I'm considering buying a new mid range graphics card for my PC, and have found these 2 cards to be both of the same value, yet I am unsure of which is better, as I know the it comes down to more than just how many MB it has. So these are my options. ATI Radeon 9600XT with 128MB http://www.asus.com/products/vga/r9600xt/overview.htm Or NVidia 5700 with 256MB http://www.asus.com/products/vga/v9570td/overview.htm The exact products can be seen at the above links. So which should I get? And any plus's and minus's between the 2 would be helpful. Thanks.
This might help you a little; the principles are the same, we're just talking about a different class of card.
Thanks for that. I have also read that ATI cards do have better support of DX9. However the fact that the NVidia has double the RAM, is pulling my attention towards it. I'm using Windows XP, and my system that will run the graphics card, will be a P4 3.0GHz, with 1024MB RAM. I'm not big on the Halflife type games. I play more of the Sim type games (The Sims, Sim City, etc...), I also do a lot of video editing. And having read the specs at those wbsites, it seems that the ATI's engine and memory clock run at slightly higher speeds. ATI 500 and 600MHz compared to NVidia 425 and 500MHz Any more advice?
Well, I'd like to say otherwise, but really you won't notice any difference in performance with more than 128mb of VRAM with current technology -- unless you're using your card for dualhead or multihead displays. In that case the VRAM is split more or less evenly among each display. As far as video capture goes, your system RAM is where incoming video feed will be buffered; VRAM has little to do with that. You have 1024mb system RAM, plenty for everything you want to do with it. As far as sim-type gaming goes, you could get away with an old Rage Pro or Riva TNT. Either the 9600XT or the Geforce 5600 will be much more than adequate for that purpose.
