what's the difference between the 1GB 7690M and the 2GB.

Besides the obvious 1GB, any other differences?
I have a very tight budget and would rather prefer not spending the extra 75 if the only difference is the 1GB.

 

Stick with the 1GB Radeon 7690M. In this case, the extra memory isn't going to make a difference.

However, you should make it a top priority to make sure you're getting the 1920x1080 display upgrade. You should not buy the DV6 in any configuration that has the 1366x768 display unless your budget is truly constrained to less than $700. 15.6" 1366x768 displays limit multitasking and productivity by making things onscreen large, and they tend to have very bad image quality.

If your budget is tight, the first thing you should downgrade is the processor, because the processor is less important than either the screen or the GPU. An i7+1366x768 configuration is inferior to an i5+1920x1080 configuration.

For $719 with no tax, there's this pre-built Newegg model: Newegg.com - HP Pavilion DV6-6C53NR Notebook Intel Core i5 2450M(2.50GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 7690M

 

Or, you can troll eBay for a few days and find a nice i7 model fully loaded with unnecessary things like 2 gig 6770m! lol I got my dv6-6190us for 700 flat with no shipping charge or any other charges off eBay. Check my sig. It also still had HP warranty on it with 6 months left!

 

Thanks, a lot more info than I asked for but I appreciated it all
I think the deal breaker for me is a blu ray drive, I would buy that newegg one if it had blu ray. I've a huge collection of blu rays that I would like to watch or RIP to store in my NAS so I can stream to my tablets, TV, cell phone and so on. so a blu ray drive would be very handy.
I will wait and see the next batch of coupon codes for HP, see if anything pops up for the dv6t, I would assume so since the rumors are that Ivy Bridge models are coming out next month

 

I just purchased a new DV6 It's almost the PC I wanted.
Good Luck

 

Like I said man, just hold out and find one on eBay with everything you want. Oddly mine refuses to read/write blank memorex DVD-R and it reads/writes everything else. So I would be weary of that when choosing one. not sure if its just my dv6-6190us but it might affect all.

 

Tight budget ---> Take 1GB card. No point sacrificing other components for something rarely used.