I currently have a GeForce 5950Ultra 256MB graphics card, and I saw an offer on ebuyer that looked really good…the specs are below for the new card I saw in ebuyer (geforce 6800) and my current card.
My question is, how important is memory bandwidth?, cos as you can see the card on ebuyer is great but the bandwidth seems a bit low.
Geforce 5950Ultra - 256MB (my card)
Graphics Core256-bitMemory Interface128-bitMemory Bandwidth30.4GB/sec.Fill Rate3.8 billion texels/sec.Vertices per Second356 millionMemory Data Rate950 MHzPixels per Clock (peak)8Textures per Pixel**16*Dual RAMDACs400 MHz
Geforce 6800 - 512MB (ebuyer card)
Memory Interface256-bitMemory512 MBMemory Bandwidth35.2 GB/sec.Fill Rate6.4 billion texels/sec.Vertices per Second600 MillionMemory Data Rate1050 MHzPixels per Clock (peak)16Textures per Pixel*16RAMDACs400 MHz
The price is really kool so I was just wondering whether to buy or not?
Lemonnado,
I was told the same thing-- that the video card plays almost no role; RAM is king. BUT- I’ve noticed a big slowdown in Photoshop, since I switched from an nVidia to an ATI card.
Card spec comparisons aside, if ZBrush is not a true 3D, then it generates roughly the same processing instructions as some Photoshop filters, no?
If RAM and scratch disk size are equivalent in each workflow, why the slower response through a different card? Just wondering… what role does a card play in ZB? Does it just speed screen render time?
nVidia and ATI cards only have marginal differences. Those of course are amplified to the max and broadcast into the market. When you experience a difference then you would have to start and check the underlying parameters/technology. PCI cards are slowest, AGP is faster, PCI E/X is fastest.
Well, unfortunately that’s not where it ends.
If the timing of the card does not fit to the PC Mainboard you will have problems with the display and hangups or the thing is slowwwww.
If the processor is not fast enough then the difference between a fast card and a slower card is simply not there. A workstation like that behaves weird, it’s slow and fast. Depending what the system is doing. SLow in ZBrush/Photoshop and then fast at times in a 3d app where the GPU can do it’s thing without the processor being involved. Like Hidden Line Mode which is soley rendered in the Card.
ZBrush is a ‘real’ 3D app. What you refer to are apps which use 3D functionality of the GPU. Actually, a few things ZBrush does woud have been impossible on the older cards. So it is playing part GPU and part ‘Open GL’ itself. If you take a close look at all the inovation in ZBrush it becomes even more amazing. Someone really had the guts to write something cool while not using the manstream libraries. Thanks for that!
So… long story short… nVidea or ATI should not result in a massive performance difference except for the fact that you have an Apple nVidea and compare it with a Orange ATI… I have a PC with nVidea and one with ATI. Both perform flawless and I cannot favor any. Both run Modo, Silo, XSI, VUE5, ZBrush without any hickup (regarding the cards…).
And video ram is never been swapped out… so scratchdisk/swapspace is not related to it. I am not even sure if the CPU has access to the video memory…
Here is an older article which shows the general architecture. It didnt really change for the past 20 years… Regardless how they paint it… It’s been the same, now just faster and wider.
Just kidding he he, thx for the reply guys.
I actually wanted the upgrade for 2 reasons, firstly for 3ds max and zbrush and secondly for games (just bought elder scrolls oblivion and have had to turn many options off), I just thought with 512MB of ram and the specs being all better than my current card it should be a significant upgrade…shouldn’t it?
Then I noticed the mempry bandwidth and wondered how much difference it made to 3D apps and games cos there the same on my card and the new one.
Any answers on this memory bandwidth issue, which is the only thing stopping me from buying.
Memory in the cards is mostly used for textures. There is just not enough geometry fed to them to fill them up. Due to the fact that most game producers count on the 128MB average in the deployed field the 256MB cards are ‘plenty’. However, more has never been a fault. You just might use it in 2-3 years…
Lemo
PS:Little correction… if you plan to use multiple monitors or a couple with Apple Cinema sized resolutions… then memory WILL be used… But if you are running on a single 1280x1024 monitor you will not feel any impact. Except for your CPU laging the card in almost any case. I had a P4 with 1.9 GHz and that was not even remotely able to feed an 800 card efficiently. Now I have a cual Opteron 280 Board and that is on par with my FireGL ATI card. But for which price… (faint)
256-bit