Budget Graphics reviewed

[FarFarAway]

For those of you who can't afford the fastest most amazing graphics cards that ATi and nvidia make...here a good review from The Tech Report for you to take a look at and decide who to go with for a budget solution:

Ati's offering:

Core memory bus on-board mem

Radeon X300 SE 128MB HyperMemory 325 600 64 32

Radeon X300 SE 256MB HyperMemory 325 600 64 128

Now Ati don't give you too many options as far as cards go, but their "Hypermemory" is a great way of sharing the system memory to bump up the performance of your graphics card...

To minimize the impact of higher latency system memory access, HyperMemory cards intelligently organize data to keep high priority items in local memory. Data that doesn't make the cut for local memory is stored GART memory, which is non-paged system memory allocated to the graphics card. When GART memory becomes full, pageable system memory is dynamically allocated to store additional data. HyperMemory can shuffle data between local, GART, and pageable system memory as needed, and is capable of accessing both local and system memory in parallel. Data can also be assigned directly to system memory, and may never actually reside in the graphics card's local memory.

Nvidia

Core memory bus on-board mem

GeForce 6200 128MB TurboCache 350 700 32 16

GeForce 6200 128MB TurboCache 350 550 32 32

GeForce 6200 128MB TurboCache 350 700 64 32

GeForce 6200 256MB TurboCache 350 550 64 64

Turbo-cache is quite confusing...but basically it does the same thing...shares the system memory. Nvidia claim thatthast their system is better than ATi's (well they would do wouldn't they?), but in the article by Tech Report, they test this out

While NVIDIA claims to have the more efficient implementation, ATI's HyperMemory family is definitely less confusing than the TurboCache lineup. NVIDIA offers four TurboCache configurations, each with a different mix of memory bus width, clock speed, and on-board memory. We've spelled out all the possible configurations below.

Well there ya go.

I'm not giong into the Tech Reports setup, but they did use both 512mb and 1gig of memory relaxed to what would be more budget RAM.

Now I know from experience with people who's systems I've set up (budget) that 512mb of RAM + 6200 = slow performance.

The problem is that they vid card shares the RAM and needs a fair amount of RAM to do this. I would advise anyone thinking to use a setup like this to get 1gb of RAM. I would also advise anyone who uses rendoring/video software to save up and buy a better card without memory sharing as you will need your RAM for your software applications.



Summary

I'm not going to go into bench figures: you can take a look yourself./

ATI HyperMemory and NVIDIA TurboCache both do a good job of taking advantage of system memory through PCI Express. The cards perform surprisingly well considering their inexpensive price tags and small amount of on-board memory, and are a definite upgrade over integrated graphics solutions

It seems that nvidias 64mb/32mb solution gets the winning figures with the more memory laden 64/64 card not quite as fast. Tech Report do state that it's hard for users to tell which one is which, as figures are not quoted, but well - do your research and you should be fine.

Basically:

Although the 64-bit/32MB TurboCache card comes out on top in most of our tests, the rest of the TurboCache family is considerably less appealing. The 64-bit/64MB card's slower memory clock results in lower performance than the 32MB card, making its value dubious at best. 32-bit TurboCache cards are much slower than both 64-bit cards, which isn't surprising considering their comparably weak local memory bandwidth. Business users and multimonitor fans looking for an inexpensive upgrade to NVIDIA's nView software may find some utility in the 32-bit TurboCache cards, but gamers are better off avoiding them in favor of the 64-bit TurboCache variants or even ATI's HyperMemory cards.

So get the above

Read the full article The Tech Report

 

[bloodthirst]

are those budget cards good for gaming?

im also noticing the nvidia cards are alot bigger than the ati ones what advantages if any does that pose?

 

[Dav0s]

many will run the games..but dont expect high res, detail or any AA/AF

 

[FarFarAway]

many will run the games..but dont expect high res, detail or any AA/AF

The budget card are ok for games.

As usual in this life you get what you pay for. The budget cards can play the games, but not with amazing details. If your a hardcore gamer then 6600GT is a far superior choice....

 

[bloodthirst]

The budget card are ok for games.

As usual in this life you get what you pay for. The budget cards can play the games, but not with amazing details. If your a hardcore gamer then 6600GT is a far superior choice....

in the ATI point of veiw what would be the equivelant of the 6600GT?

 

[enVias]

in the ATI point of veiw what would be the equivelant of the 6600GT?

X700, but the 6600GT is better

 

[bloodthirst]

X700, but the 6600GT is better

ok then rofl always nvidia isnt it

 

[FarFarAway]

in the ATI point of veiw what would be the equivelant of the 6600GT?

I dunno really....the 9800Pro?

 

[Dav0s]

9800xt

 

[bloodthirst]

9800xt

ok thats good then for obvious reassons

 

[FarFarAway]

ok thats good then for obvious reassons

Yeha but the 6600GT is still better

 

[FragTek]

Those 9800xt's are surprising little powerhouses for the price, i'd probably pick one up for a backup system if I were looking for a good inexpensive vid card.

 

[Dav0s]

yeah basically the 6600gt is better than 9800xt....but ati's next comparable card is the x800 which is mucho better than el 6600gt.

 

[FarFarAway]

yeah basically the 6600gt is better than 9800xt....but ati's next comparable card is the x800 which is mucho better than el 6600gt.

And more expensive....

 

[Dav0s]

yes *sigh* you get what you pay for

 

[enVias]

yeah basically the 6600gt is better than 9800xt....but ati's next comparable card is the x800 which is mucho better than el 6600gt.

It's supposed to be compared to a card in it's own generation which would be the X700XT which was released to go against the 6600GT specifically.

So it's not comparable to a 9800XT really

 

[Dav0s]

but again..6600gt wd wipe floor with x700xt

 

[bloodthirst]

what about the 9600xt they have a core clock speed of 500mhz ?

 

[Dav0s]

yes but a different core..you cannot just compare clock speed..they are based on totally differnt cores that work in different ways..kind of like amd and intel..but more complicated

 

[enVias]

yes but a different core..you cannot just compare clock speed..they are based on totally differnt cores that work in different ways..kind of like amd and intel..but more complicated

Indeed. Notice the 6800 Ultra with a core speed of 400MHz is as good as an X850XT with a core speed of 520MHz?

Notice the 9800XT with a core speed of 500MHz is PUMPKIN SMASHED (hehe.. pumpkin) by the 6800 Ultra?