but its nothing more than a mid-range card when you look at the PC gaming industry as a whole. So far, even 8800 Ultra, X2900XT have trouble with DX10, let alone a 8700M. Sure DX10 games in the future might be further optimized, or it might get worse with increasingly better graphics. If the current trend continues, a 8700M or even 8700M SLI simply can't enjoy DX10 to its full potential.
I think theres a very good reason why Nvidia is planning to pump out the 8600GT replacement by the end of this year, thats only 5-7 month after the initial launch of the 8600GT series!
Fact: 8700M performs like a desktop 8600GT
Fact: 8600GT currently struggles with every DX10 game out there, and it struggles pretty badly
Fact: Go 7950GTX performs like a desktop 7950GT
Fact: Other than DX10 which obviously it can't do, 7950GT significantly outperforms the desktop 8600GT in every game out there.

Don't get me wrong, I think the 8600GT/8700M is a great card, I like mine and I don't regret getting it at all. I just think its not as future proof as you guys like to think.

 

yea.. much of this future stuff is speculation... :/ no one can rele say for sure wats gonna be able to do wat in the future, im just hoping that with SLi 8700s, i will at least be able to play these games on medium settings at an average resolution, nothing to big. but i got 4 years of college coming and im gonna need some gaming without having to worry about upgrades. again, in my opinion, cuz no one can say for real, Sli 8700s shud give me good fps without the bells and whistles... no?

 

heres the thing if you turn DX10 down to medium, I doubt it'll look any different from DX9.

 

w0rd... but i mean for future games that are DX10 only

 

PC microworks, get on my sli 8700s!

 

Also, the prices are great for what's being offered, really, and the blackhawk looks sleek.

Also, the rep was nice, and actually answered the question I asked through email(about SLI 8700s). Without browsing these forums, I never would have found this gem of a company. We'll see if the hype matches the product, when I eventually order a SLI 8700 solution.