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Hi guys.
My laptop's FX go5200 card overheated (don't know why specifically) and the salesman who sold me this laptop is happy to give me an upgrade to the next in the series of models.
As I haven't owned a great number of laptops in my life I would like to ask whether I Would experience a significant performence improvement (mainly 2D) in the newer go 6600 (still supported by nVidia) than in the FX go5200 card (which required the 173xx legacy drivers). I am asking this as before in kde4, window resizing and general effects didn't look to slick (quite jerky redrawing I think). As I understand it nVidia's driver quality for kde4 has improved greatly since the 173xx series and now in the 256xx series these problems might be gone.
Also It would be an upgrade from a 1.7ghz processor to a 2ghz one, and a 1gig to 2 gig RAM increace. Would this improve performence to any noticable amount?
I really appreciate your help and time.
Thank you so much,
bananaoomarang
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The FX series is crap, so a 6600 will definitely be an improvement. I didn't use kde4 much, but I did use Compiz on a Go 6600 for a while and things were very smooth. Also, the 6600 not being considered legacy by Nvidia should save you a few headaches, it's worth upgrading for that alone IMO.
The processor and ram... If you stay within the same processor family (which one is it anyway?), I don't think a 1.7 -> 2.0 GHz increase is worth spending money on. Then, in my experience 1GB of ram is more than enough for Linux , so upgrading from that is not really a must.
In short, if I were you I'd take the 6600 and leave the rest as is.
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Thank you for the reply Gusar.
The processor series is pentinum M. I know it's still not at all a high end laptop but I just wanted to know whether it would be a noticible improvement if compiling software, booting time, overall responsiveness etc. From your description of the Fx chips compared to the go 6600 I will probably upgrade. Do you know when nVidia is likely to drop support for the go 6600? It must be pretty low on the list of priority to them. If they do drop it, will I still get a legacy 256xx series or something? or will it be bumped dowb to a 173xx legacy deiver?
EDIT: by the way, thus is all or nothing. i can't just upgrade parts individualy as I am switfhing from a tecra m2 to a tecra m3.
Last edited by bananaoomarang (2010-07-03 22:49:29)
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No idea when Nvidia might declare the 6600 legacy, things with Nvidia aren't exactly as they used to be. But when they do declare it legacy, it'll surely be supported by a newer driver branch than 173.xx, 256.xx at least or possibly even newer.
The Pentium M is a good processor. It's what I had paired with the Go 6600 in my laptop, it's the only part of that laptop that still works correctly. While old by now and single-core, it's waaaaay better than a P4 or (and especially) an Atom. I don't think a 1.7 to 2.0 GHz increase will be noticeable much, but if it's a package deal with the graphic card (you'll be receiving a new motherboard I assume?) I'd consider going for it. How much will this cost, if you don't mind asking, cos if it's so much that you could almost buy a new laptop which would present a much bigger upgrade, then that's a different story.
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Well for £100 (not $) I would get a ln m2 (what I already have) but for £150 I would get an m3 witth those specs. From your info so far I think I will probably just go for it as I wasn't really satified with the m2 general performence so if I get the same for £100 anyway I might as well bump it up and pay the extra £50 if I will get any noticable performence increace (even just in the graphics card)
EDIT: I bought it. Will report back on how it works in case anybody stumbles upon this thread with similar problem's. Not for a while though as I am taking of on holiday for 3 weeks as a couple of days from now. Won''t have it until after then. I will then setup arch, kde4 etc.
REPORT-EDIT: The 6600 is noticably better and the latest drivers seem a lot more stable. In some applications I can even notice the processor update (which is actually 2.13, not 2.0ghz). The extra 1 gig of RAM helps a lot also in some apps. Other than that, nothing to report as evrything else appears to be exactly the same.
Last edited by bananaoomarang (2010-08-20 16:45:01)
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