Gaming on Nvidia Quadro NVS 160M?

[FleshLight]

Thinking about getting an open box Dell Latitude E6400 with

Core 2 Duo 2.4GHz p8600 cpu
2GB RAM
160GB Hard Drive
256MB NVidia Quadro NVS 160M Video Card
14.1" WXGA+ LED backlit LCD
9 cell battery

for $530 shipped. But I was wondering if the NVS 160M would be decent to run games at low-medium settings.

 

[IlllI]

160m = 9300M GS

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Apparently the related nvs 140s can overclock well. I have heard reports of them matching an 8600m GS when overclocked. So I guess these could overclock well too.

Plus,the 9300m is decent enough by itself.

 

[996GT2]

Definitely doable. I linked you to my thread about overclocking the NVS 140M Mine is overclocked 70% and it's completely stable in 3DMark06. With the overclock, it's on par with an 8600M GS, meaning that most games are quite playable at moderate resolutions of 1280x800 or 1440x900. Temperatures are also remarkably cool even when overclocked.

Link to NVS 140M OC thread

EDIT: It looks like the newer NVS 160M is actually a downgrade from the NVS 140M, since the 160M has half as many stream processors (8 vs 16) and is clocked higher from the factory to compensate. This probably reduces it's overclocking ability quite a bit, so I'd definitely read up on some forum posts to see what people have been able to reach with their 160Ms.

My 140M is clocked at 400 Core/600 RAM from the factory. Its maximum stable overclock is 680 Core/1025 RAM.

In contrast, the NVS 160M is clocked at 580 Core/700RAM to start with, so I'm not sure how much headroom you've got. The other BIG difference is that the NVS 160Ms in some Dells are DDR2 instead of DDR3 in the 140M, which again reduces overclocking potential.

Overclocked or not though, that Dell is one heck of a deal and I'd definitely go for it.