Memory or GPU: which is more important?

The X1950pro will blow away any X1650pro. Go for it.

No, you have found only one card. The X1950Pro.

Agreed. Even then, there wouldn't be a big difference.

X1950Pro owns a X1600 all day long.

if you read the recent article on x1950 pro with 256 vs 512 you see the extra memory on helpd at really high resolutions.

as you have a better card you need more memory.

you will get better performace from the 1950 with 256 then the 1650 with 512 - the only thing that might change that is if you computer memory is very small like 512 and you are using all of it.

get the x1950 pro 256 we have it - it rocks

Just a question... Any reason you're not going C2D?

don't think he has to explain himself to you, if he wants AMD he can buy AMD. If he wants to by a Geforce 6300 for a gaming PC, he can. Mabye he is waiting out the next architecture for the AM2. Does it really matter?

don't read emotion in my post, as i did not put any there (eg: a smiley face etc etc). You seen the 6000+ ? pretty close to the e6700. when it moves to 65nm it could be better (excluding the interger benches where it gets raped)

gpu

Actually it score slightly better than the E6600 and gets beat by the E6700 hence the reason why its priced in between the E6600 and E6700. However teh 6000+ runs alot hotter and uses alot more power. If he is buying a PC right at this very moment Core 2 Duo is the way to go. The C2D E6300 for around the same price is clearly the winner.

The best bang for your buck for under 200$ would be a C2D 6300. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115005

It is better than an X2 4600+, especially considering the HUGE overclocking potential. I think even with the stock fan you could easily overclock it by 25%.

what if the GPUs were significantly closer: i.e. a 1950Pro 512MB vs a 1950XT 256MB???

Not sure what game (games) that require 512 for ultra textures, cant remember. But unless its your favorite the xt is by far the better gpu

F1 Toyata vs Ford lol

to answer the original question... amount of ram on a graphics card has very little effect on frame rate UNTIL the game in question needs to load more textures in to memory than the card has, then you get a huge performance hit as the system has to start using main memory to swap out to

so an X1600 will always run slower than an X1950, but an X1950 with 256mb will cripple itself when trying to play a recent game where the high textures setting means loading >256mb of textures (this is most games coming out now)

if you play with textures on medium (which for most games specifically means that they keep within 256mb), the X19 class card will easily outperform the X16,

if you have any card with 256mb and try running games that require more than that, you'll get crap performance regardless of what GPU you have (turning down the textures setting will give you the single biggest performance boost, thus allowing you to turn up other settings to compensate),

it might be that the GPU and systems brute force can overcome the delay of having to use system memory for textures, but don't be surprised if you get low frame rates using a 256mb card to play with high textures

wether or not it's playable is going to be a game by game basis of changing settings to see what runs, but if you have a 256mb card then turning down textures will be the first port of call