from 7600go to a 8400m gs ? will I be sorry?

I have an A8JM with 7600go 512mb. This card has been great for me playing cod4, bf2, hf2 etc..no complaints. I am thinking about getting a XPS1330 in the future with 8400m gs 128mb. Will I be able to play my games at same quality or will I have to lower all my settings on my games. All games run on or near max as it is now. I searched and read but 3dmark06 score numbers mean nothing to me as one far as couple hundred points. Someone please inform me.thanks

 

You will definitely see a large decrease in frame rates compared to a 7600 go if you switch to a 8400 GS. You will probably need to lower the resolution and set the textures to medium if not low or minimal. While it may play DX10 games, many need to be tweaked to minimal settings to even be playable. If you are concerned about gaming, I would recommend the Xps 1530 as it has an 8600GT which is the successor of the 7600 and it is on sale at the dell website (700$ or so off). While not as portable, you have much more gaming power.

 

Actually, I suspect the difference between the two won't be as great as you think. While the Go 7600 is definitely the more powerful of the two overall, the 128MB 8400M GS is nothing to sneeze at either.

This review should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of performance you should expect.

 

For your sake don't do this or you'll have a large decrease of performance...consider also that 7600 go run on xp and 8400 on vista that slows games...better choice is >= 8600gt

 

My 8400M GS runs just fine in XP

 

No one says it's a bad card,simply 7600go is powerful

 

You should be able to keep the current settings (depending on the game) and maybe a little speed boost but not much. The 8400M GS is newer technology and has more shader power than the 7600 Go but its on a 64-bit interface.

I noticed slightly better speed in shader intensive games like Rainbow Six Vegas, Oblivion, Need for speed Pro Street and Jericho. Mind you i was running the 7600 Go in Vista (167.43 drivers) and the 8400M GS in XP (169.04). Maybe not the best example since you will be running the cards on OS`s the other way round.

Althrough everyone say you should go for a 8600GT etc you won`t find higher than a 8400M GS in a 13.3 inch laptop so the 8400M GS should be ok if you want something just to replace the 7600 Go in 13.3 inch laptop.

You can check both specs from GPU-Z screenshot below. Bit of a drop in some areas.

 

A test like that means anything cause different os means different framerates in real games...

Let see some real benchmark and comparison based on comparing real world games

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Grafic-Cards.130.0.html

Find the go7600 and the 8400gs...

 

I'll agree with Pulp - the difference between the chips is not going to be significant. You're certainly not upgrading by going to the 8400M-GS, but I imagine you will be able to play all of the games you play right now are similar or slightly reduced settings. If I were you, I'd keep what you have right now. For a nice boost in performance, look for the ATI HD 2600 or the Nvidia 8600M-GT.

 

Well, at higher resolutions(1024x768 and up) the 7600, because of its superior bandwith, will certainly be better. But if you don't mind playing at 800x600,where bandwith is not a limiting factor, the 8400m gs would be similar.

 

I seen some oc 8400 not far behind the 7600go. Mine is stock so if I was to over clock the card maybe it would be the same? can you notice couple hundred points in 3dmark06?

 

Yes, those "few" houndred points translate in frames per second in real life. The more, the better. Even so, I would doubt that a 13inch lappy could get a more powerful card then the 8400GS, it`s still ok for gaming. Maybe if you could find a 8400GT version or 8600GT in a 1520 for example.Will get you lower than 1k $.

 

Honestly if i were in the market for a notebook right now i would jump on that XPS 1530 deal, thats crazy.

 

This is actually a really good point, on shader intensive games, the 8 series architecture just blows the hell by hardware that should be substantially more powerful than it otherwise. For example, the 8600GT on the desktop murders the 7900GS in games like Oblivion and Rainbow Six Vegas. The Go 7600 is powerful, but let's not overstate it.

As for Vista and XP, I'm actually a little tired of this comparison. I've found in my experience that with modern drivers - especially from nVidia - performance is within a couple fps of each other. It's not worth quibbling over anymore, either one is fine.

 

Boom...a 8600gt > 7900gs very funny

Take a look at this comparison between 7900gs OC and a 8600gts >> 8600 gt

http://www.neoseeker.com/resourcelink.html?rid=138149

"While the 8600 GTS does offer a few unique features that are not found on these two older graphics cards, it can’t compete with them performance wise and this is what the majority of gamers are going to be looking at. There was not one game that the 8600 GTS was able to defeat the 7900 GS in and honestly we do not find this the least bit surprising."

 

Pulp i read your post too fast sorry...you are saying that 8600gt is > 7900gs on some games that use a lot of shader,i was wrong