video card - 128mb ram 4x or 64mb ram 8x ?

[prom3theus]

I can't find much in the way of comparing the same cards (chipsets) in a 64mb 8x flavor vs. a 128mb 4x flavor.

In other words, if I just want to focus on video encoding/playback and not on intensive fps games and applications, then what is more important really, the 500+mhz on the 8x or the agp 4x with twice the memory?

My initial thought is that for video applications (2d directx playback for instance while doing other things), the benefit would be larger ram.

The reason I ask is that you can get a multiple-overlay 64mb video card at 8x right now, but also can get fairly decent 128mb 4x cards as well as all those gamers upgrade to 8x clock speeds.

What do you guys think?

(or, anyone in nirvana know of a cheap ~$45 multiple overlay 128mb card?)

[b00zed]

I wouldn't think twice about choosing the card with more memory. It's hard enough saturating a 4x AGP bus, and that showed little improvement over 2x AGP, so 8x AGP is regarded by many as pure marketing spin. 16x PCI-Express is going to make even more fun for the marketroids :D

[Sirber]

Go for the memory :)

[prom3theus]

Is what I am probably going to go for. Your card except a bit slower :) I hope you're happy with yours. I want to give nvidia a try for once and see how they are.

[theReal]

In other words, if I just want to focus on video encoding/playback and not on intensive fps games and applications, then what is more important really, the 500+mhz on the 8x or the agp 4x with twice the memory?

This is simple: it won't make ANY difference for video playback and even less for encoding.

It's even hard for intensive 3D games to use 128MB memory or > 4x AGP.

For your needs, it just doesn't matter at all, but I'd choose more memory (you never now how much you'll need tomorrow)!

For a gamer, I'd suggest more MHz for the graphics (*EDIT: I meant graphics card memory speed, not AGP speed here. See my post below*)

[Solo]

Go for the 128 MB memory option. The actual difference between 4x and 8x AGP is negligable. Rather have more RAM. :D

[prom3theus]

Ok Ok, so you are saying that really for me, for someoen who wants high quality video playback, hardware yuv conversion and so on, and crisp low cpu usage playback, i really shouldn't worry too much about 64bit vs 128bit, 64mb vs 128mb, 4x vs 8x (which i know is hype anyway), 350mhz memory clock vs 500mhz memory clock, etc?

What about integrated gpu? Right now I am looking at albatron, and biostar mainly (albatron definitely the superior quality there I think). Apparently their nforce2 gpus are basically mx 440s, but it is hard to find specifics. Here are the Qs: The gpu runs at your DDR clock speed right? If you want 128-bit performance (mimicking those dual-channel ddr cards) you need to be using Dual DDR? Does 128-bit matter really for my purposes? Will there be a bottleneck with this and other applications running? For instance, if I am encoding say mp3s which don't touch anything graphics related, but will max out my cpu, what is the impact of running a video using 128mb frame buffer (say I have plenty of memory left over)? Will I cause a bandwidth bottleneck I should worry about that would not be present using AGP which has it's own port and does not clog a bus (which I believe is the entire point to agp right)?

Any expert feedback of these nforce2 igp boards would be *greatly* appreciated (or any others worth mentioning). Price *Is* a factor:

abit nf7-M [up to 128mb max buffer] $100
Albatron KM18G Pro II [128mb max buffer] $85
biostar m7ncg [64mb max buffer] $70
Epox ?

EDITED:-> I added just now the 128mb max buffer on the albatron km18gpro 2 (only ver 2 has the tv-out header). Had to dig into the pdf manual under bios settings to find it.


Thanks fer lookin.

[prom3theus]

For anyone interested,here's a review I found (http://www.planetsavage.net/articles/viewarticle.php?article=37) , it's about 8 months old right now, but the gpu probably has not changed. Here is a snip:

Of course, the memory bandwidth of the IGP is shared with the rest of the other devices, hence, it is expected to perform slower than a separate video card, regardless of how efficient NVIDIA's memory controller is. Since the integrated GeForce4 MX GPU relies on the nForce2 chipset for its memory controller, it does not benefit from the improved memory controller used in the stand-alone GeForce4 MX cards, making the performance of the IGP significantly slower than the stand-alone variants.

[b00zed]

prom3theus: when you see 64 bit, 128 bit etc, if it's with respect to the memory bus width then it's very important. You can never have enough memory bandwidth, basically :)

The GPU clock and the memory clock have nothing in common for an integrated GPU, the difference is however that the setup is limited by the motherboard's memory bandwidth, which is usually a lot less than on a discrete card. On these dual channel nforce2 boards, you'll find that if you use both channels, the GPU's performance will be improved mainly because of the fact that the athlon CPU can only handle half the bandwidth of the dual channel setup anyway (which makes dual channel itself more marketing than anything when it comes to athlons,) basically the GPU is provided with its own dedicated bandwidth to the amount of RAM that you allocate to it.

Integrated video is fine if you're just doing video work. However on the games that need 128MB of RAM, I wouldn't expect an integrated GPU to run too well anyway, so that's not much of an issue.

[prom3theus]

I should have mentioned that I'm currently using a Sis 315P 4x 64mb card which I think memory clock is 143MHz. I think just about any of these would be an improvement I would notice.

[Solo]

If your just going to be watching the movies on your PC screen then the IGP option might be OK for you, but if you plan to watch movies on your TV screen you will be stuffed. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've never seen an nforce2 board with IGP that offers TVOut as an option (RCA or SVideo). For games though ... well the Geforce4 MX440 might play a few older games OK still, but it is generally regarded as a joke amongst even half-serious gamers. Unfortunately your $45 buget limits your choices a lot here. Just looking on Price Watch site I would say rather get a Radeon 9200 or FX5200 for about that price. Much better playback than any MX440.

[prom3theus]

I've seen one at least with tv-out via s-video and I think it was a biostar board, I'm not sure which model offhand. But yea, it seemed to be very rare, and that is one of the drawbacks of igp. But, I do have a tv-card which has tv-out built into it, so that's not a huge deal for me there. Still, the drawback it seems is that unless you have dual-channel ddr on the motherboard, the igp is taking a certain amount of your memory bandwidth. So either way, you are degrading your system performance.

here is a url if interested in the biostar m7ncg pro (http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/mainboard/board.php3?name=M7NCG%20Pro) which has 2 vga ports.

Here is the Albatron km18g pro 2 (http://www.albatron.com.tw/english/it/mb/specification.asp?pro_id=49\) which has tv-out, but I think there's a header on the board, and I'm not sure how that works. I assume then you have to purchase some sort of bracket like a game port and I would assume it's a standard interface.


Neither of those sport the nforce2 spp interface with 400mhz bus which just kicks *$# from what I hear, better than the kt600 anyways.

[prom3theus]

Here's a great comparison (http://www20.tomshardware.com/motherboard/20030214/nforce2-14.html) at toms hardware including: abit nf7-s, asus a7n8x, biostar m7ncg, chaintech zenith, leadtek winfast, msi k7n2-L, some of which at least are available in IGP integrated video versions. Good comparison table for anyone searching for these models.

[prom3theus]

Note that the asus a7nx8-vm cannot support pc3200 ddr ram with the integrated IGP! This means you won't get quite that *bang* from the dual channel ddr as long as you are using the integrated video :(

I will post more on this with the others as I find it.

[avih]

for video playback, you'll want a video out connector (composite or s-video) just to be on the safe side in that regard. it's not needed for monitor playback, but it might be nice to play the clips on TV as well.

other than that, just go for the cheapest one u can find. they'll all play films quite the same.

if you also consider gaming, then as some have noted, go for the memory. by the time you choke 4x, you'll have a new card anyway ;)

[prom3theus]

thanks all. I have used tvout a bit, but only from a tv card, not from a motherboard or 'tv out' video card, so i won't worry about it on the board, as i'll always want to have some kind of vivo/tv card.

I'll try to post some benchmarks in case anyone else is interested in trying to save a few dollars as a non-gamer for integrated video.

[avih]

integrated video usually sucks, but usually it would not give you 'lower quality' playback.

[prom3theus]

oh, and i found out prior to ordering that the biostar m7ncg 400 (at least) has up to 128mb frame buffer, not the 64 that the m7ncg has. I have my oc dual channel kit in the mail so I will try to run it through some benches with igp vs crappy 4x agp card which does "ok" right now.

[theReal]

I just realized I said "if you consider gaming, then go for more memory speed"

What I meant was the graphic cards memory speed and gpu speed, not the AGP bus speed!!!

When you said "the 500+mhz on the 8x" I thought you meant this card had a higher gpu speed and/or graphics memory speed.
Now I see you meant the theoretical 500Mhz+ on the AGP bus which is of course not worth buying, not even for a hardcore gamer!