128mb v 256mb

[flavin]

hello there i plan on getting a new comp in the begginging of january hopefully. and im on a really tight budget so im trying to save money where i can but still get great performance out of the bad boy.

i was thinking about gettin a 7800 from newegg and pay it off over 6 months (the only way i would be able to get the card) but i dont no how could of an idea that would be. especially if i lost my job down the line

so i was just thinking about maybe getting a cheaper card. and was just wondering about the performance differences in a 128mg card and a 256mb card.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

 

[vegasgmc]

In 6 months the 7800 will drop quite a bit in price so paying it off over 6 months doesnt make much sense. You should just go for a 6800 Ultra or GT. Having 256mb of RAM lets you turn on all the visual eye candy and lets you run at higher resolutions. But all high end cards come with 256mb anyway.

 

[AKirru]

Just backing up what vegasgmc said the 256 mb of ram will only really help you in higher resolutions and when you start to put a lot of the eye candy on. Of course the higher the anti-aliasing/resolution etc the more memory required.

Although if you are only playing in 1024 (and dont mind having lower anti-aliasing settings for newer games) or there about 128mb should be more than enough for the moment. I also agree that the 6800 series is a good choice for the gamer on a budget. Dude seriously there is no point in putting yourself in debt etc. I recommend the 6800GS that card has great bang for buck. Anyways have a great xmas.

Merry Xmas all :bounce:

 

[flavin]

alright thanks for the input guys. im most definately gonna get a 256mb card because i play COD2 and i love eye candy.

 

[Sharkfood]

There is no real way to give good advice about 128mb vs 256mb unless all the factors involved are also portrayed.

The biggest consumers of videomemory are: Antialiasing, resolution and textures. Textures will be game specific, so depending upon the game you're playing, this may or may not be an issue. The only two specific games I can think of that have texture requirements of this magnitude are Everquest2 and Doom3 (Everquest2 has a Max texture mode that will use over 180MB of texture space... and Doom3 "Ultra" mode will also consume over 120MB of texture requirements). These are dramatic exceptions though and telling the difference between their high and "ultra" modes isn't a stark, massive difference.

What is left for the other 99% of the games involves resolution and antialiasing(AA). Obviously, the videocard in question will determine if this is even a consideration. If it's a 7800 or 6800 Ultra (or X1800/X800+ series from ATI)- these are the only cards with enough horsepower to even USE antialiasing with higher resolutions. So, if you plan on playing games at 1280x1024 or 1600x1200 with 4x or 6x AA, you'll benefit from over 128MB of videomemory. This is why a 9600 with 256mb is kinda silly- you'll be lucky if you can reach 1024x768 with 4xAA at 15 fps as the GPU doesn't have the kind of power to use >128MB as far as AA + resolution goes.