ASUS 8600gt 256MB shows 512MB?!

[cagljevic]

I'm curious if anyone else has experienced this.

I recently picked up an ASUS 8600gt 256mb, the fanless version (EN8600GT SILENT). After installation I noticed in the nvidia utility it displays 512MB. I checked the labels on the box as well as the card, both list the card as the 256MB version.

Does anyone know of a utility that can probe the card to find out the correct amount of video ram?

Here is the card information present in the nvidia utility:



ubuntu 7.10 w/ nvidia 169.09
INTEL DQ35JO
INTEL E8400
0CZ 8GB DDR2-800
ASUS 8600GT 256MB
SAMSUNG 305T
2X WD740GD RAID 0
1X WD5000AAKS
1X PIONEER DVR-212D
M-AUDIO AUDIOPHILE 2496
OCZ GAMEXSTREAM 700W

[Mota_boy]

Well same here my Asus 8600 GTS on linux and windows side shows on be 512mb even really i also got 256mb version card, hmm bit weard.

[Michael]

Same here with three different 8600 cards...

[cagljevic]

I see...

At least I know that there isn't anything particularly wrong with my setup, system bios for example. Nothing appears wrong performance wise so I suppose its ok to leave well enough alone. Thanks for the notice.

[ronino6988]

Well I also faced the same problem.So I went to ASUS service centre here.They told me that it had a particular feature which is called Power Cache or something near to that.It is like this if the system memory is 512 MB then it shows 256MB of video memory and if the RAM is more than that then it will show 512 MB video memory.You won't see the RAM decreasing when you're checking the system configuration because the memory sharing takes place when you are executing a program.So that is it.No need to worry.Everything is just fine.Although you are not worried anymore I guess

[cagljevic]

Its interesting that you were told that, I did stumble onto another thread in some other forum that also mentioned something similar. I did check the ASUS site and did not find anything listing such a feature. Maybe it is an NVIDIA feature that I overlooked somewhere...

[Melcar]

Never heard of "Power Cache" on 8600 cards. Turbo Cache on lower end 6xxx and 7xxx cards; maybe the guy got confused?

Maybe the driver is displaying the memory wrong? At least it's not the other way around (you have 512MBs but only displays half). Your xorg.0.log should give you more information.

[Kano]

I think it always reports twice the memory installed for those cards - as NVIDIA? TurboCache? Technology is used:

http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8600_8500_tech_specs.html

[cagljevic]

Thats interesting. I didn't notice that and make a connection with what was going on, I just assumed it was a driver issue not reading the hardware correctly. Good to know its performing up to spec. Thanks for pointing that out.