S480 nVIDIA takes 256 RAM up?!?

I was looking at the S480 on SonyStyle and customizing one with spec's that I think would be best for college.

Intel Pentium M Processor 730 (1.60 GHz)
512 MB DDR-SDRAM (DDR2-400, 256 MBx2)
80 GB Hard Disk Drive
13.3" WXGA TFT Display with XBRITE Technology

Not being much of a gamer I wasn't sure if I should add the nvidia to the notebook or not. I have read that it uses 256 RAM from the notebook's memory and that's why you need at least 512 to have the graphic's card. My question is should I add the nvidia just to help out with some graphics in case I need it or will it just constantly eat up half of my RAM without me playing any games anyway? Thanks for any help, im new to the world of notebooks, im used to desktops.

 

The nVidia card uses 96 MB of the main memory so you need in the main 512 MB at least. I'm not positive whether the allocation is dynamic or not (i.e. the video card when only uses that 96 MB if it needs to), but I think it should be dynamic. Your overall performance in light system load situations should not suffer too much as a result.

As others have mentioned in this forum, adding the video card does introduce another heat source inside your laptop, so I would recommend you evaluate whether you would need the video performance brought by the nVidia card or not.

 

Thanks a lot I appreciate it.