Howdy Guys,

So I'm not a gamer, but I am a computer junky, I do a lot of 3D and image analysis for my research.

From online reviews (Thanks Tom's!) and my price range I've decided go with the 8600GT or GTS.

My question is:

For my applications (loading large images, rendering, processing etc) will faster DDR3 at 256MB out preform DDR2 at 512MB for the video card? DDR3 @ 512MB is just out of my price range.

PC Config it will be going into:

XP
GA-EP35-DS3L
E8400 @ 3.6Ghz
2x2GB OZC @ 4-4-4-12 and 2.2v

What resolution is your display? Also what is your price range? I would generally say DDR3 256 would be the better option, in most cases, as opposed to DDR2 512MB. Unless you are at higher resolutions, in which the memory size becomes a limiting factor. Gaming is a little different when you talk about these items.

I find it very difficult to gauge relatively similar video cards respective performance by looking at the specs. It seems that it comes down to which has better architecture, or different kind of stream processors (vector processors or TMUs), driver support, and all of which are difficult to express in the specifications. The marketing teams also do a good job of skewing the data.

Best bet is to go by the charts to find out exactly which is better for what you will be using the card for.

As jay2tall asked, what is your budget?

If you want to game I think the minimum should be 8800gs or 3850.. Could be picked up not so much more than 8600gt or GTS but twice the performance.

monitor is 22" @ 1680 x 1050

I'd like to keep it under $100, $130 is tops if the performance is unquestionably better for my applications.

You wouldn't even power a 22" monitor with a 8600gt/gts. Perhaps medium/low settings? If you can live with that.

8800gs, 3850, 9600gt should be able to power that monitor @ maximum settings except crysis.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814130333

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I would think with image analysis and high res, that more memory would end up working better than faster memory ...I'd go for the 512 if it was me.

It's a trade off between these cards. They have different architecture or configurations. Can't say which is better for you because all these cards perform relatively close to each other and excel at different things. It all comes down to what you want and what you want to spend on it.

I do advise going for a 512meg card for Nvidia cards at that resolution but you can get away with 384mb card. AMD cards are better at memory management even a 256mb card can run that resolution without much of a problem.

Agreed
For your monitor and resolution and no gaming you need more bandwidth
Go for ATI (512MB) card

In you case more is better, I would look at one of the 8600gt's with 1GB of ddr2 memory, I got one for about $110.

8600gt is useless with that much more ram. 256mb is sufficient.