Will 256MB really be better than 128MB for the cost

[Kinesis]

Yup well over a year. This last system I have last 5 years to the day. So the next one I would like to last for 2 years. Aug 2006 would be reasonable!

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: Kinesis
Yup well over a year. This last system I have last 5 years to the day. So the next one I would like to last for 2 years. Aug 2006 would be reasonable!

Then it's definately worth spending the extra money on more RAM. The LAST thing you ever want to happen is to have chunks of your game swapped out to the hard drive. That's frame rate kryptonite

 

[OMG1Penguin]

1 GB ram, 6800gt.

 

[UK Frost]

I'd second that.1 gig and the best graphics card you can afford.
If i was spending that kind of money i'd want to see a performance kick now rather than hoping i would 'maybe' get one in 18months.
No such thing as buying for the future in this game im afraid.Just get the set up that will give you the biggest performance increase at the time of upgrading according to your budget.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Kinesis
Hope someone can give me the straight goods on this. For the new system I am buiilding I am planning to put a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro in it. Now should I get the 128MB or the 256MB version? About $100 bucks difference (here in Canada).

Would I see enought of a difference or benefit when plainning games? I am planning to get 2GB of DDR Ram. Is that overkill for the "average" computer user/programmer/gamer to have?

Would the on-board RAM (being 2GB) be enough to compensate for the difference between 128 and 256MB on the video card?

Thanks in advance!

The motherboard's RAM is not going to be good to "compensate" for the 128MB videocard - if the GPU has to actually use AGP's ability to store textures in system RAM, it has to go onto the system bus, then to the RAM, which runs a good bit slower than the videocard's RAM. This extended access path (AGP -> chipset -> system RAM and back again) adds latency too, which would really hurt framerates.
So no, system RAM isn't going to compensate for that reason.

Go along with what's been said here - 1GB RAM should be very adequate, and go for something high-end with the saved money, like the 6800GT as KillaKilla suggested.

 

[Kinesis]

Thank you again folks. Anandtech has such an awesome support network!

Thank you for all your suggestions!

 

[Kinesis]

Well not that anyone cares, but I have my system finally built with the following specifications (done mostly from the suggestions by the people here at Anandtech Forums)

Intel P4 3.0E FSB800 1MB L2 Cache CPU
Zalman CNP7000-ALCU s478 Heat Sink/Fan
Asus P4P800-E Deluxe Motherboard (i865PE)
TwinMOS PC3200 (400Mhz) Twister Gold Dual Channel DDR CL2 (2 X 512MB)
Asus V9999 GE TD GeForce 6800 256MB AGP 8X Video Card
Creative Labs Soundblaster Audiology ZS 7.1
Western Digital 80GB IDE 8MB Cache Hard Drive
Western Digital 80GB 7200RPM Raptor SATA Hard Drive
LG 12X DVD +/-RW Dual Layer
LG 52X32X52X CDRW
CoolerMaster Centurion 5 (Black) Case
Antec TruePower 480Watt Power Supply
Creative Labs Inspire 3.1 Speakers (what I have already)

Thanks again for all your help wait for it to arrive and have a run at it.

 

[UK Frost]

Very very nice system Kinesis,it will absolutely fly.....
I hope it brings you a lot of joy.

Regards..

 

[Kinesis]

Thanks UK Frost! I am extremely excited to finally get this thing built.