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Quick ?.. x300 w/ 64mb or 128mb??

M

masshass81

Senior member
Ordering an inspiron9300, comes with the x300 w/ 64mb. For $100 more I can upgrade to 128mb of video RAM.

I will not really use this for gaming, but would the 128mb of RAM give me a noticeable performance boost??
 
Hm, I'm looking at Mobility x300 reviews and they say it only comes in discrete, 32mb, and 64mb variations. Where did this 128 come from? Does the 128 use shared memory? So Dell charges $100 to increase GFX memory aperture size?
 
I looked at Dell's site; it certainly seems to be an upgrade to an X300 card with 128MB of onboard RAM. It's not exactly a huge new development to slap more memory on the thing. They wouldn't charge for an upgrade to something using shared system memory (well, they could, but that would just be mean).

It won't help much. The X300 is not really powerful enough to make use of the extra RAM. Save your money for something more useful (like a 7200RPM hard drive upgrade), or get a laptop with a mobility X800 or 6800Go chip if you want to have good graphics...
 
a 64mb x300 would probably have 64bit memory though.

i dont think you'd gain much from having more ram, but you'd gain maybe a 50-60% boost from having 128bit bus (which i'd figure the 128mb would have)

an x300 128mb with 128bus would be like having a radeon 9600 non pro. not too bad for a lot of games.
 
thanks.. there isn't that many notebook video options... both are x300.. lol... hopefully dell will offer some other upgrade cards when newer chips are made..
 
Except that A)With a laptop, you are stuck with it and B)128 bit vs 64 bit memory interface is huge.

Go for the 128 if you are going to game at all. The 64 meg version is just nice enough to get away from the integrated graphics but nothing special.

 
Originally posted by: blckgrffn
Except that A)With a laptop, you are stuck with it and B)128 bit vs 64 bit memory interface is huge.

Go for the 128 if you are going to game at all. The 64 meg version is just nice enough to get away from the integrated graphics but nothing special.
Click to expand...

Guh? 😕

The upgrade is for a 64->128MB boost in the RAM on the video card, not for a 64->128-bit memory controller on it... the memory controller is integrated into the GPU and cannot be changed. They'll perform almost identically. Except the upgraded version costs $100 more.

forcesho: thanks.. there isn't that many notebook video options... both are x300.. lol...
Click to expand...

😕 The 9300 quite clearly has a 6800Go upgrade avilable for $200. This would be WAY better than either X300 option.
 
You are very wrong about the interface. My 9000 64 meg has a 128 mem interface, the 9000 32 meg has a 64 bit interface. They drop the whole thing into the laptop and that is where the interface is set. A new GPU is not needed. Think about budget video cards for the desktop, they are the same GPU, different memory interfaces. 5200's, 9200's are both prime examples.

If the memory controller on something couldn't use different memory bandwidths, then how can an A64 use both 64 bit and 128 bit memory interfaces?

Yes, the 6800Go would be a much better choice as a graphics card, I agree.
 
Originally posted by: blckgrffn
You are very wrong about the interface. My 9000 64 meg has a 128 mem interface, the 9000 32 meg has a 64 bit interface. They drop the whole thing into the laptop and that is where the interface is set. A new GPU is not needed. Think about budget video cards for the desktop, they are the same GPU, different memory interfaces. 5200's, 9200's are both prime examples.
Click to expand...

Disabling half of the memory interface to make a product cheaper != "changing" the memory interface. The GPU cores are the same, and the memory controller is built into the core. AFAIK, the Mobility 9000 has a 64-bit memory interface (but maybe I'm wrong; I'll look for specs).

If the memory controller on something couldn't use different memory bandwidths, then how can an A64 use both 64 bit and 128 bit memory interfaces?
Click to expand...

Um, the Socket754 Athlon64s use a 64-bit memory interface, and the Socket939/940 ones use a 128-bit interface (although they can obviously be run in a 64-bit mode as well, when you only have one memory module). Again, the memory controller is built into the core and cannot be changed.

Edit: I did some research; the Mobility 9000 does have a 128-bit memory interface. However, it is likely that both the 64MB and 128MB versions use this. Even if the upgrade *did* also improve your bandwidth, you'd be better off IMO paying another $100 to easily double (or triple) your performance with the 6800Go.

ATI specs page

Three Pin-Compatible Variants for Ultimate Design Flexibility

* Mobility? Radeon® 9000 represents ATI's sixth generation of mobile graphics to integrated memory on the chip. With three variants, Mobility? Radeon® 9000 offers true flexibility for numerous mobile form factors, from full size to "thin-and-light". Mobility? Radeon® 9000 has three variants:
o Discrete up to 128MB
o On-chip 32MB DDR (64-bit)
o On-chip 64MB DDR (128-bit)
Click to expand...

So probably both the 64MB and 128MB versions use the 128-bit memory interface. The 32MB standard one would use the 64-bit interface, and would perform like a 9200SE (ie, really bad).
 
Um, the Socket754 Athlon64s use a 64-bit memory interface, and the Socket939/940 ones use a 128-bit interface (although they can obviously be run in a 64-bit mode as well, when you only have one memory module). Again, the memory controller is built into the core and cannot be changed.
Click to expand...

What are we disagreeing about here? This illustrates my point just fine. I never said the memory controller changed, it just seems that GPU's can be paired with any memory interface as long as it is less than their max. Remember the 128 bit 9800 "pros"?

I never said that the GPU changed at all. As a matter of fact I said they didn't. And since, as you say, the memory controller is integrated, then I also said that the memory controller didn't change.

And, I'll say it again because you didn't catch it last time, I would say the 6800Go is a much better alternative.

X300 Spec <-- Explicitly, the 64 meg is 64 bit. Sorry. It doesn't say that the 128 meg is 128 bit, but I am willing to bet on it. In that case it would be worth the $100 (IMHO) if the 6800 wasn't an option. Or, as previously stated, it enables the Hypermemory, still better than nothing but not awesome...

Nat
 
um the wya it works is all the chips are the same.


basically say you have a dual channel athlon. you can have say 2 x256mb dimms, or 1 256mb dimm.

if you only have 1 dimm, you have a dual channel chip operating in single channel mode with half the ram, probably how this chip works. if they had a 32mb x300 in that dell it would be a 32bit one (which i've seen in a few laptops)

they dont have to change the pcb layout on the laptop, they just solder less chips on and only use half the available bus pins.

get the 128mb really if you want to game at all.
 
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