512 mb Video Card!!! Thread

Wow. $449. Is it worth it?

Edited by: Chunky

common sense

no.

I highly doubt it. The benchmarks show a slight change, but not really a big deal. Unless you have extra money to spend for kicks, I'd stick with the 256mb ones. It saves you money and they work just fine.

There are no games right now optimized for that amount of gfx memory.

Edited by: RatoN

OMFG PLAY DOOM 3 ON ULTRA MODE!!!!!11111111

no.

I hope the price for 256 mb cards go down soon. Mabey this will help make it happen

Yeah. As the introduction of new graphics cards comes onto the market, other card prices drastically reduce due to demand on better products. So, the 256mb cards will be touching $300 and continue on down, which is great for those of us without much money.

I'd definitely buy a 512mb video card if I could afford it without breaking the bank. I mean, with that, I could play any game 5 years to come without any problem, because this is the future for computers. However, my computer would probably blow up from the power beforehand.

The amount of video RAM on a card isn't necessarily going to speed up how you play significantly.

mr.spammer wrote: OMFG PLAY DOOM 3 ON ULTRA MODE!!!!!11111111

no.

I do that with a x800pro =/

There have been 512mb video cards for a while. Matrox's Parhelia was the first, which was released like one and a half years ago. In fact, 640mb video cards are slowly trickling onto the ultra-high-end graphics market: 3dlabs.com

As Frosty said, video memory does not directly relate to gaming the way that core and memory clock speeds, bandwidth, and pixel pipelines do. Sure, a 256mb video card will outperform a 128mb video card with similiar stats, but the increase in performance is negligible in all but the latest games. Video memory is only a major factor for 3D artists, that need to design and render scenes with millions of polygons, and thousands of different materials/textures.

On the other hand, paying the extra few hundred dollars may be benefitial if you are the type of user (like me) that buys a really good video card maybe once every three or so years, rather than every year. For today's games, that card won't help you. Come a few years, and you are still using it, you'll be glad that you chose it over one with half of the ram, because then the difference between 512mb and 256mb will be all but negligible.

I would wait for a few months, theyl be ever so slightly cheaper, than you can whack F.E.A.R and stalker up to full blast, and play HL2 and Vampire Bloodlines on full NO PROBS, id say yes, worth it, depending on whether or not you can afford it, and whether or not you can wait for a cheaper one. I cant afford it, so wil be waiting for a cheaper (much much much much) one.

Oh yeah, and with the current exchange rate, i could buy a top whack 256 card, or that one what do you think id choose?

Radeon 9550 Video Card, 8x AGP, 256MB DDR
Compusa.com

Edited by: Chunky

9550 is a dumbed down version of 9600, with ONLY! 4 rendering pipelines and a 128bit interface. Who cares if it has 256 MBs of ram if it sucks?

bleh I am still working on getting a 128 Oh well I finally got a job so I will prolly pick myself up a 256mb.

San-J wrote: There have been 512mb video cards for a while. Matrox's Parhelia was the first, which was released like one and a half years ago. In fact, 640mb video cards are slowly trickling onto the ultra-high-end graphics market: 3dlabs.com

That's a 3D rendering workstation card, not a gaming card. It's drivers suck for gaming so it doesn't count really.

BartNowciu wrote: 9550 is a dumbed down version of 9600, with ONLY! 4 rendering pipelines and a 128bit interface. Who cares if it has 256 MBs of ram if it sucks?

hell, the 256 meg 9600 (standard) sucks ass compared to a lot of other midrange cards...

get more pipelines, and clockspeed and shaders before memory...

BartNowciu wrote: 9550 is a dumbed down version of 9600, with ONLY! 4 rendering pipelines and a 128bit interface. Who cares if it has 256 MBs of ram if it sucks?

does it really ONLY have 4 pipelines or are there more locked ones?

my 128 is still rocking, but the 1.2ghz processor holds me back

i alos got 128 and have experienced absolutely no problems.
But i have a 2 Ghz processor

ok then, what is the best graphic card i can get for $100 or less?

maybe this one:
Newegg.com
or this one:
Newegg.com

personally, i would favor the ATI, since if you overclock it just a little you are at the level of an 9800 pro

i just dont understand how the 256 one isnt better (above). im not much of a technical guy...

Its got more ram, which makes it able to handle more, but if it cant render it fast enough, it wont make any difference.

exactly. plus the overclocking is far easier with the ATI card, a factor that is pretty important on slower/cheaper cards.

Chunky.The.Tree wrote: i just dont understand how the 256 one isnt better (above). im not much of a technical guy...

IT'S CLEAR THAT THE HIGHER THE NUBMER THE FASTER/BETTER IT IS

That's why the numbers exist

Lol

Like diablobasher said, it has enough memory to fit everything in, but its rendering power is very weak.