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whats the difference between 128bit and 256 bit in GPUs?

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  • Memory
  • Graphics Cards
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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October 17, 2013 4:40:55 PM

whats the difference between 128bit and 256 bit in GPUs? 256 is faster? better? how? Is this a very important factor if say i want to play games at high or ultra settings? Thank u

More about : whats difference 128bit 256 bit gpus

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a b } Memory
a b U Graphics card
October 17, 2013 4:50:21 PM

The bit you see there. (128, 192,256,448,512, ect) is the width of the Memory Bus. Think of it as channels. how there is Dual Channel Tripple channel and Quad channel memory for you PC. In other works each Channel has its own Controller allow for faster speeds. Now with memory every 64bits is pretty much a channel.

Now the thing is though its not just about the channel. What you really want to look at is the bandwith. If you have a high bit with ram (I'll take my GTX 260 which has 896 Megabytes of ram and its a 448 Bit Bus) But the new Cards which have like 128,192,256 on average BUT the Ram Speed is much higher and faster. My old card only uses GDDR3 while most new cards use GDDR5 which is MUCH faster. Yes a high bit rate is better but not always faster .

Look at the memory Bandwith. Thats what you should really look at.
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a b } Memory
a b U Graphics card
October 17, 2013 4:52:39 PM

The difference between 256 bit and 128 bit is 128 bits :p  (256 is better and usually faster).
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a b } Memory
a b U Graphics card
October 17, 2013 4:58:25 PM

I think you are refering to the GPU memory bus. For the same memory clock frequency, a 256bit bus will give twice the memory bandwidth, hence theoretically faster access, which can help in some higher end cards. Which ones are you looking at?
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a c 217 U Graphics card
October 17, 2013 5:05:40 PM

The reality is, you don't need to know anything about internal spec's of a card. Look at benchmarks for the resolution you are gaming at. That will tell you all you really need to know. Well, read the full review as well, other things like stutter, heat and noise may also matter.

The bit of the bus will show up in the benchmarks. It might not matter if the memory is fast enough to deliver all the bandwidth needed.
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