difference between 128 and 256bit?

P

Pepperlizard

New Member
I'm new to PC hardware and I'm looking into buying parts to build myself a gaming PC. I keep seeing cards with 1GB 128bit and 1GB 256bit, whats the difference between them, and is it worth getting a 256 over a 128?

follow up question:
I'm pretty cheap, money doesn't come too fast and I want a PC that can play most anything on the highest settings without breaking bank now (that has been a problem for me over the years :P). What GPU would you guys reccomend without spending a fortune and keeping the total computer cost below $700-850?
 
The bus width depends on how much data be sent from the the ram to the gpu, the wider the bus the more data can be sent at one time, this can be noticeable is some games, I hear fallout new vegas is a good example as on hig with drw distance set to max there is alot of data the needs processing hence the quicker the info will need to be feed to the gpu.
So i would recommend that you do get a wider memory bus if you, like me, only want everything on the highest settings.
It's hard to suggest what would be in your price range as I dont know what else you are planning to buy, how much is cash did you want to spend on the gpu alone?
 
If one card has 1GB of 128-bit GDDR5, it will have half the memory bandwidth of the same card with 1GB of 256-bit GDDR5.

Memory bandwidth determines how fast the card can load thing into and out of memory. It's quite important, in the same way you don't want to be running your 2x2GB kit of RAM in single channel these days. It halves your memory bandwidth and has a quite noticeable effect on performance (in my experience)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top