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8600M GT: 128mb vs 256mb

diamond.g said:
Well if the 256 was baseline, and the 512 was a higher end option...

Hmm, in regards to the iMac and possibly getting the 8700M GT I wonder if Apple is able to get them with less that 256MB?
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That is assuming the 8700M GT would be used in the iMac. For all we know they might use a desktop part again.
 
Cuyahoga said:
Awesome! Very helpful. So Oblivion on the 128MB doesn't sound so good...still no word on the 256MB.
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To be fair, the person who posted their Oblivion impressions basically only did it with almost everything at max settings, max resolution, etc. I suspect that Oblivion would run smoother at lower settings, medium quality, etc.
 
Freyqq seems to think Oblivion is playable at those high settings, so I see no reason to classify the situation as "not sounding so good." AFAIK, HDR really eats into performance. I'm perfectly happy with those results! 😀
 
randfee2 said:
well, if the performance on up-to-date D3D games under Windows really doubles under "normal settings" (resolutions were reasonable), then there is no way I can justify buying the small MBP, because I would not be happy with it replacing my desktop.

I'm no highend freak, but I wanna be able to play current stuff and some new things like Crysis too!!! And I don't wanna upgrade my desktop for hundreds of dollars, I wanna rid it!!
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Thought the question is if the GPU can actually handle games at the type 3dmark06 simulates at decent FPSs anyway, still annoying to know that it might lower performance a lot thought 🙁

Not so much difference in the barefeats test (around 10%), but those are older games aswell.
 
biodeezl said:
However, I really dont give a sh*t about 2.2 vs 2.4 GHz chip. 2.2 will be fine indefinitely IMO. 500 bucks is a lot of money.
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I didn't bought last gen because the lowend model had 128MB vram, now I waited for this one, and well.. that didn't worked =P
The sad thing is that probably 3/5-4/5 of the price raise to the middle modell is from the CPU, and as you do I don't give a **** about the CPU speed, buying the highest end CPU there is are so ****ing retarded anyway, it will still be old in one years time, and it won't sell at a premium by then and it would save you a lot of cash. Buying the very greatest graphics card are quite stupid aswell, one or two step below the greatest stuff are almost as good and will save you lots of cash.
 
Zadillo said:
Apple has always done this, so it's not going to change any time soon. They clearly see the VRAM as a way to give people an incentive to pay for the higher-end machines.

Frankly, if they made the $1999 model have 256MB of VRAM as well, there'd probably be no sales at all for the more expensive machine.
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Yeah, and that wouldn't be good because then they actually had a GOOD MODELL OUT THAT, and that would suck, ...

The bad thing with Macs are that you legally can't run OS X on anything except Apples hardware so therefor they can do this ****, in the real world companies would try to release superior hardware at the best prices they could instead to have people buy them, well not Apple, rather have insuperior stuff to make people buy less priceworthy machines instead... Macs clearly needs more clones, but there's no chance that Apple will losen up their controll over where OS X runs. (And mac people will claim that oh, but the hardware control makes X run so much faster on the same hardware! My 10 year old computer still rules because OS X makes both parts! Apps never crash on my Mac because it's a closed whatever. Well: No, obviously it works fairly well on non-Apple machines aswell.)
 
Zadillo said:
Well, HP won't sell you a 15" laptop with an 8600M GT, so it's kind of a moot point.[/quite]They will sell you an 7950 GTX 512MB thought, and that will much faster than the 8600M GT.

Of course noone prefers an Inspiron over a MBP if the later one had the specs you needed.

Personally I'll still take the MBP, and maybe pay a bit more for things I might not otherwise need, than put up with another PC laptop from Dell (I've owned two, as well as a Toshiba and a Sony, and they were nightmares.
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Personally I would prefer it they had just released the 12" model and then they could have had 12", 15.4" and 17"-models and there would't be any problem with putting 256MB vram in all except the 12" which would probably need to run a less power draining GPU.

Back in the days the middle modell (or all) had decent/same specs, didn't they?
 
aliquis- said:
Yeah, and that wouldn't be good because then they actually had a GOOD MODELL OUT THAT, and that would suck, ...

The bad thing with Macs are that you legally can't run OS X on anything except Apples hardware so therefor they can do this ****, in the real world companies would try to release superior hardware at the best prices they could instead to have people buy them, well not Apple, rather have insuperior stuff to make people buy less priceworthy machines instead... Macs clearly needs more clones, but there's no chance that Apple will losen up their controll over where OS X runs. (And mac people will claim that oh, but the hardware control makes X run so much faster on the same hardware! My 10 year old computer still rules because OS X makes both parts! Apps never crash on my Mac because it's a closed whatever. Well: No, obviously it works fairly well on non-Apple machines aswell.)
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Oh give me a break........ Apple doesn't make "insuperior" (?) hardware.

They do make premium priced hardware, but please find me a single company that makes a machine with the same specs, materials and dimensions and weight of either the $1999 MBP or $2499 MBP.

You won't find one. The fact is, even the $1999 MBP is one of the best bangs for the buck right now. No-one else makes a 5.4 pound 1" thick machine with a 15.4" LED-backlit screen and ANY sort of 8600M GT.

I can agree that it would be nice if Apple had more configuration options, etc. but this idea that Apple is charging more than what the hardware is worth is ridiculous.

The closest machine on the market right now in terms of specs is the $1999 Asus G1S; but that's a machine without an LED-backlit screen, which weighs 6.8 pounds and is considerably thicker and larger.

-Zadillo
 
aliquis- said:
Personally I would prefer it they had just released the 12" model and then they could have had 12", 15.4" and 17"-models and there would't be any problem with putting 256MB vram in all except the 12" which would probably need to run a less power draining GPU.

Back in the days the middle modell (or all) had decent/same specs, didn't they?
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Yeah, any 12"/13.3" MBP isn't going to be running any sort of 8600M GT anyway, so it's a moot point.
 
aliquis- said:
Do you want to argue the same in 4-5 months?
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I don't see why I wouldn't argue the same in 4-5 months............ looking at the Asus G1S as an example, the price on the previous Asus G1 never really dropped from its initial price point over the course of its lifespan.

I don't see any major changes in the mobile platform in the next 4-5 months, except the major one (the introduction of Penryn chips in the Fall), so I don't see why I would say Apple's pricing would be any less reasonable now than it would be in 4-5 months.

What do you think is going to change in 4-5 months exactly? Do you anticipate someone releasing a 1" thick 5.4 pound laptop with an 8600M GT, 15.4" LED-backlit screen, etc. for significantly less than the current price of the MBP?

Apple has historically also seemed to do a solid job of doing minor updates in between major updates (i.e. speed bumps, bumping memory capacity, etc.) so if something is really necessary between now and Penryn, I could see them doing it.
 
Zadillo said:
Oh give me a break........ Apple doesn't make "insuperior" (?) hardware.

They do make premium priced hardware, but please find me a single company that makes a machine with the same specs, materials and dimensions and weight of either the $1999 MBP or $2499 MBP.

You won't find one. The fact is, even the $1999 MBP is one of the best bangs for the buck right now. No-one else makes a 5.4 pound 1" thick machine with a 15.4" LED-backlit screen and ANY sort of 8600M GT.

I can agree that it would be nice if Apple had more configuration options, etc. but this idea that Apple is charging more than what the hardware is worth is ridiculous.

The closest machine on the market right now in terms of specs is the $1999 Asus G1S; but that's a machine without an LED-backlit screen, which weighs 6.8 pounds and is considerably thicker and larger.

-Zadillo
Click to expand...

Hook that guy up. "Inferior".
 
Chris Welch said:
Upon installing Parallels, I immediately regretted not going with 256 MB, because the most VRAM I can provide Vista with is 64 MB, and that's just not enough.

Of course, it runs fine natively in Boot Camp, when it can use all the resources itself... But when split, performance ain't so hot.
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That's nothing to do with the 256/128 difference.

Parallels only lets you assign 64mb even if you have a 512mb X1900XT in a mac pro.
 
jawzzy said:
Freyqq seems to think Oblivion is playable at those high settings, so I see no reason to classify the situation as "not sounding so good." AFAIK, HDR really eats into performance. I'm perfectly happy with those results! 😀
Click to expand...

True...Oblivion at completely maxed out settings can bring just about anything to a halt. It's impossible to tell exactly what Freyqq means by "close to max", or even his definition of "playable" (I suppose that's why it's in the subjective evaluation section 😀). But all-in-all, I'd say it's a positive review on second thought.

I have to admit though that I'd be a little disappointed not being able to play a year-old game at max settings on a brand new computer. It doesn't really bode well for the next few years.

On the other hand, it's a laptop, not a gaming machine---and I probably won't have anytime to play games anyway. I guess I'm just in the awkward boat of not wanting to pay $3000 for a Mac Pro, but don't actually need any of the portability of a MBP. And I already have a beautiful 24" monitor, so the 24" iMac would be a waste. I guess I'm just coming to the sad realization that Apple doesn't make a computer that suits my needs, and if I decide to wait around for one I may never get a new computer.

Sorry for that rant...back to the 128 vs. 256 comparisons. 😱
 
Cuyahoga said:
True...Oblivion at completely maxed out settings can bring just about anything to a halt. It's impossible to tell exactly what Freyqq means by "close to max", or even his definition of "playable" (I suppose that's why it's in the subjective evaluation section 😀). But all-in-all, I'd say it's a positive review on second thought.

I have to admit though that I'd be a little disappointed not being able to play a year-old game at max settings on a brand new computer. It doesn't really bode well for the next few years.

On the other hand, it's a laptop, not a gaming machine---and I probably won't have anytime to play games anyway. I guess I'm just in the awkward boat of not wanting to pay $3000 for a Mac Pro, but don't actually need any of the portability of a MBP. And I already have a beautiful 24" monitor, so the 24" iMac would be a waste. I guess I'm just coming to the sad realization that Apple doesn't make a computer that suits my needs, and if I decide to wait around for one I may never get a new computer.

Sorry for that rant...back to the 128 vs. 256 comparisons. 😱
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We had a discussion about this over at NBR. The big thing was that he was playing with HDR on, and HDR is known to frankly stress even some of the most powerful cards on the market, so it isn't a surprise that it had a major impact on the 8600M GT.

As it is, Oblivion is a pretty intensive game engine, and the MBP can probably handle it better at lower res, maybe HDR turned off, and maybe somewhat lower quality settings. Even if it's a year old, it's still probably one of the biggest examples of a game that will stress a GPU.
 
well... of course Oblivion is very demanding... but that is what we want.

The absolute performance is not as interesting here as the difference between the 128 and 256 version.... somebody should get their hands on doing that!
 
Well, I did my part and sent a scathing letter here. I didnt really want to, but I felt I had to tell them how frustrating this is.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

Why not have the 256 card as an option for the low end mbp and make a PROFIT on it? I mean, I would pay 150 bucks extra for it no problem. 500 (433 technically) is not cool.
 
biodeezl said:
Well, I did my part and sent a scathing letter here. I didnt really want to, but I felt I had to tell them how frustrating this is.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

Why not have the 256 card as an option for the low end mbp and make a PROFIT on it? I mean, I would pay 150 bucks extra for it no problem. 500 (433 technically) is not cool.
Click to expand...

Again, it's because part of how Apple works is having a limited number of basic configurations. Clearly it is cheaper for Apple to have one MBP with a 2.2GHz CPU and 128MB GPU and one with a 2.4GHz CPU and 256MB GPU. It would probably impact Apple's manufacturing and production to add even more variables (2.2 GHz with 256MB GPU, 2.4 GHz with 128MB GPU, etc.).

If it bugs you so much though, get one of the few PC laptops that does fit your needs, like the Asus G1S, which has a 2.2GHz CPU and 256MB GPU (note that Asus doesn't let you order an Asus G1S with a 512MB GPU or with a faster CPU; in Asus's case, there is exactly ONE config of that machine, so Apple has a leg up on them, frankly).

Frankly, I'd be glad Apple is even offering the 8600M GT at all. A lot of PC manufacturers simply won't sell you a 15.4" laptop with an 8600M GT (like HP and Sony).
 
I just did that video stress test on counter-strike source on windows xp and got 161.2FPS!! Didn't even know that was possible. It's probably not that accurate, but Thought some of you might like to know. I've got the 128MB 8600GT and HL2 and CS:S run amazing on it 😀
 
Patch^ said:
I just did that video stress test on counter-strike source on windows xp and got 161.2FPS!! Didn't even know that was possible. It's probably not that accurate, but Thought some of you might like to know. I've got the 128MB 8600GT and HL2 and CS:S run amazing on it 😀
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😱

What resolution were you playing at?!
 
Anorak said:
The scores are fairly close, which is to be expected with older games. There should be a bigger difference with newer games.

So you have to ask yourself, is the 9% maximum performance advantage worth 20% more money?
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I couldn't help thinking that this 9% 'maximum' difference is contributed by 9% difference in processor speed! (2.2 vs 2.4Ghz)

I won't be looking at 'maximum 9%' because the benchmark averaged out to be 5%!
 
that is true of course hence the processor is the limiting factor in OSX with the Doom engine. Rob Art (the guy from barefeats) did some tests with same settings under OSX and Windows and found a performance difference of nearly 100%.

The Source engine is not very suitable to test a GForce 8 card either. What settings did you use anyway? It's too old for that. If you want heavy shader usage try

Oblivion
STALKER
Supreme Commander

Before we don't have a proper test setup with both machines running the same stuff with proper drivers (windows) we won't know.
 
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