ATI RADEON 32MB OR 64?

[diablo1]

ATI RADEON 32MB OR 64?
Need advice.

 

[EvilDonnyboy]

32mb. If you want to spend more, get the 64mb, but it doesn't benifit performance by a large amount. It all depends on how much you want to spend.

Keep in mind that the 32mb OEM, Retail and 64mb OEM Radeons run at 166/166. The Retail 64mb Radeons run at 183/183. The OEM 32mb DDR Radeon LE runs at 143/143 (best value). You shoudl avoid the Radeon SDR (cost as much as LE, performs worse) and the VE (crappy dual-display and performance).

 

[oldfart]

Well, the 64 is better than the 32 but costs more (funny how it works that way). I've run the 32 and 64 side by side. The extra texture memory DOES make a big difference. I dont mean super high res either. I mean 1024 x 768 x 32 x max quality. For example: UT is smoother on the 64 especially in large maps like Deck16. Q3 takes a very small FPS hit with TC disabled. You will see a larger hit on the 32 meg card. New games like Serious Sam, Giants, B&W, etc have very large textures, and that will only get worse (better actually). The smoothness difference doesn't show up all that much in benchmarks, but does in actual gameplay.

If you are getting the card as a stop gap until the next gen cards are out, go cheap and get a 32 meg. If you plan on keeping it for awhile, get the 64 meg version. This goes with any card, not just Radeon.

 

[BFG10K]

Oldfart is right. Running most modern games with maxed settings (even at 800 x 600) will be much smoother on 64 MB cards because there'll be far less texture swaps. Plus the board will be more future proof.