adding a new video card and extra memory

It's not bad, but it's not going to make the card any faster or better graphically. ;) The reason being is: you can have many different qualities and speeds of Ram. For instance you could have 128Mb of wickedly fast ram, or you could have 256Mb of cheap assed slow as an old three legged donkey ram, which is no good to anybody

So, ideally you want 256Mb of DDR3 ram and you have a good card :thumbup:

Hope this explains why more is not always better

thats true. But you have to keep in mind. If a game needs 180megs of texture memory, and your card only has 128(of good fast ram 256 GDDR3 or something), over 50 need to go into apeture, and the access time and performance will be worse then if u had a comparable 256meg(call it slow ass 64bit SDRAM)

If the games need over 128(once they pass that limit they jump, u would probably see it go 120, 125, and then jump up to over 160), then 256 will be better.

If it needs 128 or less, then it will be the same over sizes and quality matters.
Still though, nearly all cards now use very good ram, usally the same guys. I know that my card has samsung ram. and that other 9800s have another company. They very as much noidays on the same card as they do across cards. (and again, GDDR3 at the same speed as DDR could be worse, I haven't looked into it, but if someone is interested.. I might look it up)

@Matt22 Don't you ever read posts ?!

Originally posted by Posted: Nov 26 2004@ 08:38 PM
My first advise (and that goes out to everyone who wants to buy a new graphic card and knows nothing about it) Is not to think about the quantity, but to think about the qualityÂ*

you see, the problem is that every guy (and girl) who wants to buy a new card or what ever (HD/CD-rom) thinks that "the more the better" ... " the bigger the box, more stuff can get it" ... "the bigger the engine the better" ... What is actually happening is THEY ARE THINKING AT THE WRONG WAY!Â*

You @Matt22 have picked 2 cards with 256 MB of ram ...thinking " wow that's big, that will make my games runs faster and look better!" you might as well think that if you stuck a 12 cylinders V-shaped into a scooter that has 600cc engine, then it will ride like a jet fighter, NO ! It will not! It will still have the same old crappy 600cc engine ... just with more cylinders that will only make it heavy and slow.

That's the same thing that happens when you buy a new card, The NVIDIA 5200 (in fact all of the 5200 cards) are low at performance if you do not over clock them, the SE/XT uses a 64-bit memory interface so lets not talk about it at all.
The 5200 ultra despite having a clock rates of 325/325 using a 128-bit memory interface they are still lower in performance when comparing them to the GeForce4 Ti4600/4400/4200/4800, their fill rate is much higher (and the number of transistors) regardless of using the same clock rates and memory interface. Therefore increasing their memory capacity will only make them work slower then they are already used to be, they use DDR type memory rather than using a DDR 3/2 or GDDR 3 like in 6800 series that was made for holding large quantity of memory and handling it at the best speeds. Moreover, the maker of the memory is probably bad thus the price is so low.

The same thing goes for the 9600 256 MB, the card is not as good as you think he is if you want to buy a 9600 get the XT version or above. Because the same thing happens with the FX 5200 series, the clock rate don't affect the fill rate or the memory Bandwidth of the card as it would affect other cards like the 4600 that has only 128 mb. You do not need that much, however if you buy a newer cards like the 6800 GT or the 6600 GT (or any 6600-6800) it has 256 mb of memory because this card is meant to have that much. the memory chips are good using GDDR 3/ DDR 3/2, the architecture is good, all of these and other are well set up for holding the 256 mb and handling it at the best possible way, while the 5200/9600 256 mb are not.

For conclusion, get more money and buy a 9600XT/9700/9800(pro/regular) (whatever memory u like because on these versions it is fine) or a 6600GT/6800LE (soft mode to a 6800GT with no problem)

I didn't got through all of it again, so you may find some irrelevant issues, however this will answer your question:

Low ram comes with good companies=fast speeds. (Since the ram is low, the cost is low, thus they can use high speeds from good companies)

Bigger ram comes with bad companies=lower speeds. (Since the ram is high, it costs more, thus they will have to compensate for the high price by using low speeds from cheaper companies)

But wait, that raises a question, high-end cards use bigger ram, does that mean it's slower? The answer is no.
High-end cards COST MORE MONEY, because they use HIGH SPEED ram like GDDR3 ~ DDR3/2 that are faster and more efficient techniques that can handle large amounts of ram in high speeds, making the card ideal.

If you have more money, buy a High-end card with more ram, if you cannot afford it by a card with no more than 128 MB, unless it uses DDR2/3 memory ... but that's a High-End card already. So stick with the 128. :thumbup:

yeh don't buy a 256 fx5200. but do buy a 256 9800.

is that the lesson?

wow shept is back. :Oo:

Yeh I am. I'd also like to join GH-X. =)

how did you like HL²