Hello everyone,

I have been happy for a while with my TR3A fully loaded until now. However, in January, I am going to Miami for a conference and decided to get myself a custumized S 580. I made up a pretty goor machine with a Pentium M 2.0 Ghz, 120 GB HD, 1 GB DDR2 RAM (single chip), NVIDIA GeForce Go 6400 with Turbo Cache, Wireless a/b/g/bluetooth, Large battery etc.

I have noticed some changes on the hardware since Gr00vy0ne bought his S an wrote the review. The video card, the RAM type, is it correct? What else has changed on the S? What’s up with this new video card?

Anyone?

I’ve been looking for a similar comparison then I found this site.  Does a pretty decent job of comparing the old S260 to the new S550. 

Very good spartanman! Thanx! That explained almost everything but the new DDR2 RAM and what’s this NVIDIA GeForce Go 6400 with Turbo Cache… If anyone knows their advantage (or disadvantage) I would be glad to know.

Thanx

The other changes are the use of a different chipset which adds better audio support. The downside of all the new changes to the VAIO S series is that the battery life has gone down considerably compared to first/second generation VAIO S models.

The GF6400 is just an updated version of the GF6200 and should be a more complete DX9 solution for the notebook and should out perform the original ATI Mobility 9700 since it can allocate more system RAM for graphics memory.

Thanx Gr00vy0ne. What about the DDR2 RAM? Is it faster? What I do know is that it is a lot cheaper than the micro dimm. And would I benefit from a system with tho 512Mb chips instead of a single 1Gb chip?

Thanks!

[quote author=“Lourenco”]Thanx Gr00vy0ne. What about the DDR2 RAM? Is it faster? What I do know is that it is a lot cheaper than the micro dimm. And would I benefit from a system with tho 512Mb chips instead of a single 1Gb chip?

Thanks!

Faster than what? You have to remember that the Pentium M chip only runs on a 533MHz bus and it’s not a dual channel bus design so the performance over normal 400MHz DDR isn’t very obvious. The only place it will make a difference is in video performance. The GF6400 borrows system memory for graphics memory and since the memory is faster then it should help performance.

DDR2 is cheaper because it’s what most manufacturers are making now. Also, due to the the design, it uses less power so it’s easier to manufacture.

As i mentioned earlier, it’s a single channel design so it does matter if you use a single memory chip or two memory chips.