DDR2 vs DDR3 graphics cards

Wats better, a DDR3 8600gt with 256mb of vram or a DDR2 8600gt with 512mb of vram?

 

The DDR3 chip. The 8600GT can barely make full use of 256MB of RAM, so having 512MB is pointless. Plus DDR3 has a higher bandwidth which is what games really need.

 

GDDR3 will outperform the DDR2.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=173899

 

The 8600GT is a 128bit card, so can only utilize 256mb max. The DDR3 is going to run cooler, and will show some performance boosts.

 

if it can only use 256 mb of vram, y do i see so many clevo 15 inchers with the 8600gt with 512 mb of ram?

 

Marketing. Pure marketing.

 

Bloody DDR2 on those chips can only go to like 500MHz while overclocked. DDR3 stock speed is like 700MHz. A huge jump for the lil 8600GT.

 

Yup, IIRC, DDR2 maximum theorical speed would be 600 so DDR2 1200 (I've yet to see it past 595mhz in OC), GDDR3 is 900, 1000, 1100 1200 depending on the chips used. GDDR3 is unvolted DDR2 so it can reach higher clocks without overheating

 

Can the Radeon 2600 that has 512MB of DDR3 use it or is it limited to about 256MB at the end of the day and the rest is marketing?

 

Here are my speeds.

It says 70c, but I just finished gaming and read this thread. It hovers at 59c idle. It is a very stable speed. I can even push up to 680, but then I can only play for 1hr before artifacts strike.

 

Bandwidth can be a bottleneck but it's not the first thing you should look at with gpu's. Textures will store in the "excess memory" but fps will drop trying to load them. Setting a game up properly is all you need to know how to do, but they usually won't take up 256mb vram at a lower res with low AA so more memory\bandwidth is "overkill".

 

Simply put, no. Due to the 128bit architecture, it is limited to utilizing 256mb. For the most part, 128bit is just fine for current gaming. Rarely ever will you need more than 128bit/256mb VRam.

 

The 128 bit bus has nothing to to with the ram a video card can use. The problem is that with low performance cards(compared to a not so expensive desktop card like the 9600gt or the radeon 3850, the 8600gt has very low performance) the games and settings that would benefit from having 512mb of ram are usually with so low fps that they will be unplayable.

The old radeon 9700pro had a 256bit bus but 256mb is more than enough for its performance level.

 

See, I had read in multiple places that 128bit interfaces were limited to 256mb of VRam.

This seems strange. Need to research more...

*Edit* Just found this in an article-

"Generally the bus can effectively use double its size in VRAM
128bit-256MB
256bit-512MB
512bit-1GB
The wider the bus the more memory can be utilized."

 

The Radeon 2600 is 256 bit then or 128 bit?

 

I think it's 128bit.

 

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