Question from an acquaintence of mine

[searingsky]

Someone I know insists on buying a 256MB 6600 instead of a 128MB 6600GT because he feels that more RAM on a card means much better performance and speed. I told him that's not necessarily true all the time, especially in terms of what a GPU can do. Anyone wanna help me explain that to him or explain the opposite instead?

 

[hans030390]

shoot that person you know

the benchmarks show that a 6600gt EASILY kills a 6600 even with 256mb ram...the 6600 can't even utilize the 256mb ram, so it's pointless to have it.

Just get a 6600gt and laught at him/her and tell him/her that they are a loser and they need to research before they base bigger numbers as better performance

 

[searingsky]

Heh heh, I told him generally the same thing beforehand and he insisted that he should know WHY he should pay more for what he sees as less.

 

[Dough1397]

Originally posted by: hans030390
shoot that person you know

i hat epeople who think more ram on a video card is better than a card with better architectual design....

 

[Pete]

It's quite simple. With the faster, 128MB card, you'll always have the speed, and you can always turn down texture memory to maintain full speed. With the slower, 256MB card, you'll always get lower framerates, period.

Or just show him some damn benchmarks of a 6600 vs. a 6600GT. The GT is always faster than the vanilla card thanks to its much faster core and memory clocks, and all the extra memory in the world won't make the vanilla clock higher. All it may allow for is the use of the highest texture setting all the time, which isn't very appealing when you're getting 30fps. I'd rather knock the textures down a notch and run at 50fps.

 

[searingsky]

Thanks for the extra ammo, guys. Now if I can just manage to convince him enough.

 

[royhobbs]

Hey guys,

I have a follow up question on this topic of 256 MB Cards. I realize that benchmarks show a GT to be faster than a plain 6600, regardless of the difference in memory amount. I also understand partially why it is faster, ram speed, clock speed, etc.

I guess my question, if anyone knows, is would a 256 MB card help more than a 128, in 3d Modeling applications such as Maya? I'm not talking about rendering (done with CPU), or even hardware rendering (done with Video Card), but just moving objects around, creating models and animation. Would the same circumstances apply, where the architecture is going to help it be faster, or could this be a situation where the memory would actually help?

If anyone knows of any good (not just 256 MB DDR1 sucks compared to 128 DDR3) answers for this I would appreciate it.

Example would be a 6600 256 MB card maybe overclocked a little, which would still be a little slower than a 6600GT in games, but could it be a little more responsive in a 3d App?

Thanks very much for any information.

 

[Pete]

I don't know anything about 3D modelling apps, but the same principle should apply. If the models use more memory than that in the video card's local framebuffer, then it'll probably take a noticable performance hit (similar to spilling over from system RAM to virtual memory, aka the HD). I don't know if PCIe (with its far greater bandwidth and bidirectional nature) changes this somewhat for the probably less demanding access patterns of 3D modelling apps, though.

 

[Concillian]

HE likes numbers, give him numbers about pixel throughput and memory bandwidth.

6600 is 8 pipes at 300 MHz = 2400 megapixels per second fillrate
6600GT is 8 pipes at 500 MHz = 4000 mpixels per second fillrate

6600 is 250MHz 128bit memory DDR = 8 GB/sec memory throughput
6600GT is 500MHz 128bit memory DDR = 16 GB/sec memory throughput

Even if 256MB is faster (there is a difference but it's quite minimal on modern games), it's not so much faster to make up for the 6600 being only about half the raw speed of the GT.

 

[royhobbs]

Concillian,

I'm not sure if you're referring to me or the other guy. Could you clarify? I'm personally not really looking for numbers. I have already read most of them. What I'm wondering is if anyone knows from personal experience whether having 256 MB of Ram would help in certain situations like that, with 3d modeling, regardless of fillrates, or memory throughput rates. I don't know if that makes any sense. If fillrates and throughput rates help your modeling and animation then I guess that would apply.

Thanks!

 

[Concillian]

I was referring to the OP's friend. He likes 256 over 128 becuase 256 is a larger number. And bigger is better right?

It may just be that he doesn't know the tangible specs for the other important factors.

I haven't done any 3d modeling in almost 10 years. Whatever knowledge I have in that arena would likely not be relevant to current technology.

 

[royhobbs]

Concillian, I agree with you. Thanks for the reply. I will have to post this question in a few other forums, perhaps, to see if I can find some people who are familiar with the subject. Thanks!