Help with choosing between 2 graphics cards!!

[moonfruit]

Hi, I need a bit of advice. I am struggling to choose between these two cards.....

BFG GeForce 5500 OC 256MB PCI £90

and

PNY VERTO GEFORCE FX5500 128MB DDR PCI £45

Obviously the BFG is 256MB, but also twice the price. Will it really make a big difference?

I am running a Pentium 4 2.93Mhz with 512mb ram.

Any help would really be apprieciated!

 

[DonNagual]

Can you give us some more info on the two cards?

What are the core clocks on them?
What are the memory clocks?
Those two are likely the same in the two cards you are looking at, but what about the memory interface? Are they both 128bit, or is the cheaper one 64 bit?

 

[moonfruit]

Hi, This is all the info I could find...

BFG
>> GPU NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX 5500

>> Bus Type PCI
>> Memory 256MB DDR
>> Core Clock 290MHz (vs. 270MHz standard)
>> RAMDAC Dual 350MHz
>> API Support Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 and lower, Open GL 1.5 and lower for Microsoft® Windows®
>> Connectors VGA, S-Video-Out
>> 72.5 million vertices/sec setup
>> Up to 4 pixels per clock rendering engine
>> Up to 16 textures per pass
>> Digital Vibrance Control™ 3.0
>> Microsoft® DirectX 9.0 with Vertex Shader 2.0 and Pixel Shader 2.0
>> Z- correct bump mapping

PNY....

CineFX 256-bit graphics core
270MHz GPU Clock
400MHz memory data rate
1.1 billion texels/sec. fill rate
67.5 million vertices/sec setup
High-performance 2D/3D rendering engine
4 Pixels per Clock Cycle (peak)
16 textures per pixel (max in a single rendering pass)
Accuview Antialiasing
Digital Vibrance Control 3.0
Dual 350MHz RAMDAC’s

DirectX and S3TC texture compression
Full DirectX 9 with Vertex/Pixel Shader 2.0+ Support
Flat Panel display support with resolutions up to 1600 x 1200
Max display resolution 2048 x 1536 x 32 bpp at 85Hz


I have a feeling that BFG overclock their cards before shipping, and charge a premium for this. This may explain the difference in price. As far as I can see they dont look that different.

Cheers

 

[vnf4ultra]

The bfg is the better card, but it's hard to say whether it's worth the extra money. I think bfg has a lifetime warranty if I'm not mistaken though.

 

[hangintite68]

I would go with BFG! Lifetime Warranty and they pre-clock there cards so you don't need to! it's a good brand to be with! PCI?

 

[moonfruit]

PCI?

Yeah, unfortunately I have to have a PCI card as my PC doesnt haev either AGP or PCI-E