More video memory = more performance? I need this question answered...

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: evenmore1
I see, thanks for the input guys!

If I get a new video card, should I get a 512 MB X1600 pro or a 128 MB X800 or a GeForce 6800? They seem to be about the same prices on Newegg

What do you play? What do you do with it?

If you plan to edit video, get the X1x00.

 

[Vinnybcfc]

Originally posted by: evenmore1
I dunno...my dads not going to let me build/purchase a new computer till I go to college. Imagine all the great stuff there will be in 1.5 years!

What kind of budget do you have?

 

[evenmore1]

Probably double what I paid for the Computer in my siggy. I'd probably play some of the latest games like NFS or Half Life 3 (when does it come out?)

I dunno, I might get a laptop or a SFF PC.
Still, 1.5 years is a long time, especially for the computer age.

 

[n7]

There needs to be a balance.

Generally speaking, if the card doesn't cost more that $300, 512 MB of RAM is usually unnecssary, which means you paid extra for RAM the card cannot utilize.

In your theoretical argument, you were most certainly right.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Cawchy87
It's like putting a spoiler on a civic. It won't make you go faster, but thousands of idiots are willing to pay more for it.

Perfect analogy here. More ram is only useful if the rest of the card has enough horsepower to use it. A low end card with tons of ram can't even use it.

But people like to apply simple concepts like "more is better" to things like this. And since the manufactorers know people are going to buy the card with to much ram from some one, they make a product that by all rights shouldn't even exist, because they figure they might as well be buying from them. Thats why so many of those damn fx5200 with 256mb of ram sold. Horrible buys. Those cards are to slow to even use 128mb at playable framerates. To add insult to injury, manufactorers usually stick SLOWER ram into the low end cards to keep their costs down and bait the suckers in. Weren't the 64mb geforce2 mx series a good example of this?

More ram is better of course, but its not the ONLY factor in video card performance. Its not even one of the most important since most cards come with plenty of ram for their performance level. Its definately the most overrated aspect of video cards I'd say.

 

[gsellis]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Cawchy87
It's like putting a spoiler on a civic. It won't make you go faster, but thousands of idiots are willing to pay more for it.

Perfect analogy here. More ram is only useful if the rest of the card has enough horsepower to use it. A low end card with tons of ram can't even use it.

Well almost. I don't think more video memory will dent the case because it was going too fast. Love those guys who put a lot of downforce on an unenforced trunk deck! Can't wait until they hit over 120...

 

[Sunrise089]

Originally posted by: PingSpike

Originally posted by: Cawchy87
It's like putting a spoiler on a civic. It won't make you go faster, but thousands of idiots are willing to pay more for it.

Perfect analogy here...

A little OT, but actually this is a terrible analogy for two reasons:
1) As much as I think they look horrible, 90% of Civic owners who add a spoiler don't think it makes them faster, they think it makes them look better.
2) Spoilers do not make you go faster. They add down-force making you more stable at high speeds. A Formula 1 car could go a good deal faster without that big spoiler on the back at high speeds, the problem would be when you combine those high speeds with a very aerodynamic car with a flat bottom you generate a lot of lift. Lift is very bad in a car. Although you wont come off the ground, your at the limit handling and traction can degrade considerably.

 

[OvErHeAtInG]

Originally posted by: aznrice54

Originally posted by: AthlonAlien

The standard 6800 Ultra (256MB) outperforms the 6800GS... an Ultra with 512MB is just icing on the cake

BTW, a 6800 GT (256MB) also tops the 6800 GS.

-LaTeR

Huh? I thought the GS offered comparable performance to the GT (especially when overclocked).

Exactly. When overclocked. Actually its superior overclockability makes it even more desirable, but stock for stock, I think the GT's faster. At least that was nvidia's intention.

 

[sindows]

I don't pay any attention to the amount of ram on a video card. A video card manfactuter would usually never make a card and include a lower amount of memory which would bottleneck the card's performance.

 

[evenmore1]

I personally thought it was a good analogy because the spoiler adds handling at high speeds. However, most of us don't even go fast enough to actually see a difference in handling. Also, if someone goes 80 mph on the highway, they're usually going straight anyway, so who cares? Appearance is everything to these people...

Just as in graphics cards. Fools go out and buy a X1300 with 512MB RAM thinking "more is better." They're also on a budget, so 512MB is overkill

Btw, if I really cared about handling in a car, I'd get a Lotus Elise or Exige. Sweet Handling Not so sweet ride

 

[Matthias99]

He said he would choose an ATI Radeon X300 512MB over a x800GTO 128mb or 6600GT 128MB. I would think that because the GT and X800 have faster RAM, they should have more performance. All this confuses me...

Your friend is an idiot.

There's a certain amount of video memory required to play a certain game at certain settings. For example, if you run games like SS2 or COD2 at 1600x1200 with AA and AF, then 512mb video mem is required for optimal performance. Even if you had a x1900xtx, but it only had 128mb of video mem, the performance would degrade significantly. Once you have enough vram, faster ram can increase performance, but it will not make up for the difference if you dont have enough vram.

On the other hand, a card like the x300 is limited by the slow gpu, and if you play any game at settings that require 256mb or 512mb, the performance will suffer from the slow gpu, regardless of how much vram you actually have, and having faster vram will not make up for the slow gpu either.

QFT FTW.

Yes, not having enough memory can hurt your performance. However, most games can scale down to 64MB cards without difficulty (using low-quality textures, etc.), and I don't know of any games that cannot run acceptably on a 128MB card. Although uber-high settings often need a 256MB card, and a few games have settings where 512MB is recommended. But you need a really fast card to run those settings anyway, so having extra RAM on a very slow card is not going to help much. It's like comparing a Pentium 3 1.0Ghz with 4GB of RAM to an Athlon64 4000+ with 1GB of RAM. Yes, you can come up with contrived situations where the A64 will be killed because it doesn't have as much RAM, but any sane person would want the latter setup.

Generally speaking, something like an X800 or 6600GT is not really fast enough to use even 256MB of RAM fully. You don't start to see a large benefit from even 256MB (let alone 512MB!) until you look at cards like the 6800GT or X800XT, or the newer-generation models like the X1800/1900 and the GF7800s.

 

[Elfear]

Originally posted by: gsellis

Well almost. I don't think more video memory will dent the case because it was going too fast. Love those guys who put a lot of downforce on an unenforced trunk deck! Can't wait until they hit over 120...

A Civic can hit 120mph?

 

[jdkick]

IMO, 512MB of VRAM on an entry level video card is marketting more then anything else. In most case, low end cards don't even support the eye candy that would make use of the larger memory. Even if it did, the GPU isn't going to offer enough performance to make use of such featuers and still offer decent FPS/resolution, so you wouldn't even enable those settings. Basically, you're going to need one powerful card to make use of 512MB.

In the end, putting money towards an X1300 as a gaming card simply because it's sporting 512MB will be a disappointment. You'll get better performance and better looking games from a 6600GT w/ 128MB. If you want to go ATI for AVIVO/Crossfire, the X1600XT would be the more attractive model given price point/performance.