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GDDR5 vs. GDDR3

Keod2

Keod2

Keod2

Associate
Joined
29 Dec 2011
Posts
340
Location
England
I know that GDDR5 graphics cards are better, but say how much better are they.

Like if you had a like for like specification graphics card but one was GDDR5 and one was GDDR3 how much better would the GDDR5 one be??

I notice a price hike when going from one to the other too, is it worth it?

I realise to many of you this will be a noobish question, Thanks in advance :)
 
Hi there,

It really depends on the particular GPU that memory is attached to, may I ask what one you have your eye on? If you are looking at the same card with two versions - one GDDR3, one GDDR5 then if its a low-end HTPC card then the reduced memory bandwidth won't incur too much of a performance hit. But if it is a more midrange card then the performance jump going from GDDR3 to GDDR5 is likely to be significant.

However, for different cards types then you can't compare GDDR3 vs GDDR5 as it is an apples vs oranges comparison - you really need to look at the benchmark performance numbers in these cases to gauge relative performance.
 
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You shouldn't be worried about the type of memory the graphics card uses and just look at benchmarks. A Geforce GTX 285 with GDDR3 will still perform better than a Radeon HD 5770 with GDDR5
 
@cmndr_andi
I was looking at cards around the £70-110 mark and the £70 GDDR3 ones seem to be the same as the GDDR5 ones which are 30-40 more. I was wanting to do some gaming with the card really.
 
Ok, if you are looking at different model cards then as xsistor says - don't concern yourself over GDDR3 or GDDR5 memory - in of itself it doesn't matter (for example a GDDR3 card may have a wider memory bus so achieve as good or better memory bandwidth compared to a GDDR5 card).

At that £70-110 price range the best new cards are the HD 6850 and GTX 460 1GB. For £70 the best card you can get is the HD 5770/6770, which is significantly slower card.

Could you tell us the model numbers of the specific cards you are looking at and comparing?
 
Ok thanks, I'll look up cards benchmarks too instead of just looking at their spec.

Do any of you know a good graphics card benchmark website?
 
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