vid cards

[DemonTech]

Hey,

My friend has a question and I really dont know which one to pick, so here it goes.

My friend now got an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 mb but he wants an 6600 256 mb (not the gt version) is the 6600 better then the radeon? is it worth the upgrade ( he obviously doesnt have money enough for the gt so he wants the 6600 )

thanks.

[spyro415]

a refurbed 6600GT is only 20 bucks more than a 6600 256mb. He really cant spend/save another 20 bucks for the 6600GT?

[Umi.Ryuuzaki]

6600 GT is a better upgrade...but its not a big one. If he can, sell the 9800 pro, add that to the money he has for possibly a new card, then try to get a 6800 GT (300-ish USD last i checked) or a X800 XL AGP (good alternatives to 6800 GT's, at a slightly higher price due to AGP bridge)

But a 6600 GT is a much better idea. The extra ram doesnt really help on a lower end card. It does on a 6800 and up =)

[DemonTech]

I dont know, he asked me for the 6600, but is it any better?

[DemonTech]

i done some research on the cards and it seems that the 6600 has higher core and memory clock speeds, also it has 256 mb vid mem and the ati card got 128. So that would be worth it? ( he doesnt got the money for an 6600 gt cause he is buying the 6600 2nd hand for alot cheaper )

[NoSoup4You]

According to the benchmarks I have seen the 6600 would actually be a downgrade. Only the 6600GT is a step up and a minimal one at that. The best I saw from the 6600GT AGP was +40FPS on the 9800Pro in Doom3, which isn't surprising because Nvidia tends to be better on OpenGL games, but....most games are DirectX anyways.

[spyro415]

Ooohh, ok, didn't know he was buying it second hand.

Actually, the GT has higher clock speeds.

6600GT
Core clock: 500mhz
Memory Clock: 1000mhz

6600
Core clock: 300mhz
Memory clock: 500mhz

The 6600GT also has GDDR3 memory, which is much faster than just DDR ram. From the research i've done, it doesn't seem like video memory plays a very big role.

See this thread for proof:

http://forums.totalbf2.com/showthread.php?t=19052

But yeah, if he can get the 6600 for a really low price, i'd say go for it, since it still has 8 pipelines, which is what really matters.

[DemonTech]

ok thanks alot guys. Ill tell him not to buy it

[spyro415]

ok thanks alot guys. Ill tell him not to buy it

Well how much would he be able to get it for? If its really a steal, then he probably couldn't get anything better.

[NoSoup4You]

No, video RAM does NOT play a big role. I can slap 1 GB of memory onto a slow card, and it will do nothing. BF2 is the first game to fully utilize 128MB of memory on medium settings (although EA will claim 128 on high, but thats bs).

Its the core, GPU speed, and memory clock that is important.