128MB graphics cards roundup at Digit-Life

[NFS4]

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/128mbcards/index.html

 

[John]

Damn, nice....mine will be here Tuesday.

 

[AGodspeed]

Yup, looks like 128MB is useless until UT2 et al starts arriving...

 

[Ionizer86]

Whoa, nice find. Thanks

This should do well in answering AT members' questions on 128mb cards

 

[John]

Still, for 200.00 the GW 128MB Ti200 is pretty attractive for most people (like me and the other geeks). The same can be said for cpus, why do you need 1.4GHz+?

 

[konichiwa]

Also attractive for those (me) who don't upgrade every 6 months. I want a card that will be able to play games that come out 3, 6, 9, even 12 months from now.

 

[Insane3D]

Mine will be here tomorrow....who cares if the extra memory is useless. I always play @ 1600 x 1200 if possible...so I think I will get some benefit from it. That site only used Q3 as a test...and I don't see anywhere that they disabled compressed textures...I bet that might make a difference @ 1600 x 1200. The way I see it is I am getting a GF3 with 128mb of memory that will hit GF3 Ti500 speeds, and is still over $100 less than a Ti500...

Since when do we buy computer parts that are "just what we need"? Do any of us really need 1ghz plus CPU's and DDR memory...no..but we still get it.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

As I suspected, 128 MB is utterly useless at this point and is good only for bragging rights

Also, I can't believe they're pairing up Radeon 7500's with 5.5 and 6ns RAM, that just wrecks it's performance. I already see a huge boost between my Radeon 7500 @230 mem and @277 mem. They should have definetly stuck with 4ns RAM

-Ice

 

[Insane3D]

"As I suspected, 128 MB is utterly useless at this point and is good only for bragging rights"

They tested one game...I would like to see a more comprehensive test with various games and things like disabling compressed textures. Also, I would like to see what affect it has if trying to run FSAA @ resolutions of 1600 x 1200 and up...


I remember when the 64mb cards came out and everyone was saying how the extra memory was useless...

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

<< "As I suspected, 128 MB is utterly useless at this point and is good only for bragging rights"

They tested one game...I would like to see a more comprehensive test with various games and things like disabling compressed textures. Also, I would like to see what affect it has if trying to run FSAA @ resolutions of 1600 x 1200 and up... >>



True, maybe I was a little hasty with that comment but why disable DXTC? The bandwidth isn't doubling...

That's the problem, (hypothetically) using 64MB of QDR RAM would likely yield a huge boost in performance at nearly all resolutions, whereas 128MB of DDR RAM at the same speeds as usual = likely near-zero improvement in current games

-Ice

 

[Soccerman]

I'm not going to type this all over again... so here it is from this thread:

well there IS a difference between 32 and 64 megs even when not at ultra high resolutions. that indicates that some AGP texturing is occuring.

when at ultra high resolutions (1600x1200x32) you might begin to fill up 64 megs of RAM and rely again on the AGP texturing. This isn't proven though with benches yet so you might be wasting your money

also, if even todays latest games don't use AGP texturing at 1600x1200x32, then you'll probably never need more than 128 megs becuase tommorows games won't let your video card run at such high resolutions with a high enough framerate to play properly. they might use a bit more texture memory though (it's hard to say becuase if games become detailed enough, just coloured pixels will suffice, rather than requireing a texture).

 

[BD231]

Why arent there any Ti500 128meg cards, or 128meg 8500 Radeon cards?!?!

 

[VBboy]

If they put memory chips on BOTH sides of the board, but still put heatsinks only one the memory on one side, overclocking potential will be greatly reduced...

Does anyone know if the memory is located on both or one a single side of 128-MB videocard?

 

[rockhard]

Gainward are doing a Jumbo Golden sample that'll have 128mb ram on both the ti200 and ti500 variant
Theres also a Radeon 8500 with 128mb ram (4 ns) clocked at 250/250 coming out by a firm called Joytech.
You can read up on these on Digit-Life.

 

[jimmygates]

Been using my 128MB Gainward Geforce 3 Ti200 for a week now. I got it from newegg for $196. Works like a charm. Haven't regretted one moment. Got the card clocked at 231/515.



-jimbo

 

[Adul]

I guess I'll stick with my 32 Mb card a while longer.

 

[BFG10K]

Yup, looks like 128MB is useless until UT2 et al starts arriving...

No it isn't. RTCW chews up 64 MB cards even with texture compression enabled.

As I suspected, 128 MB is utterly useless at this point and is good only for bragging rights

Wrong. Just because there is no difference in one game that doesn't mean anything. 128 MB cards will provide smoother and more consistent gameplay plus you'll be able to play more games with texture compression disabled.

True, maybe I was a little hasty with that comment but why disable DXTC?

Because it's lossy compression which means image quality degradation.

 

[sharkeeper]

Whatever happened to everyone having 8MB cards and using 128+ AGP memory?

Cheers!

 

[BFG10K]

Whatever happened to everyone having 8MB cards and using 128+ AGP memory?

Everyone woke up from that horrible nightmare.