8600gt 128 vs 256mb

So I am about to go off to college and I figure that getting a gaming laptop would be bad on my part so I think I am pretty much going to go with a mbp 15 inch. (Liking the longer battery life and I could save the money and just replace the video card in my desktop so I won't be able to take gaming everywhere with me)

Now I am going to be majoring in the fine arts (either photography or communication design) and I was wondering if I should just go ahead and get the 256mb card because I am going to be primarily working in photoshop and illustrator and was wondering if having a 128mb card is going to make a big difference in viewing my photos (use a nikon d50 digital slr for photography), watching movies, using ps and il, and just performance overall?

I figured y not opt for the $1800 version (with the student discount it goes down 200 dollars) and put the extra money towards getting an 8800 gpu for my desktop

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

i don't think the video card has much to do with just viewing photos

 

Photoshop is dependent on the CPU and system memory, not the VRAM.

So you don't need to worry about what a video card has when it comes to editing photos, videos, etc.

More RAM, a faster processor, and a faster hard drive is best when it comes to those tasks.

 

alright awesome sounds good then, I think im going to go with the cheaper mbp and upgrade my desktops gpu thanks guys