GeForce 8M--thoughts?

Defintiely will be taking a GF8600 over GF7600/7900 and X1600, and it can't be more power hungry than an X1800, so it's a contender, the real question is how it stacks up against the Mobility HD2600, and sofar only GF8400Ms are appearing in early laptops, I haven't seen any good solutions yet iwth the GF8600M, but it's still early, alot of sites don't even have the GF8M series yet, they are showcasing the GMA X3100.

I suspect more models to come out next week with the GF8Ms along with the Mobility HD solutions.

Sofar I'd take a GF8600 over the previous generation. But also dont' get the GS version it's higher clocked but half the pipes, get the GT version, just like last time, the GFGO7600GT was the way to go if you can, now get the GF8600MGT if you can fuller 32 shaders vs the 16 on the GS.

BTW, HD2600 pre-announced in the new HP Dragon, which is actually cooler looking than Dell's weird convertible;

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3686

2GB available from HyperMemory. 8O

PS power requirements and battery life won't come up until places like notebookreviews benches them, expect them higher GF8600s to suck as much power as the GF7900GS, and the lower GF8400s to be similar to an MRX1600/17000 and GFGO7600GS/7700.

Internally? Probably not. External cards, however, are on the horizon and will open up video card options for notebook users.

Well I think it's ACER or ASUS that's actually promoting the MXMII connection type of the GFGO6/7/8 in their new laptops as an upgrade path, which IMO means they plan on making individual cards available in the future for upgraders.

Also this would lead me to believe that the GFGO7600s out there might be able to be upgraded to GF8600Ms, like stick to the GF8600MGS for thermal reasons, but likely anyone with a GFGO7900GS would be able to handle a GF8600MGT.

Now if that's the case, it's perfect for anyone currently on a Napa platform (very feature rich and capable C3D Merom platform) who just wants to add a little more graphics options, especially for things like Oblivion.

My two favourite laptops currently have those older Napa boards with the GF7600 and GF7900 options, now upgrading to the GF8600 would be tempting. But you still have to buy the OEM MXMII card, and even the usual suspect haven't even started talking about that. I expect them to show up in a month or two, just in time for Crysis Demo and Halo2. 8)

I'm just going to wait for more announcements on what's coming out, I hope for a few nice boosts from some MFRs, HP has some of their products out but no new graphics on them (other than the X3100) Gateway has no new SantaRosas, and Toshiba has a few new models listed but their feature selection is mediocre and their only 17" SantaRosa sofar has a small keyboard.