Hi looking at Video cards. which would be better the both are Gigabyte 8600 GT cards GV-NX86T512H - 512mb GRDD2 or GV-NX86T256H - 256mb GDDR3 Thanks
The GV-NX86T256H - 256mb GDDR3 is MUCH better. The GDDR3 is 30-40% faster. Most people see that it is 256mb instead of 512 and say that it is crap, but that 512 is crippled by the 128bit interface (512mb would never be truelly utilized.) Either way the 8600 is a gimp card and you should look into one of the following: The 8800GS ($170): Newegg.com - XFX PVT88SFDD4 GeForce 8800GS 384MB 192-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail The 8800GT 256 ($200): Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-NX88T256HV1 GeForce 8800GT 256MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail The 8800GT 512 ($230-240): Newegg.com - MSI NX8800GT 512M OC GeForce 8800GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail Any of these products will out perform that 8600 by four fold for as little as $60 more. Edit: To give you an idea, I'm gonna post a benchmark chart of the 8600 and 8800GT (the blue bars.) The 8600 is actually a better model than what you have in your choices and the 8800GT is the 512mb version. The 256 version will perform exactly the same at resolutions below 1280x1024. The 8800GS is not as resolution limited and will only perform about 9% lower than the 8800GT (84 fps on the chart which would be 4th.) VGA Charts 2007 | Tom's Hardware
i totally agree with gazaway, that is the common mistake people make when choosing a Graphics card they think its twice the performance because it has twice as much memory lol, o well bless those who think like that. so to conclude i would defenetly go for the 256mb card.
And any 8800 is better/faster than the 3850. And the 8800GS will outperform the 3850 by a huge margin and cost less.
Directx 10.1 is a gimmick that ATI is using to try to save their company. They are about to go down the hole with AMD and they are saying "Our chips do Directx 10.1!!!!" Well that's great, except for the fact that the difference between Directx 10 and 10.1 is absolute minimal. All Directx 10.1 games (which there aren't even any released yet) will be Directx 10 playable. In fact, I doubt that game designers would exclude the MAJORITY of video card users by putting out Dx10.1 games for QUITE some time. Sorry to burst your bubble Apollo, but the only thing AMD has going for them is crossfire. Read: Microsoft: DirectX 10 Hardware WILL Support DirectX 10.1 - Coming with Vista SP1 - Softpedia Look at how many times he says "minor" and words of that kind.
