256ddr3 or 512ddr2 which is better?

im on a tight budget but am planing on getting a new pcie vid. card.
im wondering if a smaller memory with faster ram (8500GT 256ddr2 dvi 128bit) is better or a bigger memory with slower ram (8500GT 512ddr2 dvi 128bit)
and is there a benchmark for these cards?

If that's your choice, absolutely go for GDDR3. I strongly suggest that you spend a few extra bucks for an 8600GT 512MB. Costs around $90 bucks, but you'll be glad you spent the extra $30 when you find that you can actually play modern games at decent resolution with most of the eye candy (8500GT CANNOT do this).

Here's the newegg link:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814122033

It'd be a much better idea to get the 8600GT GDDR3 version, not the GDDR2 version David listed. If you check the Tom's Hardware Video Card guide, they even say specifically not to get the GDDR2 version of the card, because the GDDR3 version performs much better.

As far as the two cards you are talking about, I'd go with the 8500GT GDDR3 256mb. The extra frame buffer (memory) isn't going to help you since you won't be able to play any games with that card at high resolutions anyways.

Personally, I think the best low-end budget card is the 2600XT GDD3 256mb.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102102
Albeit, it's a little more expensive than a 8500GT, but it's a hell of a lot more powerful.

What games are you trying to run anyways?

thanks for the heads up everyone. so the HD2600XT 256ddr3 is better than 8600GT 256ddr3?

some of the games im looking at are NFSroStreet, Colin Mcrae Dirt, Gears of war, upcoming games like starcraft2. these games cant run on my current machine, having a 128ddr 9550XT (which im having some problems playing back video files, so im greatly considering nVidia for a change)

In some new games the HD2600XT dominates the stock 8600GT and matches GTS. Both do a pretty good job though unlike the 7900GS that sometimes tanks (NFS: PS & Carbon, UT3, Crysis, COD4, Oblivion). If you enable fsaa the HD2600XT takes a much bigger performance hit than the 8600GT, so if it's possible to play with fsaa with decent performance the 8600GT would be on top. Personally if $100 was the max budget, the HD2600XT would get my money as I don't value fsaa in cards of this caliber. But I wouldn't fault someone for buying the 8600GT, especially if they OC. And for the future, who knows for sure, but based on current shader heavy trend I would favor X1950 pro, HD2600XT, or GF8600GT(S) over 7900GS. I'm dead-set against the GF7's still being recommended for the latest/future games for reasons like this where the top 7900GTX gets beat by the HD2600Xt and 8600GTS and the 7900GS and GT are left in the dust:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/sho [...] i=3128&p=4
http://www.legionhardware.com/docu [...] id=693&p=5