512mb cards V 256mb cards

[Alien18]

Hi, In 2-3 months I'll be looking at buying a new graphics card.

I've been looking around at the cards available at the moment and read a few things. I have a 20" Widescreen monitor (recntly bought ) and would like to be able to run games at the native resolution of 1680x1050 at High detail (hopefully maxed out).

I play games like B4ME (will be buying B4ME2 soon) COD2, HL2, etc. I've read that if you want to play things like COD2,HL2 at a great res than 1280x1024 (i think thats the res) then you will greatly benefit from a 512mb card over a 256mb card. Is this true?

Also, I have an Antec SLK3800BUK case with a "400W SmartPower2.0 ATX12V v2.0power supply" - will this also affect what graphics card i can get? (it already has a power connector for PCI-E if that makes a difference)

I've read the a 512mb X1900XT needed at least a 450W PSU.

It seems that the 512mb versions of cards a quite a bit more expensive than 256mb versions - though I realise that the prices will probably drop quite a bit in 2-3 months.

Any help or advice in general about this would be much apreciated.

 

[man_from_uncle]

Well maybe not at 1280x1024, but certainly at 1600x1200 (or in your case 1680x1050) having 512 rather than 256 does start to make difference in a few newer titles. I'd certainly be tempted to get a 512 card if I were you.

I'm not familiar with you power supply but an X1900XT is very demanding and might cause problems (or at least will be more likely to cause problems than any other card on the market). Try looking at a 7900gt512. They are the next fastest thing on the market after the X1900 and 7900gtx and don't require as much power.

 

[no_1_dave]

At that res you'd probably get a small boost with 512, but not much. People are running at that res with 7900 GTs & everything is running smoothly...

 

[Alien18]

Thanks guys,

I think It's probably best if i go for a 512 card. At the moment ATI's 512 cards appear a lot cheaper than nVidia's. I'll have to try and wait until the end of June/start July - I get my redundancy money then

 

[xirokx]

IMO

Anything above 1280 x 1024 requires a 512mb....

 

[MonkeyMagic]

http://www.pureoverclock.com/article33.html

Nice little article there on the subject.

 

[charltonfan1]

http://www.pureoverclock.com/article33.html

Nice little article there on the subject.

Do you think that applies to X1800XT 512mb vs 256MB too?

 

[Darkwave]

It depends on the game. For example, Call Of Duty 2 benefits greatly from 512MB of video memory, whereas Oblivion performs the same with 256MB.