g/card good or not?

[robina_80]

hi all,
my question is how do you tell a bad g/cards from a good one take this for example a nvidia 512mb is £93 and one is for £504 whats the difference??? what do you look out for when buying a good or really good card i dont want to spend mega money im willing to spend max £150 no more

 

[Geoff]

You mainly want to look at the pipelines, core/memory speeds, and a few other things. This is an excellent site for comparing cards, and more often then not, the higher the better.

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

 

[diduknowthat]

read video cards 101 over a few times.

 

[robina_80]

i look for core speed and memory speed now but i only realized that the pipelines matter a hell of alot

 

[Geoff]

"Video Cards 101" Is very helpful, but if your stuck between 2 cards, the link i posted above would be very helpful. For almost any video card for nVidia 6000 series or higher, or the ATI 9600 or higher series, it shows 3DMark05 scores.

 

[robina_80]

its seems Ati have got more pipelines than nvidia so should i go for Ati

 

[robina_80]

what about this one
http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/ProductInfo.asp?WebProductID=346051

 

[fade2green514]

everything matters when you're talking about a video card. pipelines, vertex shaders, clock speed, memory size, memory interface. simply everything matters when it comes to the performance of a video card, but when buying a new one make sure that it has:
1. enough pixel pipelines and vertex shaders
2. a nice high memory clock speed
3. a nice gpu clock speed
4. 256-bit memory interface
5. 256mb of video memory or higher
all of the above effect how a card performs
im sure there are more factors, but these are the main ones.

for instance, a 6600gt AGP and a 9800pro perform similarly, even though the 9800pro's memory is clocked MUCH slower. WHY? because the 6600gt's memory interface is 128-bit and the 9800pro's memory interface is 256-bit... even though they have the same amount of pipelines and shaders.

my 7800gt - 7 vertex shaders, 20 pixel pipelines, 488mhz gpu, 1.22ghz memory, 256-bit memory interface, 256mb memory. see why i bought mine?

 

[robina_80]

thats sounds good what about the one i choose?

 

[Jet]

that's not a bad deal, check out the 6800GS; I don't know how much it would be in pounds. it might end up being a better deal

 

[Geoff]

its seems Ati have got more pipelines than nvidia so should i go for Ati

nVidia has more pipelines, but ATI makes up for it in clock speeds and pixel shaders.

 

[ceewi1]

for instance, a 6600gt AGP and a 9800pro perform similarly, even though the 9800pro's memory is clocked MUCH slower. WHY? because the 6600gt's memory interface is 128-bit and the 9800pro's memory interface is 256-bit... even though they have the same amount of pipelines and shaders.

True, the memory interface is important, but the 6600GT performs significantly better than the 9800 Pro:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2277&p=3

 

[robina_80]

the most ive seen nvidia it has 24 pipelines but Ati have got 48?

 

[ceewi1]

the most ive seen nvidia it has 24 pipelines but Ati have got 48?

The X1900 series has only 16 pipelines, but 48 pixel shader processors.

 

[Jash]

wheres the nvidia 512 for 93 pounds?