Nvidia 8700M-GT discussion

yea... it SEEMs as tho im gonna go with them as well, altho avadirect had the D900 similarly configured for like a hundred less... we'll have to see wen all the companies update their configuration sites... remember to do comparison shopping and see if you can get deals over the fone, price matching, etc... tell them you may be taking your business elsewhere, hassle 'em down baby!

 

It's decided then, I'm gonna stick with the 7950GTX for now. And let's face it, DX10 games (ex. Crysis) played in DX9 mode STILL look 50x better than current DX9 games... The biggest difference is physics and some shaders.

 

8700M-GT performance benchmarks:
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3856

 

Cool - good to see after all the hype and doubts (in equal measures!) recently.

My quick take on those numbers - the 3dmark06 reported is identical to the Go7900GTX in a Dell XPS M1710, which is nothing to write home about seeing as this is a next-gen card, IMO. However, I was very interested to see the FPS of F.E.A.R with 2xAA and MAX settings (bar soft shadows) was 61. Granted, it's not stated whether the reported number is max, min or avg, but if it is average that is quite impressive - my Asus G1s' 8600M GT manages averages in the low-mid 30s with very similar resolution (the G1s' native), 2xAA and a few settings turned down to medium.

Here's hoping we see some more taxing game benchmarks to come from proud owners of this Toshiba - seems like you SHOULD be proud.

 

finally... took a peek, it doesnt quite have 5k benchmarks, but that rele doesnt matter cuz the real world testing puts many of the high-end games playable. the 128bit is still gonna be a big argument for 8700 nay-sayers, but this still doesnt change my mind about Sli 8700s... once i get it, maybe ill write my own lil review to see how it does

 

since when can u get 8700's in sli? that would be sweet!

 

since prolly the first week in august... meaning not quite yet lol

 

ahhh that would probably be why, im thinking two of those in sli would be the same or a little more than a 7950 gtx

 

hey wait a sec! can XP even run DX10? if it cant and vista doesnt recognize SLI then your in a pickle!

 

Both of these "issues" are being worked on at the moment.

The Vista w/ SLI front has been progressing very well... Nvidia's beta drivers have shown good success.

The XP w/ DX10 front is in the works, there are alpha releases of DX10 for XP through the Alky Project. And Microsoft just threw Nvidia (of whom was attempting to get DX10 to work) a bone by making "Memory Virtualization" optional for DX10 (which has been the main obstacle for XP from getting it).

 

umm... TWO 8700s will Def beat out ONE 7950. they're not THAT bad lol. its just SLi 7950s will be out Sli 8700s obviously. and yea as gophn said, Sli is beta in vista, so it does work at least.
to compare them, lets make 7950SLi a 10, 8700Sli would hopefully be an 8, a single 7950 a 6, and a single 8700 a 4.5/5... remember Sli doesnt double performance.

 

im glad their atleast trying to put DX10 in XP, that would be microsofts way of eventually getting everyone(who games) on vista

 

wait.. if they're trying to get DX10 on XP, how would that get ppl to move to vista? i don't rele think VIsta is THAT horribly bugged and slow that XP would be a MUCH better decision anyway

 

Either way, patience is a virtue. New stuff is almost always bugged to begin with in some way.Trying to run DX10 on the new (mid end) cards is going to cause alot of aggravation on people who are anal about their fps (like myself). stick with xp and run 7950's if the option is still there. Its just like a 64 bit OS- its great and all, but many games are not fully compatible with it. Stick with the high end reliables, and when the new stuff has been out awhile and has been worked through, jump to the new cards in SLI. Maybe by then microsoft/nvidia will finally release vista sli drivers for notebooks.

 

haha thats not what i meant, that would be something that microsoft would do though is what i was saying

 

sorry, wrong post

 

Hi there,
You are right.

Regarding synch. Benchmarks,
Don't you think that we are mixing pears and apples?
If we want compare 7 and 8 families we need a 3DMark07 o something like that.

 

Drivers mature, you´re waiting for a saviour here for a middle range cards, yes that is a middle range card in the desktop world. There won´t be any miracle driver that would boost performance by a lot. It is nice to have a laptop but I realized myself if I am going to play any games with all bell and whistles I need a killer desktop rig. So I have both, but doubt I will get any DX10 laptop yet until Nvidia released their high end DX10 card preferably the 8800m.

 

the desktop 8 series driver updates stopped improving performance for about 1/2 a year already. So I'm not counting on drivers to boost performance anymore.

 

Hey Doodles, did you ever get your D900 with SLI 8700GTs?

That's the exact configuration I'm thinking of as well with the 1920x1200 screen resolution. I need the high resolution for work. I want to game in native resolution and my gut is telling me that a single 8700GT is not going to cut 1920x1200 at 25+ FPS. So SLI 8700GTs for me too.

In my previous post a few weeks ago I wasn't pushing 8700GTs over 7950's. I was simply stating that 256-bit memory bus will really shine at higher resolutions, and the 8700GT is the best mobile GPU for DX10 today.

If you want DX10 and need to buy now then go with the 8700GTs... hands down that's your only option. If you're cool with DX9 then go with the 7950s.

The only other advantages I can think for going 8700's is reduced power consumption (can someone quote some numbers here?), so longer battery life and possibly less noise during operation.

 

Due to time constraints it was an absolute MUST i buy my system now... and so i did, i ordered and received the system in my sig (ONE 7950) in just 4 days... a record i'd say. Notice only one gfx card in a system that can fit two. I did this to save money cuz i kno that i rele want a DX10 card, so i struck an upgrade deal with the company, and will prolly wait till 8800s now... but i promise you the moment the 8800gtx's come out mid next year, ill have them in SLi... so.. no 8700s for me :/, even tho i still think the 8700 is not far behind the 7950 that much. i still recommend it if you have a single GPU system

 

Are there any 15.4" laptops with the 8700M GT?

 

no.... i believe its a 17" only card.

 

what company did you buy from? how did you make an upgrade deal? i'm going to get a 5790 with an 8700 and that would be cool if i could make some sort of upgrade deal to an 8800 when it comes out in january.

 

www.pcmicroworks.com is a VERY good company, which is where i got mine in 4 days. Wat they have is for 350$ its a 3 year warranty and you get upgrades where you can get trade-in credit for your old gpu, while only paying the WHOLEsale cost. You dont pay the 600$ retail cuz companies like these buy 100s at a cheaper price. It so happend that i wanted the 8700 but they didnt have it in yet, even tho they said they would. So we worked out an arrangement that gives them more of my business as well as satisfying me of course .... i HIGHLY recommend their speed and ease of working with.

 

thanks a lot!

 

if you do decide to talk/call them... and order, ask for "eric" and tell them "pete, the kid who wanted the 8700s" recommended you to them

 

You know, one thing that constantly depresses me about these kinds of forums is the constant negative feedback from butthurt naysayers, many of whom don't even own said piece of hardware and are simply reading reviews and concreting their opinion based off the fact they own X card (or in some cases don't even own it yet and are simply waiting for it to be shipped).

I can understand if you bought a 7950, you don't like thinking about an 8700M beating your card out, especially since its less expensive and more notebook-esque of a card. But seriously, don't come and trash talk a card just because you're defending your own purchasing ego. I see this on almost EVERY video card forum on every site on the net, and really, unless its one of the admins or reviewers, its like everyone just nitpicks and defends whatever card they have purchased, and tries to make other cards look shabby.

The first 4 pages of this thread was full of people with 7950's proclaiming doom for nvidia "looks like the 8700 is a failure" "nvidia continues with its dissapointing 8xxxx series" etc etc. How about we get some constructive discussion going (a la the last 5 pages) instead of making people second guess what theyve purchased (someone needs to buy these cards so we get an idea of their performance!)

The 8xxx series of cards have their own role to play- if you really don't think an 8700 is enough to game on a 17" lcd, youre kidding yourself. My friend owns a Sager with the 8700M in it, and while my 7950 defenitely performs better in principle, I wouldnt say that the disparity is enough to justify any kind of jealousy, let alone buying a different card. In fact, its hardly noticable, even at 1680X1050..

Fact is, I am going to have to upgrade my 7950 in the next 6 months, because DX10 is here. Chances are my friend will be able to survive with his 8700M for a year, and by that time we will probably both be buying a new card anyway.

 

I agree that much of the early criticism was unfounded, but you have to understand that what turned out to be the 8700M-GT was supposed to be (and is still marketed as) an enthusiast DX10 card, which it isn't, not really. It's a mid-range to performance card that certainly has it's place, it's just that that place is not at the top of the food chain like nVidia would have us believe. Read the stick on this, it has some great info.

 

Hello

I Agree with Solanthus

 

Well I agree with odin

The issue is not for people who are buying a laptop today and again in 6 months. The issue is when someone is going to dump a lot of money into a high end gaming laptop and can't afford another one for 3 years and they get stuck with the 8700m gt which nvidia claims to be the greatest card out - and like has been said it is not. It has it's place, but no need to put it higher than it should be.

 

well.. for those who buy into a 8700m today,
nvidia has to deliver what it promised to be unparalleled enthusiast DX10 card,
at least the expectation is that they will update the firmware/drivers to be so;

or else they will lose their trust and marketing edge going forward...

 

its a simple comparison...

7950 gtx: 5500 3dmarks06
8700m gt: 4700 3dmarks06

just like chess:
today 7950 is the king and 8700m is the queen
tomorrow 7950 will be the queen and 8800 will be the king, 8700 will be dead

 

Well...how can it be a simple comparison!
3dmarks06 doesn't even recognized the shader 4.0 model in 8700M GT.
It reported it wrongly as shader version 3.0.
n'ough said.

 

planet how about you read my comparison on the two cards, the 8700gt is not better. PERIOD. heres the link
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=171671

 

no, its a simple comparison... the shader 4.0 will never give the 800 marks to EQUAL a 7950...

And, if we compare this to GPU's in gamming we will see more fps in any res.

Im only saing that 8700 is the second best card for laptop... dont you agree?

 

Well...I am not saying 8700m is better or not than 7950.
Each as it's own merits.

As 8700m owners, we like to keep the nVidia promise alive....
so there will always be debates here or elsewhere....

The fact remains that 3dmarks06 is dated and does not recognize shader 4.0 in its benchmark,
nor does the existing comparison factors take into accounts the new not-so-linear execution pipelines of the "unified stream processors" of 8700M GT...
(Taking a note from history, starting with the GeForce 6 series, the #1 key factor of "pixel fill rate" no longer scaled linearly with overall card performance...)

And I know that for most 2D-application benchmarks, 8700M beats overall other mobile cards hands down...

 

as much as you may think that these new implications into this card will make a huge difference, it wont. say 3dmark 07 comes out....so what, 3dmark is stupid and ineffective way to compare graphics cards. the amount of memory being moved and textures being processed is more important than the shader operations right now. the 8700gt performs almost THREE times as many shader operations as the 7950gtx. it will peform better in shader intensive games but will never outperform the 7950gtx, especially with anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled.

it is a good card, but stop comapring 3dmark scores, they mean nothing, and its bus limits it huge, so it cannot perform to its full potential. now if it had a 256bit bus or better, it would destroy the 7950gtx.

 

Well agreed the benchmarks are not really effective.

I can't even digest the implications of the new nVidia 8x00 architecture...
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8700M_techbriefs.html
http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2870

And we prefer to keep the nVidia promise of 8700m alive,
as we can't say for SURE it won't make a difference in applications to come,
unless we all could digested the implications of the above fully.

 

That may be true from a current gaming perspective, but is definitely not true in general.

We can't say for sure what will happen in the future. It is entirely possible that when DX10 coding becomes highly optimized (like coding is currently extremely optimized for DX9 type cards), it is entirely possible that the 8700M-GT will be able to produce a higher quality image at the same framerate as the 7950, without having to move as much memory or process huge textures. I'm not saying this is necessarily likely, I'm saying that it's a possibility.

 

just curious, is there any specific reason why nvidia cut the the width of the bus from 256 bit to 128bit for their mobile version of cards?

 

oh i think your entirely correct, but notice how i said "right now". in the future the 8700gt should be able to create an image in directX 10 that may look alot better than in directX9, but at lower settings compared to max in directX9. see what im saying? and im sure what your saying is the way it should be moving.

the 8600gt and gts desktop cards are 128bit? there is no 8700 version for the desktop but im sure the next mobile model coming out will have a 256bit bus, or it should.

 

so it's pretty much just a marketing strategy for the mid-range cards...

 

not rele, although advertising the 8700gt with a dual rank 128bit bus was. it has no effect on performance but someone with no knowledge on the subject would think its a really big deal.

 

No one knows what it does or does not do...

The 8700 does better than the stats seem to indicate so who knows.

 

Well show us some benchmarks then, all I hear is the talk about how good performer the 8700GT is, but hey show some real benchmarks. I have read anandtech´s article and I can say I´m not impressed at all with the 8700GT according to those tests and with updated drivers too.

This card will never max out any DX10 title, it´s a midrange card DX10 card. The high end is named 8800 in the desktop world and should be the same for the laptop world in my opinion, but it isn´t so far. All we see is midrange DX10 cards.

 

I run MoH Airborne at 1280x800 with all in game video setting set to low to get fluid gameplay. You start turning up graphics settings, performance starts to drop. I can run it at 1680x1050 with everything set to low, but it chugs a little now and then, so I leave the res lower. 3dmark scores mean nothing to me... Also, BF2142 at 1680x1050 looks great and runs smooth at high settings... this is what matters. My Lost Planet test scores are 26fps snow, 35fps cave(I use this to test diff drivers 1280x800). I've tried a ton of different drivers, and ended up with 163.11 if anyone wants to save the trouble and time... I've got 4 gigs of memory, threw the swap file on the 2nd drive, disabled superfetch, indexing and other performance reducing services and this thing almost runs like a desktop. I've got the new Hitachi 200gig 7200 rpm drive on the way, I'll let you know how it works at the end of the week. A high end card, this is not and will never be, but it absolutely smokes the 7700 in my Asus G1.

 

Just for comparisons, I have a 7950GTX and I run MOH:Airborne at 1280x800 with all options maxed out and get around 25-50fps all the time.

 

What are you using to check your fps in MoH?

 

the 8700gt has 3 more gb/s bandwidth than the 8600gt GDDR3. It makes no difference, the only thing that does is the clocks, which in turn make the bandwidth higher.