Question about core/memory interface - 128bit vs. 256bit

meatycheesyboy

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2004
Messages
482
Howdy everyone,

I'm doing research for a new rig and need some advice on vid cards. First, right off the bat, I don't game at all. I use my computer mainly for the creation of high end corporate presentations (main apps used are Powerpoint, Photoshop, Flash and Lightwave 3d). My current card is in my sig. I don't need something insane for my work but I need something that can handle complex screen redraws (Powerpoint is terrible at redrawing the screen when you get alot of stuff on a slide).

The cards I'm looking at are the 6 series GeForce cards. I notice that one of the differences between the 6600 series and the 6800 series is that the 6800s are 256bit whilst the 6600s are 128bit. I'm positive a 6600GT would be fast enough for what I need but would the 128bit vs. 256bit make a huge diffference?

Thanks
 
Pretty sure there will be no difference in something like Powerpoint with a 6800 or just getting a cheap 5200 :p. The only difference is 3D performance.
 
not to much the 6600GT seems to over come the 128bit mem with higher clocks if it had 256bit my guess is it would be just as fast a 6800plain

but yes 6600GT would be fine you can get a 6800plain from chumbo atm for $260
after rebate you just have to send them ANY working vid card and you get $40 off $60 if its a BFG card not a bad deal and makes it only $10 more then an a AGP 6600GT

but ether is good and the 6600GT is still faster then a 9800XT
 
DusterAZ said:
Pretty sure there will be no difference in something like Powerpoint with a 6800 or just getting a cheap 5200 :p. The only difference is 3D performance.

You wouldn't think so, but most people don't use powerpoint to the level that I do. And, as I stated, I also use Flash, Photoshop, and Lightwave very very extensively as well.
 
meatycheesyboy said:
You wouldn't think so, but most people don't use powerpoint to the level that I do. And, as I stated, I also use Flash, Photoshop, and Lightwave very very extensively as well.
Dude don't listen to these people... You NEED a 6800ultra to get the best Powerpoint benches around. You wouldn't think there would be a big difference, but just between the 6800 vanilla and 6800 ultra there's a 80 frames per second increase

Must have something to do with the Samsung 1.6 ns V-core overclocking capacitor megahertz
 
Elios said:
not to much the 6600GT seems to over come the 128bit mem with higher clocks if it had 256bit my guess is it would be just as fast a 6800plain

but yes 6600GT would be fine you can get a 6800plain from chumbo atm for $260
after rebate you just have to send them ANY working vid card and you get $40 off $60 if its a BFG card not a bad deal and makes it only $10 more then an a AGP 6600GT

but ether is good and the 6600GT is still faster then a 9800XT

Thank you for actually helping me with my question Elios. Its amazing that out of 3 posts made in the thread (excluding my own) only one person even tried to help.
 
Elios said:
but ether is good and the 6600GT is still faster then a 9800XT

Not 100% true. In high res+AA/Af the 980XT is usually faster, and depending on the game, lower settings as well. Someone buying a budget card probably wont be using higher settings though.
 
It really won't matter what videocard you get at all, powerpoint or photoshop will not run any faster with a super videocard. Get a speedy processor and a gigabyte of ram, preferably running in dual-channel, and get a basic budget card such as a geforce FX 5200 or Radeon 9550 for AGP or geforce 6200 or radeon X300 for PCI-E.
 
meatycheesyboy said:
Thank you for actually helping me with my question Elios. Its amazing that out of 3 posts made in the thread (excluding my own) only one person even tried to help.

I'm sorry my post was not very helpful but you have to look at it this way. You want to buy a gaming focused card yet you do not plan on playing any games. Of all the programs you mentioned only one will take advantage of the 3d acceleration features, Lightwave 3D. So basically you are buying a video card for 1 application. There are specifically made video cards such as 3DLabs Wildcat, Nvidia Quadro series and the FireGL cards that are specifically made for 3D applications. You may want to research those options as you may not get the desired result as the drivers are specifically optimized for those applications with those cards only. Also, I'm not sure if you can softmod a 6600GT into a Quadro card like you can with the 6800 cards. You may want to look at the 6800 vanilla as it is about $250 and you can softmod it to a Quadro with RivaTuner.
 
Thanks for the help DusterAZ, my last post wasn't meant ot single anyone out or anything like that, I sometimes just get fed up with forum 'chatter' if you will.

DusterAZ said:
I'm sorry my post was not very helpful but you have to look at it this way. You want to buy a gaming focused card yet you do not plan on playing any games.

I completely aknowledge the fact that I won't be using the card for its intended purpose which is gaming but you guys have to believe me when I say an FX 5200 or equivilant isn't good enough when you use the apps I use (including Powerpoint) to the level that our company uses them to. Part of the problem is that Powerpoint is an extremely poorly written app that doesn't run very efficiently at all from what I can tell, especially when it comes to redrawing the screen under heavy load (embedded video, embedded flash, 3d animation inserted into a slide, etc.).

As an example, our machines at work are Dells. 3.4 Ghz P4s with 2 gigs of RAM and ATI x600s. Its easy to bring those systems to a crawl using only powerpoint. Since I'm fairly certain it isn't the processor or ram holding the systems back, it must be the vid cards right? And when the systems do slow down its because of screen redraw problems.

So, I'm not looking for card recommendations here, I just wanted to know, does a 128 bit memory interface as opposed to a 256 bit memory interface help a significant amount when it comes to redrawing and refreshing the screen?

DusterAZ said:
Of all the programs you mentioned only one will take advantage of the 3d acceleration features, Lightwave 3D.

Actually, Lightwave has a very poor implementation of OpenGL and is quite as happy (or maybe that should be sad) running on a lowend card as it is on a card like a Quaddro or a FireGL.

Thanks everyone for looking.
 
meatycheesyboy said:
I completely aknowledge the fact that I won't be using the card for its intended purpose which is gaming but you guys have to believe me when I say an FX 5200 or equivilant isn't good enough when you use the apps I use (including Powerpoint) to the level that our company uses them to. Part of the problem is that Powerpoint is an extremely poorly written app that doesn't run very efficiently at all from what I can tell, especially when it comes to redrawing the screen under heavy load (embedded video, embedded flash, 3d animation inserted into a slide, etc.).

As an example, our machines at work are Dells. 3.4 Ghz P4s with 2 gigs of RAM and ATI x600s. Its easy to bring those systems to a crawl using only powerpoint. Since I'm fairly certain it isn't the processor or ram holding the systems back, it must be the vid cards right? And when the systems do slow down its because of screen redraw problems.

So, I'm not looking for card recommendations here, I just wanted to know, does a 128 bit memory interface as opposed to a 256 bit memory interface help a significant amount when it comes to redrawing and refreshing the screen?
Listen to what people are saying. No, it has nothing to do with the video card, and 128- 256- is completely irrelevant in 2D. WINDOWS is responsible for that drawing, i.e., it's done in software. The video card just takes what Windows gives it and sticks it onscreen in 2D. Any VGA compatible card from a 8 MB nVidia TNT to a 6800 Ultra can do that perfectly well. What might depend on the video card in 2D are resolution and refresh rate. Resolution is the number of pixels on screen. Refresh rate is how fast the electron gun in a CRT monitor scans the screen (NOT how fast Windows draws, ONLY the monitor scanning). Neither has anything to do with how fast PowerPoint is rendering. Again Lightwave is the only one where you might see an improvement as it does do hardware rendering.
 
Mr. Brownstone said:
Listen to what people are saying. No, it has nothing to do with the video card, and 128- 256- is completely irrelevant in 2D. WINDOWS is responsible for that drawing, i.e., it's done in software. The video card just takes what Windows gives it and sticks it onscreen in 2D. Any VGA compatible card from a 8 MB nVidia TNT to a 6800 Ultra can do that perfectly well. What might depend on the video card in 2D are resolution and refresh rate. Resolution is the number of pixels on screen. Refresh rate is how fast the electron gun in a CRT monitor scans the screen (NOT how fast Windows draws, ONLY the monitor scanning). Neither has anything to do with how fast PowerPoint is rendering. Again Lightwave is the only one where you might see an improvement as it does do hardware rendering.

Agreed. To answer your question : 256 > 128. Period. To solve your problem: Powerpoint does not use pixel shaders, etc. You don't need a card like this. You're looking at CPU and RAM, and maybe harddisk speed.

You're being pedantic about nonsense. "My car is getting 3 miles to the gallon. What brand of polish should I use to reduce the drag?" You get the idea?
 
Yeah forget about your vid card, I run a lot of large Powerpoint presentations with my laptop with a Mobility Radeon 7500 32 MB. Found that the RAM (on the motherboard, not on the vid card) was holding back on the response time when changing slides etc, so I doubled it and saw a significant improvement. The performance of animations, video clips etc rely mostly on the CPU.
 
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