Point of Nvidia GT540m 2GB versus GT525 1GB in XPS 15

What's the point? These two cards are basically low end and the GT525 is just a downclocked GT540m with 1GB less ram. Since the card itself is low end is there a point to have extra ram? I'm pretty sure for blu-ray playback on the rgb led screen, and other media type functions the 1GB version is more than adequate.

 

There not low-end. There midrange gpu's.

 

The extra RAM is a marketing ploy. Both cards are 128 bit so it can't even address all that VRAM.

 

I would agree here. I can't believe you said that the video card on the xps15 is soldered, lol. I hope you were kidding.

 

Its Glued In!!! You Try Taking It Out And Let Us Know How It Goes!!!!

 

Damn glued in? Do you have a link to a reputable site that states this? This some kind of april fool's joke? lol.

 

I seen it with my own eyes, stop trolling us now.

 

Are you serious? Even 32bit bus could address more than 2GB of ram. I believe the reason some reviews are nay-saying the 2GB of ram is because it is only DDR3 and not GDDR5.

"Up to 2^128 could be directly addressed with 128 bits. That amount greatly exceeds the total data stored on Earth today (2010), which has been estimated to be around 1.2 zettabytes (over 270 bytes)."
128-bit - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And I haven't seen a laptop with a replaceable video card since the OLD grey bricky inspirons, except for some of those massive custom laptops. They used to use the MXM slot on some laptops but actually finding a replacement card was impossible because manufacturers would never sell them.

 

It's not addressibility, as loaded12 pointed out; However, loaded12, 128-bit refers to the bus width (amount of bits that can be transfered in a single clock cycle), rather than address space. So what might be the more accurate claim is "2 GB is more than this card would be able to effectively use" perhaps.

I just played through some of Mass Effect 2, and NVIDIA System Monitor reported at most 65% FB Usage. FB = Frame Buffer = VRAM, right? That means it was using over 1 GB, theoretically meaning that I was benefitting from the extra VRAM, even if not having it would only mean a very slight delay from swapping data between system RAM and VRAM... right?

EDIT: I guess that isn't right. FB is only a portion of VRAM. Let me see if I can figure out actual VRAM usage.

EDIT 2: Okay, Oblivion with the high-res texture packs never seems to use more than 45% (=0.9 GB, using HWiNFO32) of my 2 GB. I'll look to see if I have another game that uses more VRAM, but that'll probably be close to the top.

 

Have you tried MSI Afterburner? I believe it should report the amount of ram used by video card. And it can put it in the top right corner of the screen while playing the game (along with FPS, %GPU use, Temps, etc.). But if HWinfo32 is working for you then that's good. Have you tried any newer games that may take more advantage of more ram, like Crysis 2, or Bad Company 2? Thanks for checking that out for us! I wish I had mine...

 

I was under the impression that the additional 1GB of ram in the 540m was more or less inconsequential, since it can just borrow from the system RAM - and as long as you have enough of that, you're fine. If you check out the specs, the 525m, 540m, and 550m are all actually fairly similar - they're all based on the GF108 core, and have identical memory speeds of 900 MHz, identical memory bus width of 128 bits, and identical numbers of unified pipelines at 96. The only difference is that each step up comes with a bump in core clock speed along with additional shaders turned on. There are plenty of people who think it's a little bit absurd (and somewhat disingenuous) for NVIDIA to market what is essentially the same chip for their entire midrange line; there is of course variance in the performance of each card, and a "better" one will give you better results. But they're all a great deal more similar than, I think, most people are aware of - and certainly more similar than a lot of folks would like to think. Seriously, check out the information on notebookcheck, it's a little shocking.

The 555m 3GB card is actually a big step up in performance, though - that's based on the GF106 core and is the updated version of the 445m, and really is a legitimate upgrade over the whole 525m/540m/550m midrange line

 

Actually most of us got a 550m with the GF106 and 144 shaders, just downclocked. See in this thread:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/567176-gt-550m-144-cores.html

 

Makes sense, actually - notebookcheck's info on the 550m they admit to being incomplete and based on rumor and conjecture. Sounds like NVIDIA changed the specs from whatever notebookcheck thought or heard they were going to be, originally. That's nice, actually. Makes me a good bit more impressed with NVIDIA given that the 550m really is a legit upgrade, in that case.

It still sort of bothers me, though, that Dell doesn't, I dunno, offer some of this information on their site on their own. And that you can't upgrade the XPS 15 to one of those better graphics cards. That was one of the dealbreakers for me in not getting another XPS after canceling my 15 - I don't want a 17-inch notebook, but I need a better graphics card than the 540m. Oh well.

 

It's not just that, NVIDIA's own site says it has 96 shaders. But are those "extra shaders" even functional? It sounded like a 550m at 555m clock speeds wasn't comparable to a real 555m based on that thread.

Unfortunately I don't own Crysis 2 or BC2, but I'll see if I can grab a demo or something.

Whether the graphics card can truly share the system RAM is unclear to me. If the GPU is wired such that it pulls from the VRAM exclusively, that means that if it filled up, it would have to swap out with the system RAM--probably not a huge bottleneck, though. If it isn't a slowdown point, perhaps the extra VRAM would matter more for people with only 4 GB of system RAM, and not so much for the most of us who got 6+ GB.

 

They are pretty functional, otherwise we won't get over 10000 3dMark06 at 475mhz stock. Just 10-20% less than 555m stock.

I can play Crysis 2 smooth with the 550m at 900p/"very high" (2630qm).

 

I just tried to play a few minutes of the original Crysis (so not Crysis 2) demo with all the settings at maximum and found it using a maximum of 55% of the 2GB VRAM. So it is being utilized... But as for what would happen if there had only been 1 GB... I've got no clue.

 

Of course, the NVIDIA control panel System Information reports that 2 GB of system memory is shared with the graphics card--is that true for the 525m as well?

 

The vRAM may be utilized, but I sincerely doubt that it matters. I am no expert on laptop GPUs but I do know my fair share about desktop graphics. At 1080p and below, 1GB is sufficient. Only when you have 2500x1600 and especially 5760x1080p do you see the benefit of 2GB over 1.5GB video cards, as shown in benchmarks comparing GTX 580 and HD 6970, so 1GB should be fine for 1080p.