1. What is the difference between these AGP Slots?
2. What What is the difference between a 256 Mb DDR3 card and a 512mb DDR3 card that has the same clock speeds cuz i saw on this forum that MBs don't count so much?
2 Questions
512Mb DDR3 card simply will let you play game smoother on higher resolutions of about 1600x1200 or more. Difference on smaller resolutions with same amount of details is barely different as card has enougn time to flush its texture cache and fill it up again, just at higher resolution it need more space to store stuff in wich is why 512 will have smoother gameplay i.e. without rare lag spikes of half-second or less.
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prince1142003
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prince1142003
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For those not understanding BrontoX's question:
Both of the cards he's curious about are AGP cards. But notice closely and you'll see that one has an extra notch. What he wants to know is why that is.
It seems that it has something to do with the external power required for the card. Of the two you show here, the first one has an external power connector and one notch while the nVidia card has no external power requirement and has two notches in it's AGP connector.
EDIT:
The notches indicate the voltage key. More here.
Both of the cards he's curious about are AGP cards. But notice closely and you'll see that one has an extra notch. What he wants to know is why that is.
It seems that it has something to do with the external power required for the card. Of the two you show here, the first one has an external power connector and one notch while the nVidia card has no external power requirement and has two notches in it's AGP connector.
EDIT:
The notches indicate the voltage key. More here.
If the pics represent the actual apperance of product go nVidia by all means. Simply the first card got poor cooling system. Fan located on top of gpu wich means that it doesnt work for memory chips and other stuff. While Nvidia card covers both gpu and memory with heatsink and fan located onver that heatsink even tho working for gpu cooling also draws some heat from memory.
That's what you need to know mate. I upgraded my PC not long ago and had to learn the basics of AGP slots before i made my purchase. You need to find out what cards your motherboard supports. Your board has the AGP slot, but there are different ones as shown on Wiki.
Use this program AIDA32 to find out about your motherboard (and the rest of your computer also).
P4-2.8ghz-1gb ram-Radeon 256mb X800XT
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FrogsterPL
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And better, especially if you use the non-free versions ...
Anyways, more memory usually doesn't provide much of an advantage in most cases. However, as Abrams said, playing at higher resolutions requires more memory. Of course, higher resolution is only 1 factor, there are many other things which increase memory requirements such as anti-aliasing, high-dynamic range lighting, anisotropic filtering and, of course, texture maps, light maps, etc.
Also, you also have to consider how fast the card is. For instance, 512 MB on an X1600 Pro isn't going to do you much good because, even though it has a lot of memory, it doesn't have the memory bandwidth to run a 3D application requiring that kind of memory. However, 512 MB equipped to a card with a 256-bit memory bus and a high memory clock would serve to be quite useful in some games, like Doom 3 at Ultra Quality or F.E.A.R. at higher settings. If you're playing Hello Kitty: Island Adventure, it's not going to do you any good, so why pay for the extra memory ?
And, once again, you should also consider the processor you're using as well. Are you running a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 ? No point in spending a lot of money as your CPU will bottleneck a high-end graphics card severely. My overclocked Athlon 2500+ bottlenecks my 6600GT at lower resolutions and the 6600GT isn't really all that fast by today's standards.
Finally, you should be very weary of any low-end card sporting more memory at a similar price point as the manufacturer usually uses slower memory clocks to offset the costs. They know your average idiot thinks a 512 MB card is automatically superior to a 256 MB or 128 MB card in spite of the fact that it's completely untrue. In low-end and midrange cards, higher clocks > more memory.
Anyways, more memory usually doesn't provide much of an advantage in most cases. However, as Abrams said, playing at higher resolutions requires more memory. Of course, higher resolution is only 1 factor, there are many other things which increase memory requirements such as anti-aliasing, high-dynamic range lighting, anisotropic filtering and, of course, texture maps, light maps, etc.
Also, you also have to consider how fast the card is. For instance, 512 MB on an X1600 Pro isn't going to do you much good because, even though it has a lot of memory, it doesn't have the memory bandwidth to run a 3D application requiring that kind of memory. However, 512 MB equipped to a card with a 256-bit memory bus and a high memory clock would serve to be quite useful in some games, like Doom 3 at Ultra Quality or F.E.A.R. at higher settings. If you're playing Hello Kitty: Island Adventure, it's not going to do you any good, so why pay for the extra memory ?
And, once again, you should also consider the processor you're using as well. Are you running a 2.4 GHz Pentium 4 ? No point in spending a lot of money as your CPU will bottleneck a high-end graphics card severely. My overclocked Athlon 2500+ bottlenecks my 6600GT at lower resolutions and the 6600GT isn't really all that fast by today's standards.
Finally, you should be very weary of any low-end card sporting more memory at a similar price point as the manufacturer usually uses slower memory clocks to offset the costs. They know your average idiot thinks a 512 MB card is automatically superior to a 256 MB or 128 MB card in spite of the fact that it's completely untrue. In low-end and midrange cards, higher clocks > more memory.
Basically, at lower resolutions, the CPU will still be doing the same amount of work while the GPU will be doing less.
If there is no CPU bottleneck, your framerates will increase as the resolution decreases.
If there is a CPU bottleneck present, your framerates will not increase nearly as much (or at all in extreme cases) as the resolution decreases.
Here's a visual of a CPU bottleneck: http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/391/23/
If you look at the higher resolutions, there is no difference between a relatively slow E6400 (2 x 1.86 GHz) and an overclocked X6800 (2 x 3.47 GHz). This indicates a GPU bottleneck, meaning you're getting the full potential from the graphics card and the CPU is not bottlenecking the system.
However, at the lower resolutions, the GPU is trying to push higher framerates, but it simply cannot because the processors are limiting the GPU. If you look at the last graph, the framerate does not increase at all (well, 2 FPS, but for all intents and purposes, that equates to nothing) with the E6400 between 1600x1200 and 1024x768. This indicates a severe CPU bottleneck where the GPU should be pushing higher framerates, but because the CPU cannot process the information fast enough, it is limiting the framerate.
Just remember, though, if you're playing at a high resolution (higher than SXGA or WSXGA), you're much less likely to run into CPU bottleneck.
If there is no CPU bottleneck, your framerates will increase as the resolution decreases.
If there is a CPU bottleneck present, your framerates will not increase nearly as much (or at all in extreme cases) as the resolution decreases.
Here's a visual of a CPU bottleneck: http://www.guru3d.com/article/content/391/23/
If you look at the higher resolutions, there is no difference between a relatively slow E6400 (2 x 1.86 GHz) and an overclocked X6800 (2 x 3.47 GHz). This indicates a GPU bottleneck, meaning you're getting the full potential from the graphics card and the CPU is not bottlenecking the system.
However, at the lower resolutions, the GPU is trying to push higher framerates, but it simply cannot because the processors are limiting the GPU. If you look at the last graph, the framerate does not increase at all (well, 2 FPS, but for all intents and purposes, that equates to nothing) with the E6400 between 1600x1200 and 1024x768. This indicates a severe CPU bottleneck where the GPU should be pushing higher framerates, but because the CPU cannot process the information fast enough, it is limiting the framerate.
Just remember, though, if you're playing at a high resolution (higher than SXGA or WSXGA), you're much less likely to run into CPU bottleneck.