9800m GTS 512mb vs. 1GB

I ended up sending my notebbok in for repair, after eight days of use. It was a failed GPU, which Sager will repair , free of charge.

But I have noticed that Xotic and Sager are now selling the 5793 with a 9800M GTS 1GB gpu, mine has the 512MB version.

Sager will upgrade my GPU, which I kind of felt they could have done for free, since they recieved it back within 30 days, for $80.00 !

My question is ..............is upgrading from the 512mb version to the 1GB version , worth $80.00 ?

Thanks in advance, Dale

 

does not matter.

there is NO performance gain.

video memory has become a gimmick nowadays to make people think a videocard is better than another.

the GPU itself is the most important... it will determine how much video memory will be even utilized.

the 9800M's 256-bit memory interface would not even utilize more than 512MB... let alone 1024MB.

 

GTA4 uses a lot of video-mem imo!!

 

what Gophn said. while a certain amount of VRAM is necessary for good performance, at some point, the GPU won't be able to actually use/fill the extra VRAM, so it's useless.

 

GTAIV seems to be a resource hog.... both for CPU and GPU.

it could have been more optimized rather than feeling like a poorly coded port.

 

In other words the 512MB should be plenty and the 1GB @ $80.00 is not worth it ?

 

not worth it.... since are really getting nothing out of it.

save that $80 to save up for a faster CPU.

 

Thanks for the info. !

 

Well actually there is a performance increase at very high resolutions.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2008/10/06/amd-ati-radeon-hd-4870-1gb/7

I still can't recommend forking over $80 for it, since that's a desktop 256-bit card and there's no way a 9800M GTS could keep up with that anyway.

(I saw a better benchmark of the two 4870 cards but I can't find it now but hopefully that suffices.)

 

Depends on the game and the settings. Typically, games that use a lot of high quality textures (where the texture files are large) and are played at high resolution will see an improvement in performance with 1gb of memory vs 512 mb. Generally it's about 2-8% at 1680x1050 and 1920x1200. The difference is generally much bigger above 1920x1200.

 

Just recieved my notebook back a couple of days ago, minus the defective 9800 GTS 512 !
Had them install the 9800 GTS 1GB for $80.00. Kind of thought they might install it free of charge, just for the simple facts that 1. Had my notebook for 8 days before GPU failure and 2. The 9800 GTS 1GB is now standard on the 5793 !

But oh well, haven't had much time to put it through the paces.............work.............but this weekend , will run some stress tests and of course Crysis.