Question about the type of RAM on VGA

[Regin]

I'm assembling a rig myself for the first time and I have a noobish question.

I was wondering if the type of RAM on the VGA differing from that on the motherboard matters ? The motherboard made for DDR2 and VGA has DDR3.....
There's no compatibility problem in that, right ?

 

[error8]

Yes, there is no problem. The ram on the motherboard has nothing to do with the Vga ram. If you asked this question, I think it's probably better to have someone more experienced to assemble your system.

 

[cyberfish]

Not related to motherboard RAM at all.

Current VGA cards come with DDR2 (low end) and GDDR3 (high end, often mislabeled as DDR3). Some mid-end cards such as the 8600 GT has both DDR2 and GDDR3 versions. In that case, avoid the DDR2 version at all cost. They are substantially(~30%) slower than their GDDR3 counterparts, as DDR2 can only be clocked a lot lower than GDDR3. I personally am willing to spend ~$25 more for GDDR3 than DDR2 (everything else being the same). And no, for a mid end card like 8600 GT, 512MB doesn't help almost at all. Those 7300's with 512MB are for people who don't know what they are doing (buying video cards).

 

[Regin]

Thanks for the answers. I'm very thorough and cautious as you can tell by my question ! I have done really much to learn a lot about this, and have some competent friends too. But they are not available all the time, and it's almost impossible to find basic knowledge about it all. And I learn more reading than listening

 

[betasub]

Originally posted by: Regin
Thanks for the answers. I'm very thorough and cautious as you can tell by my question ! I have done really much to learn a lot about this, and have some competent friends too. But they are not available all the time, and it's almost impossible to find basic knowledge about it all. And I learn more reading than listening

:thumbsup: You're wise to try and learn all you can before getting too committed to your build/purchases.

Memory on a graphics card (vRAM) is local to the GPU and its memory controller. A different memory controller (either on the CPU or motherboard northbridge) handles system RAM. In some cases the GPU can access system RAM (e.g. TurboCache) but this is slow, having to be handled by both memory controllers.

Good luck with the build.