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    MBP15's graphics card Ram.

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by M.to.walker, Jul 18, 2010.

  1. M.to.walker

    M.to.walker Notebook Consultant

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    I noticed that the Ram on the MBP 15" is usually 256 MB.

    Here on the site I trust for graphics card performance info the card used has 1024 MB.

    Notebookcheck: NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

    Can some one explain to me how big of a difference it will make?
    Thanks!
     
    M.to.walker, Jul 18, 2010
    #1
  2. crazycanuk

    crazycanuk Notebook Virtuoso

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    simple if your game says it needs 512 or a gig of memory for frame buffers ... it wont run at all.

    as for graphics performance the hit is on the fact that the gt330m is underclocked as well as the lower frame buffers ... I find my MBP gives me about a 25% hit on performance VS my ASUS with the stock clocked 1GB version
     
    crazycanuk, Jul 18, 2010
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  3. tianxia

    tianxia kitty!!!

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    0-5% in playable settings.
     
    tianxia, Jul 19, 2010
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  4. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    For a 128-bit card, you will notice no real life performance difference between anything above 256MB in games.
     
    sgogeta4, Jul 21, 2010
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  5. M.to.walker

    M.to.walker Notebook Consultant

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    sgogeta4, can you explain that better? What does that mean?
     
    M.to.walker, Jul 22, 2010
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  6. sgogeta4

    sgogeta4 Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Memory usage on GPUs is typically bottlenecked by their bus width (64, 128, or 256-bit) and memory type (DDR2, GDDR3, or GDDR5). From desktop card reviews, typically for games, for DDR2 and GDDR3 cards, doubling the bus width is the general rule of thumb as to the amount of memory where performance starts to plateau. So in this case, the card is 128-bit GDDR3 and hence 256MB is sufficient. Any extra will have diminishing returns in performance and most times, offer no real life performance benefits.
     
    sgogeta4, Jul 22, 2010
    #6