I need help comparing two cards.

[maroon1]

so I take it that pixel and texture fill rate is more important than shader operation?

Texture fill rate is very important. 7600GS has more than twice the texture fill rate of X1600pro

And video card spec don't tell you anything. Just search for X1600pro benchmarks, it performs much worse than 7600GS

 

[Martix_agent]

ah thanks.
In conclusion, the geforce 7600gs is my best option for a price minded card. gotcha. I'm also gonna look into the GT for shits and giggles.
so that site has been lying to me this entire time?
dang! 1280x1040! I've never been able to run anything but 800x600

thanks for helping me sort everything out guys! I may have to stick around this forum just for the heck of it. I feel so sheepish not knowing anything about parts anymore.

 

[oscaryu1]

I've never really noticed the difference between a 256 and a 512 card with the same clock speeds and what not. I don't know, maybe I'm just not that observant. I'd have to say go with the 7600.

If you GFX cannot use all the memory that it has, you will not feel an difference. An simple 2D game would perform the same with 128MB and 512MB or more. Only when tested to the max will you seen an small performance gain.

 

[Martix_agent]

I'm a proud owner of a geforce 7600gs. Bought it for $64.

and you all said my $60 tag was unrealistic

 

[hermeslyre]

Overclock that thing and you can get a healthy FPS boost, bringing it close to the GT's level.

 

[Martix_agent]

hmmmm.
I've got4 case fans, I should be able to overclock nicely.
How do I go about overclocking a video card?

 

[hermeslyre]

With an inside Windows app like Ntune, Rivatuner, or atitool. It's very simple to actually do the dirty, just raise the core and memory clocks as high as they can go and still remain stable in-game. I recommend raising them slowly(most cards have a considerable amount of head-room in the beginning so you can raise them by higher increments in the beginning), then testing the OC in a game for any artifacting.

 

[Martix_agent]

how should I go about testing? Counter Strike Souce has a force settings test. would that be a good way to check?
i've had some experience overclocking a processor, but that was through the BIOS, I figured i'd have to download a program or something to use a video card.

Back in the day, my dad bought a celeron 300 processor and was able to safely overclock it to 450. wow...that was a long time ago!

hahaha! I'm pushing my geforce fx 5200 pro to a core of 329 and a memory of 458 and it says the test went fine (I'm using the Nvidea program)