Geforce 4.. 64 or 128 meg?

[giantrobo]

I will be buying a Geforce 4 4200 card this weekend. What card will be better for me in the long run, the 64 meg or the 128? Different people are recommending me to do different things. I'm mostly getting it so I'll be able to play Star Wars Galaxies decently.. Will that game be using 128 meg on video cards that have that much memory on board? I've heard a lot of games can't even use it if it's there.

I'm in Canada, and the difference is only 40 bucks, but if it's 40 bucks I don't have to spend then I'd rather not.

 

[fwtong]

From what I've read, the 128mb version is a better buy. If you get an overclocking friendly 128mb board, you can overclock it up to the same speeds as what the 64mb boards are clocked. But, you can never add memory to a 64mb board to make it a 128mb board. In the long run, the 128mb boards are supposed to be better than the 64mb boards.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1643

 

[AnAndAustin]

Absolutely. The 4200-64MB is still far superior to the GF3TI500 or Rad8500 cards, even their 128MB versions. Default clocks are 4200-128=250/444 4200-64=250/500 4400=275/550 4600=300/650. 4200-64 nearly always use 3.6ns RAM and hit 300/620 speeds while 4200-128 tend to use 4.0ns which 'only' hit 300/550 speeds. However the 64MB becomes a severe bottleneck in some current and most up-coming games. The 4200-64 at 300/600 falls to the same speed as a 4200-128 at 250/444 and this shows why 64MB is not a good buy on a new card. Not only that but when you come to sell your card on it will be very hard to sell ANY 64MB card just as it is to sell a 32MB card now. Check this out:

Firing Squad - Note the Commanche4 benchmark as well as the 2% diffs between 64 and 128 at default clocks[/L]

 

[Lonyo]

Isn't Doom 3 meant to need 70MB for textures, and other future games may need more than 64mb, so the extra $40 may future proof you slightly more, but it may not be 100% necessary to have the extra 64MB yet, because by the time games needing more than 64Mb come out you might be thinking of upgrading again.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Games will certainly be expecting 128MB of gfx RAM over the enxt 12 months but it will still be a high priority to keep these games more than usable on the HUGE array of 64MB cards out there. The perf hit is BIG when more than 64MB is necessary, something which some current games already show let alone the latest and greatest. A big factor for me is when the time comes to sell your gfx card on, 64MB regardless of chipset is going to become VERY hard to shift over the coming months, much like trying to sell a 32MB card is right now. If you buy a decent mid-range card now it should last you VERY well for a good 12 months, at which point it is a good idea to sell it on and buy a new mid-range card before your previous card becomes unsellable, such is the speed the industry is moving at the moment. If you don't like it then stick with what you have and forget playing the 'keep up' game the industry requires you to play. But if we all did that we'd be sitting here typing away on our 486 66mhz PCs with 16MB RAM and an 500MB HD wouldn't we.

 

[BFG10K]

You should definitely be getting 128 MB variants of video cards as a lot of today's games crush 64 MB boards at high detail levels, even with texture compression enabled.

 

[giantrobo]

Thanks guys I actually went ahead and bought an Aopen 128 meg card. Aopen is good, yes?

 

[newbiepcuser]

Thanks guys I actually went ahead and bought an Aopen 128 meg card. Aopen is good, yes?

I want to know, also is that albatron brand any good, i want to save a buck or two also.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well Aopen are a very well known and respected manu. However brand truly makes very little diff for GF4TI cards, the ns rating of the RAM is by far the most critical part, but VERY hard to find out. I would shop by price, features, bundle and then if it doesn't cost much more manu.

 

[HeXeDOSOK]

1 card people should seriously look at:

Asus ti4200 v8420

Here is an excerpt from the review on hardocp:

"Because of the "budget" nature of the Ti4200 as a whole, trade offs are made when it comes to the memory and configuration. Normally you can either have 64MB of faster memory, or 128MB of slower memory, making it somewhat of a difficult decision when choosing between the two. Most 128MB Ti4200 cards use the 4.0ns memory, while the 64MB variety tends to use the faster 3.6ns. The V8420 has eliminated this dilemma by offering 128MB of the 3.3ns BGA memory; you can have your cake and eat it too."

If I were in the market for a ti4200, I'd be grabbing this this in a heartbeat. Here is the memory calculation from hardocp as well...looks like it has the overclocking ability never seen in a ti4200 card:

(3.3ns memory) 1000 / 3.3 = 606 MHz

Looks like this thing should clock to a little over 600 MHz.. but here is what HArdocp managed:

Stock speeds on the ASUS V8420 GeForce4 Ti 4200 start out at 260MHz core and 550MHz (DDR) memory. By enabling the coolbits hack I moved the Ti4200 up to a respectable 310MHz core clock. Considering the card is factory overclocked already, it performed very well. Memory scores topped out at 640, which is head and shoulders above the other Ti4200's, putting within reaching distance of stock Ti4600 memory speeds. Taking into consideration the core speed is already overclocked at 260MHz, getting the extra 50MHz on the core was pretty impressive. The 3.3ns Samsung BGA memory rated at 600MHz performed flawlessly at 640. I had hoped for more, but 650 brought on the tearing and artifacting until it was backed down to 640.


OMG...10 MHz under the stock speed of the ti4600? I think that looks impressive indeed.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Remember we're talking 'Asus 4200-128MB DELUXE', they also do standard 4200 versions too. Basicly it is a cool card, about the price of a 4400 ($200) but uses faster RAM so could be considered better. 4400 comes at 275/550 o/c to 300/620 while Asus 4200 Deluxe comes at 260/550 o/c to 300/640 but will sting you when selling the card on (most people just see the 4400 and 4200 tags). A better implimentation of the longer 4400/4600 design and 3.3ns BGA RAM is by the 'Suma 4200-128MB Special Edition' and this o/c's to 300/700, as well as a 4600 o/c's!

If you can find one of these enhanced 4200-128MB cards, can spare the extra cash and don't mind getting less for it when you sell it on than a 4400 (as they're the same price new) then cool! Do bear in mind standard 4200-64MB ($130) often reach 300/600 to 300/620 (although 64MB does hurt them) and standard 4200-128MB ($150) often reach 300/550 ... an enhanced 4200 or standard 4400 offer about 10% better perf once o/c'ed, it may or may not be worth the extra cash.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Here's a VERY good link for pointing out the benfits of 128MB:

AnAndTech 4200 roundup

And here's some info on the Suma card:

Suma