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No performance gain? Well not quite. Using 3Dmark03 with 4x I scored 4000 points. And with 8x I scored 6223. Frame rates and fill rates were also down 30-40% on all tests.



Stop running synthetic benchmarks. Programs like 3DMark have been proven over and over to be fallible and totally unworthy of measuring TRUE performance in a real rendering gaming environment. Go play some games and test the frame rates.

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But I do agree with you about people jumping on the high tech bandwagon. Hardware technology is so much further ahead of software technology its kind of pointless to buy top of the line stuff right away. Unless your doing high end graphics or video your not going to fully use the new stuff just coming out. Not to mention it always more expensive when it first comes out.



I'd have to disagree with you there. Let's take DooM3, for instance. On ULTRA QUALITY settings, if you notice, the game will actually WARN you that it REQUIRES 512MB of Texture Memory. Do you know of any video cards that currently have 512MB of texture memory?? Because I certainly don't. Aside from that, you realize they STARTED production on DooM3 _4_ years ago.

Software technology is ahead of hardware, in some aspects. Just because games can't fill the PCI-E 16X bandwidth line doesn't mean it's "behind"... It just means they don't need to use it yet.

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I recommend the MSI 9800Pro 128mb card. Thats the one I'm using. The MSI cards have the same chip as the 9800XT. When I put the card in my computer windows recognized it as an XT without flashing the BIOS. The Sapphire cards also use the XT chip. Some video card makers just use the standard pro chip. IMO the 256mb card is way over priced for what you get. I'm talking about the 9800Pro 256 card. In some of the benchmarks I saw it was only 2-3fps more than the 128 card. Sometimes the 128mb card was better. Not really worth the extra $100 if you ask me. I would stay away from the 9800SE. Its a very stripped down pro card. Its equal to the 9600XT. With the ATI X800 out now the 9800 pro is dropping in price quick. And it will still last you for quite a while.



You're looking at old benchmarks, lame synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark, or you're looking at benchmarks from games that just don't USE 256MB of texture memory. Counter Strike won't see performance gains from an extra 128MB of texture memory, sorry...

And since this thread is dedicated to DooM3, yes, buy a 256MB card. Like I said earlier, DooM3 Ultra Quality REQUIRES 512MB of texture memory. Think about that when making your decision...