nVidia GeForce 8600M GS vs. GT

Folks:
I'm looking into buying a mid-range (<$1500) notebook to do:

1. intensive graphics applications such as 3D visualization + animations, 3D CAD designs, video editing, image processing, and the likes - NO GAMES though I need photo-realism and up to 30 fps no flicker animations for 3D visualization of models
2. medium-scale mathematical computations such as molecular modeling, numerical analysis, etc.
3. dual operating systems - Windows and Linux

I have short-listed 2 machines with the following specs:
Dell Vostro 1700

• CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
• LCD: 17" WXGA+
• RAM: 3GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM
• GPU: 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8600M GT
• HDD: 160G 5400RPM SATA
• Battery: 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion

HP DV9543CL

• CPU: Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 800MHz FSB)
• LCD: 17" WXGA+
• RAM: 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz, 2 DIMM
• GPU: 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® 8600M GS (up to 1023MB including shared memory)
• HDD: 320GB (5,400RPM) SATA dual hard drive (160GB x 2)
• Battery: 8-cell Lithium Ion

I plan to nuke Vista and make it double-boot with XP2 Pro and openSUSE 10.2 Linux.
Main differences in two machines that matter to me are RAM, GPU, HDD, and any differences in chipset (I'm not aware). Questions for this forum are:

1. Since 3D visualization and animation are most important for me, how much difference is there between nVidia's 8600M GS and GT cards, i.e., how are extra 8 stream processors in GT going to affect my performance requirements?
2. Does an extra 1GB RAM in Vostro improve visualization experience when there is a dedicated GPU? I understand that extra 1GB RAM is going to help me in computations and opening large files or more programs. HP offsets RAM by adding 160GB HDD that will help me with dual OS.
3. Are there any chipset differences in Vostro 1700 and DV9543CL that would affect the performance?

Price-wise, both these are very similar (Vostro @ $1,375 vs. HP @ $1,384 inclusive of taxes and shipping). In time, I can improve either system with adding RAM or HDD.

Any suggestions and help are welcome. Thanks.

 

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

That has a list of all kinds of mobile graphics cards, how they perform in various versions of 3D Mark, as well as their clockspeed, number of pipelines, RAM speed, etc.

It looks like the 8600 GT is the superior card, though some people have had better results with a 8600 GS with three gigs of ram in their computers. Most likely because they use a lot of 'turbocache'. The GS has a higher clockspeed, though less pixel pipelines. I would go GT, personally.

 

The 8600m GT is definitely better than the 8600m GS, that part's not up to contention, however, there is argument over how much better it is. But, for CAD and professional rendering, you might want to find a laptop with a Quadro FX 570M. They can usually be found in business class laptops.

 

yeah honestly i would look at lenovo. they have the 570m.

 

freakin search before posting please!!!!

 

That, and you cross posted - that is prohibited on these forums. Next time read the forum rules before you post.