Things to look for when buying new video card

[firefoxx04]

i am looking for a new video card. so, i want 512MB or memory but what does steam proccessors mean. i found two cards. the cheaper one has 64 steap proccessors and for $20 more the 4830 has 640 proccessors. the cheaper one has a coreclock of 650 and the 4830 has one of 575. im thinking that the 4830 is better. so what do all of these terms mean and what is most important

 

[turboflame]

The number of stream processors is fairly meaningless because ATI and Nvidia use completely different designs, same goes for the clock speed.

The only way to figure out performance is through looking at benchmarks. To save you some time the HD4830 is faster.

 

[mactronix]

i am looking for a new video card. so, i want 512MB or memory but what does steam proccessors mean. i found two cards. the cheaper one has 64 steap proccessors and for $20 more the 4830 has 640 proccessors. the cheaper one has a coreclock of 650 and the 4830 has one of 575. im thinking that the 4830 is better. so what do all of these terms mean and what is most important

Its a lot more complicated than core numbers and SP's.
Which two cards are you looking at ? As turboflame said the 4830 is probably better.

Mactronix