Will a 8600GT 512 MB DDR2 last me 3 good years?

Currently I have a V6Va with an ATI x700 which I bought 2 years ago, and it really is showing its age as I have to play games like Tabula Rasa on low settings, plus it gets really really hot. So that I can play some of the games coming up, I guess I'm going to get a new laptop but this time I want it to be able to game well for three years.

Now I want to order a V1S with the above mentioned graphics card. Do you think this card will be good enough to run games (I mostly play MMORPG and RTS games, rarely ever shooters - I plan to play Age of Conan, Guild Wars 2, etc.) in the next three years, on at least medium settings? If not, then I might get a C90 since it has upgradable GPU and I don't want to feel like I need a new laptop in two years again, but the C90 has its own drawbacks such as lack of portability and too much heat, plus I want a replacement for my V6Va not a desktop replacement.

Basically, next time I buy a laptop, I want it to be three to four years from now, not one to two years from now, and it seems the only factor in this is the GPU. So, will the 8600GT be enough? What do you think? I know you can't know for sure, but an educated response is good enough...

 

Well, think backwards a few years. How does a Go 6600 or a FX 5xxx card run today's games?

 

Personally i would Go with the Asus C90, although the portability is an issue i hear the heat is not to much... OR go with the Clevo M570RU, which is also upgradable!

 

Yea that's what I was thinking, but then again notebook cards are catching up to desktop cards, no?

The x700 that I have was the standard card for midweight gaming notebooks until the x1600 came out, and that was a double improvement over the x700. When I got my V6Va, I knew that the x700 was a rather weak card, probably equal to a desktop 9800 pro which was released about 3 years before I bought my V6Va. I am sure the 8600GT is much better than any card released three years ago...or I hope it is...

 

dude, seriously, for the next 3 years...you'll be fine. especially on medium settings you should be good to go. all this hype about the most powerful graphic card/need to upgrade is really just overrated. i mean look at it this way...Oblivion is a recent game but an ATI 9550 will still run it on low...and that was like what? 2000 years ago or something. 8600m gt (see if you can get GDDR 3 w/512) should be plenty good for medium settings. How do i know about the 9550? because i have a computer that has that and yes i have oblivion on it.

 

Of course the 8600m GT is better than 3 year old cards. But it'll suffer the same fate of any other GPU.

 

true the card is better than a card 3 years ago lol.....i would recommend either the 8700mGT DDR3 512mb or 7950GTX DDR3 512Mb, and leave yourself open for upgrades soon the appear. The Asus And Clevo are the only 2 module models i know of. i was comparing non module vs. module it it is usually about $200 more which in the long run is a good investmentQ!

 

Or go with Acer Aspire 5920G.It have MXM2 type 8600M GT card.It's upgradable and price is low(Extended 3 yr care cost extra $129)

 

Although its only MXM2 Where as the Clevo is MXMIV if im correct...this gives a better chance for upgrades, with the higher MXM's supporting more wattage and size!

 

i thought there was virtually no performance difference between the 256mb and 512mb versions of the ddr2 8600m gt because of the 128bit bottleneck?

 

you know...in all honesty i think with a bit of tweaking nvidia should be able to fit a 8700m gt into a mxm 2....

 

There isn't, but then again, no one said there was...

 

possibly they could tweak it and make it work but they wont....with a new card coming out sometime in the future, they would see no reason to take a step back when they can make a new card thats supperior and they can charge more for it!

its all about money! not the people!

 

i used to have a mobility 9700 card until this september, i know, it wasn't a mid-range card, but i still managed to play most games on medium settings(1024*768 res) with 1 gb of ram

 

And you base this on what exactly? On the fact they have to route a 256 bit bus instead of a 128? On the fact that their starting point is a 100W+ processor?

 

It'll definitely last you a good 3 years. Even the 256MB version will... Why? There's no performance difference between the 256MB and the 512MB on a card with such a small bandwidth (only 128bit bus) and low shading power [as compared to higher end desktop cards].

That said, it'll definitely run games on low res + medium settings for a good 2 to 3 years. Hell, my X200 could still play games that came out earlier this year on all low settings (FEAR even ran fine with low settings at 640x 480).

If all else fails, you can add a few revitalizing juices into your 8600M GT by OC'ing it later down the line (just make sure you clean out the dust clutter before you do any OC'ing on older notebooks! Otherwise prepare for overheating!)

By the way, the 8600M GT will rip through Guild Wars with all high settings (minus AA and AF), so if those games are mainly what you play, you have very little to worry about .

 

8700m is 128bus...besides even though you obviously didn't get the sarcasm, I'm pretty sure nvidia's engineers are paid well enough to figure something out. If notebook companies can fit a quad core desktop CPU in their machines then why would there be any doubts that the same could possibly be done for GPUs?

 

besides, the only reason they can't put the current 8700m in a mxm 2 is because most mxm 2's are 15in or less and don't have adequate cooling, nor room. However, with a better die fabrication they probably could make it mxm2.

 

Yeah; they should just shrink it to 18nm and get it over with.

Seriously, you sound just like most marketing guys and program managers I know. The only way to keep them and you satisfied is when you have a big supply of fairy dust.

 

Great recommendation!!! Just pick the fastest DX10 card and the fastest DX9 card.

 

ummm...no actually if they could do with 65nm they should be able to. but then there's always that heat thing. what's the fairy dust thing about? i'm just saying nvidia could try...not pointing a gun at their heads or yours and forcing you to. chill out man.