Vid card PCI 512MB DDR3 card OR a PCI 1GB DDR2 card?

[CZJZ]

Hi, I'm looking to piece\upgrade an old system for my nephew of an old P4 cpu. I don't want to spend too much on it and I am all set except getting a video card for it. My question is would I be better off getting a 512MB ddr3 card or a 1gb dd2 video card for it? The 1gb card has twice the capacity of the 512 but it's at ddr2 speed; the 512 is at ddr3 but 1\2 the capacity, so which way to go?


I'm putting it on a MSI 945 GC M478, 4GB pc2-5300 RAM.

Thanks

 

[Andrew1990]

Can you tell us what cards they are? If they are two different GPUs, we might as well compare an apple to a car....

 

[CZJZ]

Sure. Here are the ones I was considering.


BFG - NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT 1GB DDR2 PCI Express Graphics Card

or

XFX - NVIDIA GeForce 9600 GT 512MB DDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card

 

[ViRGE]

Go with the 9600GT, it's no contest.

 

[adairusmc]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Go with the 9600GT, it's no contest.

:thumbsup:

 

[CZJZ]

Thanks

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: CZJZ
Hi, I'm looking to piece\upgrade an old system for my nephew of an old P4 cpu. I don't want to spend too much on it and I am all set except getting a video card for it. My question is would I be better off getting a 512MB ddr3 card or a 1gb dd2 video card for it? The 1gb card has twice the capacity of the 512 but it's at ddr2 speed; the 512 is at ddr3 but 1\2 the capacity, so which way to go?


I'm putting it on a MSI 945 GC M478, 4GB pc2-5300 RAM.

Thanks

Virge already answered but just for future reference...the amount of ram a card has is NOT a good metric for seeing how fast a card is...the GPU powering the card (9600GT in this case) is a much better way to tell how good the card is (although even that can be a bit confusing because of all the card renaming that's going on). Manufacturers just put large amounts of ram on crappy performing cards to I think fool consumers into thinking it's a better card.

 

[s44]

No card with DDR2 or GDDR2 is meant for gaming.

 

[TurtleCrusher]

Originally posted by: s44
No card with DDR2 or GDDR2 is meant for gaming.

Ever heard of the 4650?

Its right up there with the 8800GS/8800GTS G80 and it only has a 128-bit memory bus.

 

[daveybrat]

Originally posted by: Scholzpdx

Originally posted by: s44
No card with DDR2 or GDDR2 is meant for gaming.

Ever heard of the 4650?

Its right up there with the 8800GS/8800GTS G80 and it only has a 128-bit memory bus.

I think you are referring to the HD 4670 card that has DDR3 ram. That competes with those cards, but the HD 4650 is definitely not as fast as an 8800GTS!