Memory Vs. Speed

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MightyMouse957

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 30, 2007
Messages
290
I am looking into buying a new graphics card for my system.

I'm trying to keep my aging my AGP board alive and would like to buy Nvidia (too many bad experiences with ATIs drivers).

This leaves me with two choices from what I can find on Newegg.

A Geforce 7600GS. It has 256MB GDDR2 128-bit memory. The core clock is 400Mhz and the Memory clock is 700Mhz.

The other card is a Geforce 7300GT. It has 512MB GDDR2 128-bit memory. The core clock is 380Mhz and the memory clock is 533Mhz.

Which card will I get better performance from? I'd like to be able to play Crysis and UT3 at mediumish settings without the graphical lag I get now on a Radeon 9550.

My other specs are:
1GB RAM (Going to be upgraded to 2GB shortly after the GPU upgrade)
AMD Athlon 3500+ Single Core CPU Overclocked to 2.4Ghz
 
You really should try to save up about $800 and just ditch that platform. I UT3 you might be able to get going okay, but Crysis is probably going to be another issue altogether.

If you want to game, money in AGP just isn't going to do much. And actually, ATI has the faster AGP parts.
 
Indeed, the fastest AGP card is the 3850, which is actually solidly midrange by today standards.
 
The 7600GS will be better, but in order to play those games on medium without lag (at any resolution), you should seriously consider an HD3850 AGP.

I know that you don't like ATI, and I too have had soooo many bad experiences with them:

heatsync physically melting off
lame drivers
incompatibilities
explosions (not making this one up)
destruction of other parts which include but are not limited to: sound card, mobo, PSU(s), drives, etc.


...But I have seen how their newest cards act and perform (HD2000 and 3000 series), and I have to say that they are better than all of their past cards. The visual quality is better than NVIDIA (this coming from an NVIDIA enthusiast) and the gameplay is pretty decent too.

The HD3850 is way more powerful than a 7800GS or an X1950XT AGP and is far better than the 7300GT and 7600GS, for about $80-100 more.

If you can't afford it, save up for it. Getting ANY series 7 card now would be a waste of time and money, even for an older system, unless you can get a high-end Series 7 card for under $100.
 
MightyMouse957 said:
I am looking into buying a new graphics card for my system.

I'm trying to keep my aging my AGP board alive and would like to buy Nvidia (too many bad experiences with ATIs drivers).

This leaves me with two choices from what I can find on Newegg.

A Geforce 7600GS. It has 256MB GDDR2 128-bit memory. The core clock is 400Mhz and the Memory clock is 700Mhz.

The other card is a Geforce 7300GT. It has 512MB GDDR2 128-bit memory. The core clock is 380Mhz and the memory clock is 533Mhz.

Which card will I get better performance from? I'd like to be able to play Crysis and UT3 at mediumish settings without the graphical lag I get now on a Radeon 9550.

My other specs are:
1GB RAM (Going to be upgraded to 2GB shortly after the GPU upgrade)
AMD Athlon 3500+ Single Core CPU Overclocked to 2.4Ghz
Click to expand...


Between the two you have listed, the 7300GT with 512MB is a joke. That card isn't fast enough handle textures large enough to fill 512MB and still have games be playable.

But I doubt either one of those cards are going to be able to handle Crysis on anything but the lowest settings at a decent resolution. As the others have said though, the 3850 is your best bet, and ATI's drivers aren't that bad anymore. I've been having more problems with Nvidia drivers on my 9600GT than I ever did with my X1900XT.
 
I appreciate the replies.

I suppose I didn't make myself perfectly clear. Right now, I can play almost nothing, especially new games. I plan on soon building a new system entirely, however I would like to be able to play some newer games I have, so I figured $130 for a new GPU and stick of RAM would keep this system alive until I can build a new one.

While the Radeon 3850 really may be my best choice, I am too fed up with ATI to buy from them any time soon. A DVI-VGA adapter made by them broke a rather nice monitor, their Windows Drivers are bad, and their Linux support is worse than a joke. (I use Linux when I'm not gaming- so Linux support is big for me)

Based on the replies I think I'll buy the 7600GS. While it may not be able to play Crysis at very high settings or anything... as long as it isn't a slideshow... I'll be happy.
 
MightyMouse957 said:
I appreciate the replies.

I suppose I didn't make myself perfectly clear. Right now, I can play almost nothing, especially new games. I plan on soon building a new system entirely, however I would like to be able to play some newer games I have, so I figured $130 for a new GPU and stick of RAM would keep this system alive until I can build a new one.

While the Radeon 3850 really may be my best choice, I am too fed up with ATI to buy from them any time soon. A DVI-VGA adapter made by them broke a rather nice monitor, their Windows Drivers are bad, and their Linux support is worse than a joke. (I use Linux when I'm not gaming- so Linux support is big for me)

Based on the replies I think I'll buy the 7600GS. While it may not be able to play Crysis at very high settings or anything... as long as it isn't a slideshow... I'll be happy.
Click to expand...

I have a pretty much unused eVGA 7600GS AGP 256MB if you'd like to buy it from me. Send me a PM if you're interested.
 
Crysis /will/ be a slideshow. It will barely be playable at low settings, nevermind medium. It's a total waste to try and limp along with an AGP platform at this point in time; even with the 3850 AGP you'll be able to manage medium settings, at low resolution (1024x768 or so). That's it. Save up, build a new machine; the $130 or so will do better for you there than all but thrown away in a few months.
 
yeah I second that, I would be surprised if the 7600gs gives you anything but a slideshow even with the lowest possible settings... then again maybe I'll be surprised :D
 
Alright so if the 7600GS will be a slideshow... lets say I do go ATI. I don't want to shell out $150 for a graphics card I'll be using for 4-5 months

Would a Radeon HD2600XT be a good choice for a sub $100 card? I'm looking at Sapphire's right now... 512MB GDDR3, 800Mhz Core clock. Can't find the exact memory clock but somewhere between 1000-1400Mhz and Naturally DirectX 10 for $100.
 
MightyMouse957 said:
Alright so if the 7600GS will be a slideshow... lets say I do go ATI. I don't want to shell out $150 for a graphics card I'll be using for 4-5 months

Would a Radeon HD2600XT be a good choice for a sub $100 card? I'm looking at Sapphire's right now... 512MB GDDR3, 800Mhz Core clock. Can't find the exact memory clock but somewhere between 1000-1400Mhz and Naturally DirectX 10 for $100.
Click to expand...

Anything less than an *8** or *9** from either team is going to suck for Crysis.
 
silent-circuit said:
Crysis /will/ be a slideshow. It will barely be playable at low settings, nevermind medium. It's a total waste to try and limp along with an AGP platform at this point in time; even with the 3850 AGP you'll be able to manage medium settings, at low resolution (1024x768 or so). That's it. Save up, build a new machine; the $130 or so will do better for you there than all but thrown away in a few months.
Click to expand...

Agree entirely.
Living on AGP platform (and singlecore A64 w/ 1GB RAM) and wanting to play Crysis don't go together.
Save up about $800-$1000 and you'll have something much better than the best AGP card.
 
300.00 will get you in the game. Get one of Fry's E4500/MB deals for <100.00, 2 G of memory for 25.00, a 9600GT for 120.00 and you will probably need to get a SATA HD or optical drive. Set the FSB on the MB to 1066 and you have a C2D 2.93 GHz machine that will play anything. I know because I just built one. I also was stuck in agp purgatory so I really recommend that you retire/sell your current stuff or turn it into a HTPC like I did with mine. You will be very happy.
 
speedfrk said:
300.00 will get you in the game. Get one of Fry's E4500/MB deals for <100.00, 2 G of memory for 25.00, a 9600GT for 120.00 and you will probably need to get a SATA HD or optical drive. Set the FSB on the MB to 1066 and you have a C2D 2.93 GHz machine that will play anything. I know because I just built one. I also was stuck in agp purgatory so I really recommend that you retire/sell your current stuff or turn it into a HTPC like I did with mine. You will be very happy.
Click to expand...

those ecs boards hate to be overclocked
 
ihira said:
Agree entirely.
Living on AGP platform (and singlecore A64 w/ 1GB RAM) and wanting to play Crysis don't go together.
Save up about $800-$1000 and you'll have something much better than the best AGP card.
Click to expand...

crysisgpubenchmarkmx8.jpg


I played and beat Crysis on a A64 Venice @ 2.6ghz w/ 2gigs ddr550 ram and a agp 3850. :eek:

1280x1024 all settings medium except shader high with dx10 effects enabled using custom config files.


:D
3dmark06vc1.jpg
 
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