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graphics card -- 256 or 512mb?

J

jtgameover

Member
i'm putting together a gaming rig that i hope will last for a few years, and at one point i was about to buy the ATI X1900XTX for $430 on Newegg, but then decided to be a little more patient... should I spring for a 512mb graphics card? i plan to do alot of gaming and watching movies. but will i notice a difference? I am willing to spend the extra money to get the rest of my system up to par with the graphics card ... but would it be smarter to take a 256mb card now, and then upgrade to 512 in a year or two?

any personal recommendations on either 256/512mb graphics card? i have no clue if I'll do SLi, still figuring out what that is. thanks

 
Don't worry about the quantity of memory, worry about how fast the card is. What resolution are you playing games at..... If you have a 20" plus monitor, then the XTX or GTX could be worth it... otherwise, go for something in the $250-300 range and upgrade in a year....

PS movies will look equally good whichever vidcard you get.... certainly quantity of memory has nothing to do with that
 
i currently have a dell 20.1" widescreen 2005FPW (works really great for movies) at 1680x1050. I might spring for a second lcd with better response time, but something like 1600x1200....

also, i am looking into memory. pc3200 vs. pc4000? ddr vs. ddr2? I get the impression that ddr2 has more speed but higher latency, and isn't really popular yet. and i keep reading about these "timings" when comparing pc3200 vs. pc4000.... what would be the limiting factor (i.e. motherboard, processor?) between choosing 500 mHz pc4000 over 400 mHz pc3200? sorry for being a n00b
 
pc4000 if you want to overclock a lot, otherwise pc3200 is just fine (overclocks well too). The higher timings and Mhz for the pc4000 allow for more overclocks and speed. Dont know about ddr vs. ddr2, but have read not much of a boost going to ddr2...at least not yet. Whether you go ddr or ddr2 depends on what mobo and cpu you're getting

In terms of your video card, yes, memory is not everything, but for the choice that you were looking at (x1900xtx), it blows away all 256mb cards out there right now. Always look at the core & memory clock speed, pixel pipelines, and memory interface of the card. Some cards may say 512mb, but only be a 128-bit interface, which sucks like those X1300s. The x1900xtx is 256 bit interface and an excellent choice, you wont be disappointed.
 
thanks for all the quick replies guys... i am not sure if i want to overclock -- i've never built a rig before. after reading around, seems like overclocking is ok as long as you do it slowly and carefully, and i am pretty good about not rushing into things.

i am seriously considering OCZ 2GB Platinum PC3200 ... would this give me enough flexibility to do a little bit of overclocking in the future? and is this brand/model pretty good in general? the timings are 2-3-2-5, and as I understand it, the first number (CAS latency), is the most important... the lower the better.

if i did get an X1900XTX, what would be the limiting component, i.e. motherboard and processor?

any good recommendations for a motherboard/processor? a friend at work recommends the AMD opteron series, and i am thinking of something that is 64-bit dual-core.
 
sticking on the gpu ram topic, what IS video ram used for exactly? i've never really taken this into consideration
 
I have that exact OCZ ram and yes, they tend to overclock well. Optys are great choices for a dual core CPU, but only if you OC them, otherwise its a waste. Look into X2 processors as well, especially if you decide not to OC at all or very minimally, a 3800 or 4200 are great CPUs, and even they OC very very well if you intend to do it.

As for mobos, DFI, Asus, or Epox boards are good choices. You may want to go Asus for simplicity, DFIs are more difficult to set up, but are the best for OC and are awesome boards. You do the research to find out which is more highly rated.

For a x1900xtx, just make sure you get at least a 500W PSU from a "respectable" vendor (Fortron, Enermax, OCZ, PC&PC, etc) and any of those dual core CPUs (X2 or opty) and you should be fine. Please make sure your mobo is PCI-E and not AGP lol.
 
Video RAM, as I understand, is used as a framebuffer.

From Wikipedia...

"The framebuffer is a video output device that drives a video display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data. The information in the buffer typically consists of color values for every pixel (point that can be displayed) on the screen. Color values are commonly stored in 1-bit monochrome, 4-bit palletized, 8-bit palletized, 16-bit highcolor and 24-bit truecolor formats. An additional alpha channel is sometimes used to retain information about pixel transparency. The total amount of the memory required to drive the framebuffer is dependent on the resolution of the output signal, as well as the color depth and palette size.

Framebuffers differ significantly from the vector graphics displays that were common prior to the advent of the framebuffer. With a vector display, only the vertices of the graphics primitives are stored. The electron beam of the output display is then commanded to move from vertex to vertex, tracing an analog line across the area between these points. With a framebuffer, the electron beam (if the display technology uses one) is commanded to trace a left-to-right, top-to-bottom path across the entire screen, much in the same way a television renders a broadcast signal. The color information for each point on the screen is then pulled from the framebuffer, creating a set of discrete picture elements (pixels)."

So the video memory stores information required to render the scene. Think of it like a processor's cache, the card stores important data that needs to be accessed quickly in it's local memory. This allows it to avoid the perils of relying on the RAM which is much farther away in terms of access speed and latency.
 
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