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Thread: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

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    Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    I have an ancient Dell PC which I'm soon to replace but as a stop gap and to get used to Windows 10 I replaced the old 7900GS which was reported as incompatible with Win 10 with a GT610.

    The 7900GS is a 256mb card whereas the GT610 is a 1GB card. I wasn't expecting much from the GT610 (I'm not a gamer) but was surprised to see the Windows Experience Index figure for the card drop from 5.1 for the 7900GS to 4.0 for the GT610.

    I appreciate that both are puny by today's standards but thought a 1GB card would at least be a slight improvement over a 256mb one? Or am I missing something?

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    DILLIGAF GoNz0's Avatar
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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    you bought a card with slower memory bus so it is falling down on the tests.

    http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index...eforce-7900-gs

    Capitalization is the difference between helping your Uncle Jack
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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    Thanks for the info Excuse my ignorance, but what does a slower memory bus mean in practical terms?

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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    As far as I can tell from reading around the 7900GS also has higher raw fill rates that a GT 610; that means that at some kinds of tasks it will be outright faster. Memory capacity is one of the least important factors to consider when buying a graphics card.

    Of course, the GT 610 supports all the extra functionality of DX10/DX11, like geometry shading and tessellation, but if you're playing an old-fashioned DX9/Open GL 2 game you'd probably find that the 7900 GS would be faster. If you're not playing any games, then don't worry about it - the GT 610 will be just fine

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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    Thanks Jim. I obviously have some learning to do When I do replace my PC, although i'm not a gamer, I do use Photoshop & Lightroom to edit photos - what should i be looking for in a graphics card for that type of work please?

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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    Basically you've replaced a rather old but relatively high end (at the time the card was new) for a new but bottom end card.
    You've also hit the old fallacy of more video ram being better, on most low end video cards ram doesn't matter that much as the gpu doesn't have the power to make use of it and also tend to have limited bandwidth.

    The basic way to think about graphics card memory, is like a road, cars travelling down the road are packets of data, the ram speed is how fast they can go, the bandwidth is the number of lanes the road has and the amount of ram is the total number of cars you have.
    Yes it's overly simplified, but it's basic way to think of it.
    So you've gone from a 4 lane road to a 1 lane road with a higher speed limit and a pool of far more cars than can actually fit on the road.
    That said the gt610 isn't a bad card if you're not looking to run games on it, however it's not really a step up from current onboard graphics, it will probably be a small step up from old onboard graphics.

    In old versions of photoshop there wasn't any gpu acceleration, so your graphics card did basically nothing. gpu acceleration came in with CS6 and later, although cpu is still the main factor.

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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    There are a variety of features in Photoshop and Lightroom that can use GPU acceleration, but obviously whether it's worth worrying about will depend on whether you use those features or not. The adobe help pages for GPU acceleration in Lightroom and Photoshop CS6 are:

    https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom/kb...m-gpu-faq.html
    https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...6-gpu-faq.html

    Basically, have a read through that. If you use any of the features those pages mention A LOT then it's probably worth considering GPU acceleration when choosing a graphics card. If you use those features rarely or never, then the choice of GPU isn't going to make any real difference.

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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    And that is Photoshop CS version, IIRC Photoshop Elements doesn't use a GPU at all.

    The Windows Experience Index was never a very representative test of real life and it got removed in Windows 8.1, so they'll vanish when you upgrade to Windows 10.

    In addition, the GT 610 is an old card itself. Despite the name it's half a GT 430 from 2010 (originally released as a GT 520 in 2011), rather than a cut down version of the 630/640 from 2012. So it's only four or five years older than the top of the range chip used in the 7900s rather than eight or nine.

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    Re: Nvidia 7900GS to GT610 - I'm confused

    You didn't say which Dell PC you have but if it is a very old PC then the newest card you can put in it for Windows 10 is probably a 750ti. It really boils down as to what chipset that old PC has. A GT 610 really isn't going to make much difference from your old card. A 750ti will run about 149 Euros which is about 105 UK Pounds.

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