Graphics Card: Memory Amount vs. Speed

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Spider-Pig

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Hi Guys

I want to upgrade my existing GPU, I want something under R1500, if I have to import so be it. I'm not really a noob when it comes to upgrading, but as for GPU's I'm a nooblet. I have a Novatech GeForce 210 1024MB GDDR3. I want to upgrade so that I can play BF3, MW3 and Skyrim at close to 1920x1080. First of all, what do you look for in a GPU. Secondly which is better to have in a GPU Memory Amount or High Clock Speed. Finally would it be better to get workstation GPU's such as this one : http://www.landmarkpc.co.za/store/hewlett-packard-quadro-nvs300-512mb-nvidia-quadro-p-7306.html.


Thanks in Advance :)
 
Give us the rest of your pc spec.

Sent from my LG-P970 using Tapatalk
 
Spider-Pig, why on earth do you want to only spend R1500 on a graphics card and thousands on an expensive CPU and motherboard?

For a gaming rig, you should rather spend like R3000 on a graphics card (eg HD6970/GTX570) and R3000 on the CPU + motherboard (i5 2500k + P67 chipset motherboard).
Your games would be MUCH MUCH smoother and faster with that setup than with an HD6790 (~R1500) + i7 2600k CPU.

The i7 2600k would only make sense if you are going to get a decent CPU cooler and going to run applications that would make good use of 8 cores/CPU threads. The i7 is great for running multiple virtual machines and doing video encoding, etc.
The i5 2500k actually outperforms the i7 2600k in most games.
 
Pada said:
Spider-Pig, why on earth do you want to only spend R1500 on a graphics card and thousands on an expensive CPU and motherboard?

For a gaming rig, you should rather spend like R3000 on a graphics card (eg HD6970/GTX570) and R3000 on the CPU + motherboard (i5 2500k + P67 chipset motherboard).
Your games would be MUCH MUCH smoother and faster with that setup than with an HD6790 (~R1500) + i7 2600k CPU.

The i7 2600k would only make sense if you are going to get a decent CPU cooler and going to run applications that would make good use of 8 cores/CPU threads. The i7 is great for running multiple virtual machines and doing video encoding, etc.
The i5 2500k actually outperforms the i7 2600k in most games.
Click to expand...

+1 to this.
 
killadoob said:
Get the 2500k and put the extra cash into 6970 or 570 perhaps.
Click to expand...

I'm thinking now of waiting for Ivy Bridge coming out in April, if I hold out I'll get the i7 3770k and a Antec Kuhler H20 620 WC kit and overclock it to 4.8 Ghz
 
Okay here's basically my options on the rest of the specs, judged by the most most popular and best at performance.

CPU : i7 2600K/i7 2700K/i7 3770K

Motherboard : Asus P8Z68 V-PRO/GEN3

GPU : Unknown (For the moment)

PSU : Thermaltake TR2 600W

Hard Drive : 500GB Internal + 3TB External (Plugged in as an internal hard drive)

Case : NZXt Guardian 921 RB (Saw this on ZeroCool's thread and I love it :))

Cooling : Antec Kuhler H20 620

Basically I'm upgrading to a computer that should be expandable, and futureproof (For at least 3 years). So for the GPU now I'll pay the extra R1500 to give me a budget of R3000 for GPU alone. What's the best to get in that price range and offers the best fps, it doesn't matter to me if its a single card or 2 in SLI/xFire
 
Spider-Pig, what are you going to use the PC for?

You might as well upgrade that PSU too if you're going for a high end gaming PC.
Currently 2x Asus HD6850's @ R1613 each would give you a VERY good price+performance.

Unfortunate if you have to get a Sandy Bridge motherboard that supports SLI/CrossFire at 8x+8x, then you might be cheaper off with a single card setup.
 
Pada said:
Spider-Pig, what are you going to use the PC for?

You might as well upgrade that PSU too if you're going for a high end gaming PC.
Currently 2x Asus HD6850's @ R1613 each would give you a VERY good price+performance.

Unfortunate if you have to get a Sandy Bridge motherboard that supports SLI/CrossFire at 8x+8x, then you might be cheaper off with a single card setup.
Click to expand...

I'm going to be using it mostly for gaming, but might do some video editing as well. What are good PSU brands that I could upgrade to, and the Asus P8Z68 V-PRO/GEN3 supports SLI/CrossFire at 8x+8x, quote from ASUS.com "2 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x16 or dual x8) ". Finally would there be much difference in performance if I used a i7 2600/2700K compared to an i7 3770K, some leaked benchmarks showed around a 30% improvement in performance but I don't know if that's true. I know that this would be more future-proof but would it be worth the wait. I know about the Intel Tick-Tock methodology, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock whcih states that Ivy Bridge might just be build-up to something much better code-named Haswell, (Kind of like Windows Vista & Windows 7)
 
While the amount of memory and clock speed is important i would say the most important performance indicators these days is
Memory and amount of Stream processor(AMD) or RAMDACS (Nvidia).
They usually give these specs with graphics card.

For instance you can have a 2 gpus
2GB, 850Mhz clock, 650 stream processors
1.5Gb, 800Mhz clock, 1200 stream processors

If you go only with the memory and Mhz indicators you would think the first one is the fastest.

The second one though will be much more powerfull
 
Rock Bottom Computers said:
RAMDACS (Nvidia).
Click to expand...

I don't think that's what you meant. What you probably mean is CUDA cores, which are roughly equivalent to stream processors, though individually more powerful, they are lesser in number. The number of DACs is only really relevant for the number of analog or analog-supported (i.e. DVI-I) outputs.
 
We cannot say anything about ivy bridge until the benchies are in.

For gaming though ivy bridge won't make much different but for other things it should be a good perf upgrade. I am also holding out for it, if it's not that great i will just a buy a 2500k.
 
killadoob said:
We cannot say anything about ivy bridge until the benchies are in.

For gaming though ivy bridge won't make much different but for other things it should be a good perf upgrade. I am also holding out for it, if it's not that great i will just a buy a 2500k.
Click to expand...

What current system do you have?
 
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