Graphics Video card, confusion... 256 vs 512?

The video card i chose for my new system is a 7900GS KO evga
a upgrade from the 7600gs
is there a substantial difference between a 256mb and 512mb 7900 GPU?
i noticed games like doom 3 and others that shell out lots of texture data
recommend 512mb video cards without lag or whatever..
its been bout 4months since i played any PC game that was made from the year
2004+
im still playing Red Faction II
if i stay with the 256mb 7900GS KO and all..
i just wanted to know if there would be a performance boost to the 512
and if the processor depends, since i will be using a E6400, (never will OC it)

 

There won't be a big difference, but it will be there in games which like a big frame-buffer. To be honest I wouldn't upgrade just for the extra 256MB of RAM, I'd stick with 256MB for now.

 

From what i have learnt is an extra 256mb on budget cores such as some 7600's and 7900's and even in ATI line up of x1650xx's and x1900xx (unless its an XT or XT-X) is useless really, as the core cant process that amount of infomation fast enough to give a performance jump.


it's like strapping a turbo to a lawn mower, sounds cool but it wont beat a sports car.

 

I remember doing a bit of research on it before figuring if it was worth the extra cash for the 512mb. On a 7900GS, it really isn't, according to the VGA charts on tomshardware.com, it shows that you don't get more then a few FPS with it, even on high settings. The card just doesn't seem to have any use for extra memory.

 

hmm how does a 7950GX2 and 7900GTX 512 perform?
i was thinkin.. the GX2 would be good..1gig ddr3
since Silver told me Stalker on lod0 is over 700mb of texture data..

 

GX2s are not all that great, and unless you can find one for real cheap, 8800s school them, and in some games 7900GTXs beat them out. Its not all about installed memory, core power is more important for games. Plus, its not really 1GB its two cards with 512, the memory doesn't share between cores. Each core gets 512mb.

 

With the next-gen cards rolling out there really is no point in upgrading from 7900GS to 7900GTX or the GX2.

 

exactly, stick with your rig and wait for the ATI HD 2000XT (r600) to come out - get one of those or a 8800GTX as the release of the new ATI range will no doubt force nvidia to do a price drop ... i cant wait

 

hmm, do any of you think a E6600 with 2gigs of 533mhz DDR2
with a Radeon HD 2800(2900) would bottleneck?
after looking at the r600 specs and all
it seems like you'd need a quad core OCed with 8gigs of ram to get it to
be optimal ..

 

dont be silly, if that was the case ATI wouldn't sell many cards, the R600 will run fine in a new intel rig, like the 8800's run fine in A64 939 systems.

now in benchmarks the R600 may benifit from a quad core and plenty of ram, but benchmarks aren't worth a penny.

 

hmm, sooner or later their will only be quad cores
then two or three 6-8 core cpus
then more and more and more and more etc
its most likely im just gonna save up as much as i can for another year or so
probably shell out 3,000+ for parts, who knows
but the video cards by 09' will be 1gig to 2gig a chip

 

Graphics are always ahead of the video card curve. Trust me, running Crysis on max settings at super high res will keep an R600 busy.

 

well if every one thought like that then there is no point in upgrading EVER!

oh i might buy a 8800GTX but wait the R600 is soon, but wait rumour has it nvidia is releasing a 8950xx....

Can you see where i am going with that.......

 

Yes but these new unified DX10 cards are the biggest change in the video card industry since the 9700Pro, if not the GF3! R600 could be mildly disappointing just like nVidia's GF8 have been but they could also be dramatically superb, once we see how these cards turn out it's fine to make a purchasing decision as everything over the next 12 months is likely to be minor tweaks of R600 & GF8. In most cases I agree with you but where R600 is concerned it makes sense to wait a little longer if you're able to do so. I really can't see why any X1900 or GF7 owner would consider upgrading until we see how R600 turns out.