HP8710w vs HP8710p

I have two options:
HP 8710w
Intel T7700 (2,4 Ghz and 4MB cashe)
NVIDIA Quadro FX1600M 512 Mb RAM
HDD 120 Mb 7200 rpm
WUXGA 1920x1200

or
HP 8710p
Intel T9300 (2,5 Ghz and 6 MB cashe)
NVIDIA Quadro NVS 320M 256 Mb RAM
HDD 250 Mb 5400 rpm
WSXGA+ 1680x1050

Price and everything else is the same.
I have read a lot reviews on bouth of them and better gaming capabilities show HP 8710w (because of FX1600M with 512 ram), but there is no reviews on systems with Penryn (T9300).

Notebookchek in 3DMark06 shows 3% better result for FX1600M, but in the same time there is 10% better result for T9300.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Graphics-Cards-Benchmark-List.844.0.html

For me display display resolution difference is not an argument, and HDD size is just a good option (knowing that smallest is faster), because I will use an external HDD anyway.

Do someone have some thoughts witch would be better for today gaming and for next 1-2 years?

Thanks.

 

The GPU is the same base, 8700 GT. The only difference is if you use OpenGL apps, get the FX. I'd go with the 8710p. Better CPU and bigger HDD. When you get bigger HDD sizes, the speed increases. Plus, most people don't notice much of a difference between 7200 RPM and 5400 RPM anyway. Also, the amount of video ram doesn't really matter. Here's a more detailed explanation using the 8600 GT as an explain:

1.Is a GeForce 8600M-GT 256MB DDR2 better than a GeForce 8600M-GT 512MB DDR2?
This is a very common train of thought – more video memory must mean better performance. This is not true – the video card itself matters much more than the memory it has.

In this case, both cards have the same performance. The 8600M-GT DOES NOT HAVE ENOUGH POWER to use more than 256MB of memory. It has a limited 128-bit memory bus. Only cards with a 256-bit bus or greater are going to be able to use more than 256MB of memory. It is not worth spending any extra money on a mid-range card like the 8600M-GT with more memory. There is no performance gain to justify the price.

Why can't it use more memory effectively? Here's a primitive example. An office worker can use a maximum of three computers at a time. If he is given an additional three computers, is he any more productive? No, because he can only use three of them to begin with. The extra three do nothing.

This was taken from here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=39568

 

Thanks, jin07.

After all the reviews of different notebooks and video cards I suppose to agree with you, but I can't find specification on RAM of thous cards.
Are they both have DDR3 or may be NVS 320 may have DDR2 (looking on results, it seems that DDR3).
From DELL XPS 1530 and other reviews is clear, that main gain for gaming you can get from faster, not bigger video memory.

 

I'm pretty sure the NVS 320 is DDR3. Here's a thread about this a while ago: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=187255

I'm sure there are others if you do some digging.

 

As jin07 said, NVS 320M and FX1600M has both about 22-25 Mb/s memory bandwidth. It would be too slow to press out 512Mb of data every frame so games that use very large textures that use up all the 512Mb would run too slow.

On the other hand 8710w is now available with FX3600M which has a 256bit bus and can move about 50Mb/s instead. With this card 512Mb is actually make sense.

If you're going to buy 8710w I would take the FX3600M variant. The difference in performance between NVS 320M and FX1600M is minimal.

It's up to your budget really. 8710w with FX3600M is very expensince while 8710p is quite cheap. If you can settle with 1680x1050 screen and mid range graphics, buy the 8710p.

If you need top graphics I would also look at other alternatives with the Nvidia 8800 as well because consumer products are so much cheaper rather than the workstation aimed at professionals while they have the same performance.