looking forward; 128, 320 or 384-bit memory?

[elviswasfat]

i am trying to decide if i should spend more money for video card A because it has let's say, 320-bit memory interface over card B that has 128-bit memory. does anybody have any info showing that 320 or even 384-bit memory is much better than 128 in terms of how newer or future games will play better or look better? is it worth the money. i am looking to not spend too much money but if 320 or 384 is that much better than i can wait till christmas when the prices will go down or just get a card with a 128-bit memory interface in my price range now. thanks for any help.

 

[Lord Banshee]

given card A(128-bit) with same mem-clock speed as card B(384-bit). Card B will input and output data 3x as fast as card A due to the larger bus width. This is a potential of 300% improvement if such a task is a memory hog, AA, AF, large resolutions and games with lots of textures.

If you are looking at the 8600 vs a 8800 than i would go with the 8800 not because of the memory bus width but because the amount of shader units the 8800 have over the 8600. The shader units is what is currently the biggest bottle neck.

 

[SunnyD]

You forgot 256 and 512-bit...

 

[f4phantom2500]

it's not as clear-cut as that; you have to look at the card as a whole, the bus speed is just 1 factor. but, in general, a faster bus is better. you can't really buy a card now and expect to play all the new dx10 games at full settings, you should wait until the games you want to play are out and then buy the card. this rule especially applies now, because i mean the gf8 series has been out for a year and it's still king. what does that say? it says that these cards are about to be phased out with much faster cards; video card performance generally doesnt stagnate for more than a year or a year and a half.

 

[elviswasfat]

thanks for the advice. i think i will wait for a while and look at an 8800gts when the price drops later in the year or something newer to play Crysis or FC2 when they come out.

 

[RussianSensation]

Welcome to AnandTech!

Generally speaking cards with higher memory bandwidth (ie. 256, 320, 384 bit) have higher end and more powerful graphics cores. Of course, you can't simply say that a 256 bit card is always faster than 128-bit card (ie. 7600GT with 128 bit outperforms X850XT with 256 bit). You should consider a card vs. card comparison instead and what settings you plan on using. Higher memory bandwidth helps by allowing you to enable Anti-Aliasing (smoothing out jaggies) on the screen.

Also if you plan on waiting until Christmas, it's a strong possibility that GeForce 9 will be out or prices on current cards will fall. Don't forget to have an adequate speed CPU and at least 2 gigs of ram before you spend $250+ on a graphics card. If you generally run at 1600x1200 or below X1950XT 256mb should be plenty fast today.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Originally posted by: RussianSensationAlso if you plan on waiting until Christmas, it's a strong possibility that GeForce 9 will be out or prices on current cards will fall. Don't forget to have an adequate speed CPU and at least 2 gigs of ram before you spend $250+ on a graphics card. If you generally run at 1600x1200 or below X1950XT 256mb should be plenty fast today.

The new ATI r650 should be out before Christmas. The HD 2950 XT and XTX GPUs will have the HD 2900's 512-bit memory interface and at 65nm should reduce power consumption.

No doubt prices will fall on some good stuff . . .

 

[RussianSensation]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo

Originally posted by: RussianSensationAlso if you plan on waiting until Christmas, it's a strong possibility that GeForce 9 will be out or prices on current cards will fall. Don't forget to have an adequate speed CPU and at least 2 gigs of ram before you spend $250+ on a graphics card. If you generally run at 1600x1200 or below X1950XT 256mb should be plenty fast today.

The new ATI r650 should be out before Christmas. The HD 2950 XT and XTX GPUs will have the HD 2900's 512-bit memory interface and at 65nm should reduce power consumption.

No doubt prices will fall on some good stuff . . .

Let's hope ATI executes on time. Although to regain performance crown, they'll probably need a lot more than 65 nm shrink.

 

[chris79]

As far as memory is concerned, the only real way a 512 bit mmory interface is going to be better than a 256 bit interface is if the card can pump out enough information to saturate the 256 interface, otherwise, a 512 interface would be of little use.

I've seem some crap end cards tout a higher memory bandwidth but it was worthless because the card couldn't push out enough pixels to take advantage of it.