How much of a difference...

[Banshee7]

is 2 GB of RAM and an Nvidia 7200 video card goin to make compared to my old 512MB of RAM and Radeon X300 card?

[Jayhawk]

Actually I don't really know, but thought of these two when I read it.

[Fulmar]

Both are very low end entry level cards.  The difference would more than likely be nil.  The addition of ram will be the biggest increase in performance.

[Krusty]

The X300 and the Ge7200 are pretty much a wash... 7200 is really a barebones card, but clocks a little faster than the X300.

You might appreciate the ram though. Going from 512 to anything higher has noticable impact in AH.

It might be that the additional ram smooths things out so the overall performance is better, but it won't necessarily be because of either of those video cards.

[Ghosth]

So when I'm researching a video card, first I find a roundup like this one, from an unbiased source.
(No IMO tomshardware does NOT count)

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2874&p=3

Looks rather like Nvidia cards are the Majority.
But just looking down the list I check out the lowest price card in the list.

ATI Powercolor Radeon X1600 PRO HDMI 600/500    $115

I would then go research specifics on that card.
After all its good enough to have made their roundup, so you know its not a dog.
Yet its reasonably priced enough to put it in my reach.

BTW all of the above took me less than a min to find with google.

Do the math (research)
Then decide.

[airhog99]

is 2 GB of RAM and an Nvidia 7200 video card goin to make compared to my old 512MB of RAM and Radeon X300 card?

Is that an AGP or a PCI-express system?

In either case I think a 7600 GT is the minimum for a decent AH rig. Assuming you want anti aliasing. Today AH quickly loads up 100MB of video RAM, so a min of 250MB video RAM seems useful.
For upgrading from low end to mid range that is a few years old, i think second hand is much better than buying new (you may even be able to get top end stuff for peanuts!). Unless, of course, you can find new that isn't overpriced (normally unused low- to mid-end graphics cards are way overpriced here in the UK).

Note: Beware of power supply requirements when you upgrade the graphics card!

[MrRiplEy[H]]

So when I'm researching a video card, first I find a roundup like this one, from an unbiased source.
(No IMO tomshardware does NOT count)

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2874&p=3

Looks rather like Nvidia cards are the Majority.
But just looking down the list I check out the lowest price card in the list.

ATI Powercolor Radeon X1600 PRO HDMI 600/500    $115

I would then go research specifics on that card.
After all its good enough to have made their roundup, so you know its not a dog.
Yet its reasonably priced enough to put it in my reach.

BTW all of the above took me less than a min to find with google.

Do the math (research)
Then decide.

That research is from the year 2006!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! All those cards are outdated and so is the information. That x1600 card is valued 30 bucks currently, it's still produced relabeled in low-end class. This post is wrong on so many levels it's not even funny!

Any card can 'make it' to a roundup they're chosen by what the reviewers receive from the manufacturers and sometimes how much the manufacturers pay for scores.

Tomshardware has a very good comparison chart for videocards and it's up to date.

[gyrene81]

You're not going to get a lot of performance from that 7200GT...if you haven't bought one yet, don't....if you already have one, then it may give slightly better performance than the x300, depends on the interface it's using.

You're going to notice the most difference in system performance from the added RAM, if you have a matched set of chips. Are you dumping the single 512 chip and replacing with two 1GB chips or four 512MB chips, or are you just adding three more 512MB chips? Gonna make a difference, and the effects will depend on your mobo.

Just curious, what type of slot are you putting the video card in? AGP, PCI, PCI Express, PCI Express x16, or PCI Express 2.0?
Also what kind of performance are you getting in game now?

[Ghosth]

Yep, yep, and YEP.

I didn't tell him to buy that card, I told him to learn to research.

So do I care if the example I used is out of date?
Or if the card is a dog?
No, actually that works in my favor.

Don't feed the man a fish, teach him to fish for himself.
Right?

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Yep, yep, and YEP.

I didn't tell him to buy that card, I told him to learn to research.

So do I care if the example I used is out of date?
Or if the card is a dog?
No, actually that works in my favor.

Don't feed the man a fish, teach him to fish for himself.
Right?

Nice try on save but no catch. You just pushed him away from the simplest solution (tomshardware) into a potential pitfall (your link). Prime example on how not to do research, without even checking the facts before posting.

[Krusty]

Personally speaking, old reviews are perfectly fine, as long as you realize they're from 2006, or 2002, or whenever. You have to realize when they say "Best card" or whatever, it's in that time frame.

However, if they benchmark it against other cards, it can and will still give you an idea of the card's capabilities vs a 6800, or a 7600, or whatever they had at the time to benchmark it.

If you are unfamiliar with the card you're looking up (say, a 7200), this can be quite helpful in placing it in a hierarchy.


I find that kind of thing much better than the "roundups" or "top X cards" lists, as that kind of info doesn't deteriorate with age.

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Personally speaking, old reviews are perfectly fine, as long as you realize they're from 2006, or 2002, or whenever. You have to realize when they say "Best card" or whatever, it's in that time frame.

However, if they benchmark it against other cards, it can and will still give you an idea of the card's capabilities vs a 6800, or a 7600, or whatever they had at the time to benchmark it.

If you are unfamiliar with the card you're looking up (say, a 7200), this can be quite helpful in placing it in a hierarchy.


I find that kind of thing much better than the "roundups" or "top X cards" lists, as that kind of info doesn't deteriorate with age.

3 year old roundups are at no value today. 90% of those products are not even available today. Not to mention those products can be found on Ebay etc. for ridiculously high prices. So instead of getting a late generation ultra bang/buck performance card the reader may make the mistake of buying totally outdated hardware thinking it's a good deal.

No, no and for the last time no. Do not publish dinosaur age reviews they only confuse people.

[Banshee7]

The video card was given to me.  One of my memory sticks went bad, so I'm only running on 256MB of RAM as we speak.  2G is on the way and is due here anytime.  I haven't been able to fly since I've only been running 256, so I was curious about graphics, stutters, and whatnot.

[OOZ662]

In either case I think a 7600 GT is the minimum for a decent AH rig. Assuming you want anti aliasing. Today AH quickly loads up 100MB of video RAM, so a min of 250MB video RAM seems useful.

Honestly, you'd be surprised what a clean computer can do. I can't stress it enough. Turning off all the other crap will give you a performance boost sometimes equivalent to hundreds of dollars in hardware upgrades. This poor old girl still ticks right along in Aces High. 2xFSAA, 3/4 sliders, advanced terrain, advanced water, and all effects enabled, she'll still pump 30-100 FPS unless something MASSIVE comes my way. I've had one night so far where I had to turn stuff down due to two hoards colliding over a field that didn't belong to either of them.

Before you go buying too much more hardware, have a look into what exactly your computer is running. Trim your services, kill startup programs, and make sure everything's in good shape and usable for everyday tasks. Then go even further with something like FSAutoStart or AlacrityPC to make your computer focused on AH when it's running; while it is necessary during normal use, there's not much reason to have the Print Spooler running with AH going for example. And all this is free.
If you still need more performance after that, then go about buying more hardware...but you'll get more return out of it with your system in peak shape to begin with.

[Krusty]

3 year old roundups are at no value today. 90% of those products are not even available today. Not to mention those products can be found on Ebay etc. for ridiculously high prices. So instead of getting a late generation ultra bang/buck performance card the reader may make the mistake of buying totally outdated hardware thinking it's a good deal.

No, no and for the last time no. Do not publish dinosaur age reviews they only confuse people.

You and I agree that roundups are useless beyond their immediate "issued" date.

However, what *I'm* saying is, if a person has it in their budget, and knows they can afford a couple of cards, but don't know which is best, looking at older reviews will STILL supply them with basic information about that's card's capabilities.

Not everybody can or will buy a decent gaming card every time. Most times budget and current system limitations kick in. Most times I go looking for video card reviews (no matter how old they may be) I have in mind a couple of cards I want to look up.

In this case, where the original post says "either this or that" -- this is a specific case. He's not saying "what's the best gaming card this year" he's not saying "which line is more reliable", he's saying "of these two, which is better" -- in which case looking up reviews (new or old) will help enlighten him. He can then decide for himself, or learn that both are sub-par, and change his original decision, or re-evaluate his budget for a better card, whatever.

Old benchmarks are always valid. But I agree with you that old "roundups" or "best" lists are not.