Upgrading my video card

[kreepa]

k so i have a NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS and i want to upgrade it... i was lookin at a Radeon 4890 1gb or a 5770 1 gb ... i have around 200 bucks to spend on a card and wondering which is better for gaming...if there is another card that you think is better for that price range then thatd be cool too, i dont quite understand the thing with the 128 bit and the 256 bit.. any help would be sick....

Windows 7 ultimate 32-bit(6.1,Build 7600)
Pentium dual-core E5300 @ 2.6ghz
4096mb ram
Geforce 7900 GS
P5QPL-AM motherboard

 

[geofelt]

I would look at the newly released GTX460 at the $200 price point. It will outperform the 4890 or 5770.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130562

 

[lowriderflow]

^^Agreed with above.

 

[lowriderflow]

Definately go with the 1gb version, aside from more memory, it has several other hardware increases over the basic GTX460

 

[eodeo]

best 200$ card today would be gtx 460 768mb.

best ati card at that price would be 5830.

out of the 2 you mentioned, I'd get 5770 for dx11 compatibility- still 4890 is the faster of the 2.

Cards I mentioned above are both way faster than any of the ones you name. Still, your cards are noticeably cheaper too.

 

[popatim]

128 bits accesses data 16 bytes at a time
256 bits accesses the data 32 bytes at a time.
so if you had to get 1kb of data the 256bit engine would only require 4 fetches instead of the 8 for the 128bit engine.

On top of this you need to factor in DDR type and speed.

As for recommendation, I'd go with a gtx460 myself. The 768mb version is about equivalent to the 5770 and the 1gb version is about equivalent to the gtx465.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-460-gf104-fermi,2684.html