Up the creek with my Socket 939...

[caamsa]

If I may be honest, I think I'm going with my original choice - check out the reviews on the one you suggested. Too many people saying the same thing (crapped out within the first two months) for my comfort. Then again, my original choice has only had five reviews.

But I have one question before final decision: the original choice is 512MB at 128-bit, and your suggestion is 256MB at 256-bit. How does that balance out practically?

FYI - PS is an OCZ 500W "Stealth X Stream".

Shecky do us all a favor and buy a video card then tell us how it all works out. Good luck.

 

[Ninjaz7]

I'd say a 7600gt(39 bucks fleabay)and a 165 or 185 opty(65-75 clams for 165)...theres your best solution for a 100 smackers...939 is still a good platform...all in all see if your board will accept an opty and I think it would be your best bet,gl.

 

[4745454b]

more memory the better the card. keep that in mind.

Not true. I'd rather have a 256MB 8800GT then a 512Mb x1650XT any day. 1GB cards might not also be faster then 512MB cards. The same is true for for the memory bus. 256bit is not always better. The 6800GT had a 256bit memory bus, but it is slower then a 7600GT, which is 128bits wide.

I am starting to agree with caamsa, you have to pull the trigger at some point.

 

[Grimmy]

I was under the impression that the more memory you have on a video card, the more resolutions the card would run, as well as load perhaps load larger texture files of the game.

It seems that companies are pulling the number game on some video cards to sell them, like what was said on the 2nd page.. I think. Where theres 512mb card and 1 gig video card. The main difference, the 512mb had DDR3, while the 1Gig had DDR2. Clearly the 512MB card will out do the other, performance wise.

Heh.. I'm surprised this thread is still goin on, as far as questions, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Although, that last choice "HD 3850" would need a good PSU behind it. Not so sure about the HP OEM PSU though.

 

[EXT64]

Well, I think you made the right choice. I saw those reviews and almost didn't post it. The cooler looks like garbage on it, but it was a HIS and they always seemed to do a good job. What was your original choice (I don't remember)? I posted a slightly OC'ed 2600 which had a nice cooler right after the 3850.

 

[EXT64]

Here it is:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127305

only $63 after rebate if you're interested. I second the "go buy something". All this deciding isn't much fun after a while. Getting the card in the mail is.

 

[Grimmy]

Do you think he'll run into problems as far as fitting in an HP case? That will take up 2 slots, and as far as the length.. just dunno. :lol:

 

[EXT64]

Probably right. I keep forgetting that (I keep thinking - what card would I buy for that price? I however have a huge case and PS.)

 

[Shecky]

Oy. This is why I've waited. How do I find out whether a video card WILL fit my case? For that matter, how do I identify my case?

Oh, and my original choice was this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127331

 

[Shecky]

Shecky do us all a favor and buy a video card then tell us how it all works out. Good luck.

Oh, for god's sake. Ignore me, please! :lol: I'm the awful combination of uninformed and obsessive-compulsive. Makes for really irritating dialogue.

 

[EXT64]

Oh yeah, that is a better choice. I forgot all about the 3650 line. It should be a cooler/less power hungry (which is very important in your case) and improved 2600XT. Good choice.

Also, the one you linked to is nice and short (you can tell by how far it extends past the PCI-E plug). If it doesn't fit, I doubt anything will. By looking at the picture/specs then comparing to what you see in the case you should be able to tell if it fits

 

[Shecky]

The one I've got in the case right now is the ATi Radeon X1300Pro. The link here is it, except that mine's PCIe and not AGP.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1892411&CatId=935

 

[4745454b]

I was under the impression that the more memory you have on a video card, the more resolutions the card would run, as well as load perhaps load larger texture files of the game.

Correct, but you still need a GPU capable of running at that res. Who cares if you have a 1GB 8600GT, it will run horribly at 2500x1600. It will have enough memory space for the details, but the GPU can't provide playable frame rates.

I've been seeing people not quite understand memory bandwidth, I feel its about time someone post on this. (not pointing out anyone in this thread, just in general.) A 128bit video card isn't necessarily worse then a 256bit card. The bitness refers to the memory bandwidth for the video card. The higher the bandwidth, the more the GPU can pull from the video cards memory. The bus width isn't the only thing that matters however, the clock speed of the memory also figures into play. The formula for determining peak bandwidth is Memory clock speed * 2 (DDR) * memory bus / 8 (change from bits to bytes.) Lets look at some cards.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16814170057

1000MHz * 2 * 256 / 8 = 64GBps for the 6800GT.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130062

1400Mhz * 2 * 128 / 8 = 44.8GBps for the 7600GT.

The 7600GT has half the bus width, but the higher clock speed helps it overcome this "problem". If you look at newer video cards, they are pushing nearly 2GHz on the memory with a 128bit bus, so they would have identical bandwidth amounts compared to the 6800GT. You should also note that newer video cards support better compression, allowing for better use of the bandwidth available. (sorry for the thread hijack.)

Shecky, can you link to something that look like your case, with inside photos please? That or grab a tape measure and measure how much room you have where your x1300 is located. 9600GT might not fit, but the 3650/2600XT is probably the max you want to use.

 

[EXT64]

Yep, that will fit fine. My rough measurements of the two show them as being almost exactly the same size.

 

[Shecky]

"Numbers" (otherwise you'd get a copy-paste of your handle LOL), if I follow your reasoning correctly, the choice I made would be:

1600MHz * 3 (GDDR3) * 128 / 8 = 76.8Gbps

Is that right? If that's so, then a GDDR3 is going to kick serious butt.

As for the case, I spent a half hour trying to find something that 1) looked similar to my case AND 2) had inside photos/dimensions/specs/etc. I got nada.

 

[Shecky]

It's ordered!

 

[EXT64]

Great! Enjoy it!

 

[f0rkl1ft]

I have the 3700 in my machine with a 7800GT, I run most things at 1024x768 and it runs just fine, sure I'd like to run at my 19'' native resolution, but the video card can't pump it up to well at that resolution. Your proc is not a major bottleneck, your video card it. With todays video cards as resultions go up less stress is placed on the cpu and more on the gpu. For you with your system, at the lower resolutions yor processor is helping out, thats why you see the 80-90% usage, you have a very weak video card, you would see a decent improvement with the 3650, these days your don't have to spend a huge amount to get good enough, thats why I haven't upgraded just yet.

 

[Shecky]

I'll report back here once I get it installed and checked out.

 

[4745454b]

No, not quite. The math would be

1600 * 2 * 128 / 8 = 51.2GBps.

The 1600 is the speed at which the ram runs at. You multiply by two not because its DDR2, but because its DDR. (Double Data Rate.) The 128 is the bus width, use 64/128/256/512,etc. Divide by 8 because there are 8 bits in a byte.

Just because one card has 60GBps and another has 70GBps doesn't mean the 70GBps card will be faster. It has more memory bandwidth, thats it. The 7600GT is faster then the 6800GT, even though it has less memory bandwidth. (the GPU core runs a lot faster then the 6800GT.)

You said you ordered it, what did you finally pick?

 

[nukchebi0]

The 1600 Mhz is already doubled. You don't double it again.

 

[4745454b]

You should use the actual clock. If those numbers are effective speeds, then you should not multiply it by 2, as it already has been.

 

[Grimmy]

I was under the impression that the more memory you have on a video card, the more resolutions the card would run, as well as load perhaps load larger texture files of the game.

Correct, but you still need a GPU capable of running at that res. Who cares if you have a 1GB 8600GT, it will run horribly at 2500x1600. It will have enough memory space for the details, but the GPU can't provide playable frame rates.

I've been seeing people not quite understand memory bandwidth, I feel its about time someone post on this. (not pointing out anyone in this thread, just in general.) A 128bit video card isn't necessarily worse then a 256bit card. The bitness refers to the memory bandwidth for the video card. The higher the bandwidth, the more the GPU can pull from the video cards memory. The bus width isn't the only thing that matters however, the clock speed of the memory also figures into play. The formula for determining peak bandwidth is Memory clock speed * 2 (DDR) * memory bus / 8 (change from bits to bytes.) Lets look at some cards.

http://www.newegg.com/product/product.aspx?Item=N82E16814170057

1000MHz * 2 * 256 / 8 = 64GBps for the 6800GT.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130062

1400Mhz * 2 * 128 / 8 = 44.8GBps for the 7600GT.

The 7600GT has half the bus width, but the higher clock speed helps it overcome this "problem". If you look at newer video cards, they are pushing nearly 2GHz on the memory with a 128bit bus, so they would have identical bandwidth amounts compared to the 6800GT. You should also note that newer video cards support better compression, allowing for better use of the bandwidth available. (sorry for the thread hijack.)

I was speaking in general. Besides that, 512MB or 1Gig, the max resolution is 2560 x 1600 for both, which a didn't mention. I already mentioned that GDDR2 and GDDR3 are what really determines part of the performance, in that other post. Not too many people can actually get those max resolutions on an average type of monitor (2560 x 1600).

So that was when I was mainly referring to the numbers game that retailers tend to play on people. Heh.. and yes the GPU would have the other impact on how well its going to run.

Good info on the bandwidth though.

 

[Shecky]

No, not quite. The math would be

1600 * 2 * 128 / 8 = 51.2GBps.

The 1600 is the speed at which the ram runs at. You multiply by two not because its DDR2, but because its DDR. (Double Data Rate.) The 128 is the bus width, use 64/128/256/512,etc. Divide by 8 because there are 8 bits in a byte.

Just because one card has 60GBps and another has 70GBps doesn't mean the 70GBps card will be faster. It has more memory bandwidth, thats it. The 7600GT is faster then the 6800GT, even though it has less memory bandwidth. (the GPU core runs a lot faster then the 6800GT.)

You said you ordered it, what did you finally pick?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127331

 

[4745454b]

Besides that, 512MB or 1Gig, the max resolution is 2560 x 1600 for both, which a didn't mention.

The max res would be the same, but the performance could be different. A 1GB 8600GT wouldn't perform as good at 1920x1080 compared to a 512MB 8800GT/GTS. I don't mean to be rude, but thinking that more memory = more frame rates is wrong. It can be correct, but only if you are looking at the same GPU. Its like saying more frequency = more frame rates. True, but only if you are in the same CPU family. With Vram, having more doesn't always mean getting better frame rates.

@shecky, its a shame you went with that one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127335

3650 with a free copy of witcher. Its slower then the one you ordered (same core clock, but has slower DDR2 ram.), but almost half the price. Free game might have meant something to you.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121232

3650, with faster core and memory clocks then the one you picked. The only "downside" to this one is it has half as much memory. But again, depending on the settings, this card could be faster.

If you can't cancel, enjoy your new card. It will be faster then the old one, I'm sure you'll be happy either way.