Hey guys. Just recently got back into computer gaming after about a three-year haitus. Purchased 3GB Ram and a BFG 8600GTS 256MB card, which has been doing pretty well with Enemy Territory. When I threw the Bioshock demo at it, however, obviously performance dropped, I believe due to the limited amount of RAM on the card. I took a look at some Radeons, and came up with the Visiontek Radeon HD 2600XT 512MB card. On paper it looks good, but only because I've been out of the loop so long I don't really know what to look for. I do know I want a DX10-compliant card with support for Shader Model 4.0. Not really sure if this card supports that, as it only lists 'comprehensive DX10 and DX9 support.' Any thoughts as to how much more performance I can get with this card, or am I just completely off base here? Any better alternatives out there? Not looking to spend more than $300, and would prefer to purchase at retail so that I can return the card, if necessary. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time.
8600 GTS should be faster, especially if that Radeon has GDDR3 instead of GDDR4. If you can spend that 300 you should try to get 8800 GTS 320MB somewhere. All of those cards are DX10 cards and because of that they will support SM 4.0.
Thanks for the input. Are you saying the 8600GTS 256MB will outperform the Radeon 2600XT 512MB? I assumed the 8600GTS would be gimped by the limited amount of RAM. Is it not as important as I thought it was? Once again, thanks for the reply.
Ram and memory bit width come into play with higher resolutions and AA, Textures, etc... Every game will be different, but at around 12x10 resolution and like 2xAA with Medium textures, that would be about the limit with 256mb of ram. Any higher and it would choke. Again tho, it depends on the game itself. Even though the 2600xt has 512mb of ram, its processing power is a little too limited to utilize the extra ram, so it's kind of wasted. Newer games that are coming out may require more memory for textures. But generally speaking, with modest resolution and levels of AA and AF, the 8800gts 320mb card would be a good upgrade from the 8600gts you have currently. The 2600xt with 512 really wouldn't be a good "upgrade" to what you have now. It would be more a side step then an upgrade.
yea get the 8800gts 320mb atleast, GREAT card. 2.2x better than 8600gts. but the 8600gts is far better than the 2600xt. and im bioshock the GTS cards really arent bad. (even single) and if u payed over 150 for that BFG 8600gts they screwed you on spot. same card/perfoirmance of mny MSI versions. (retail 149-155)
