Graphics Help

Hello all, am confused by the massive choice of video cards and that they all seem to be called the same (with one letter difference) but have massive performance differences.

Can someone tell me what exactly these are, and which is most important and why:

• GPU Speed
• Memory
• Memory Bit Rate
• Memory Type (know this!)
• Memory Speed
• Number of Pipelines
• SLi / CrossFire - which is best ?
• VIVO - does this make my TV card redundant ?

Also looking at my new C2D setup I cannot decide whether to get a high-ish end card like the £234 Radeon X1900 XTX, or just a simple card like the £180 7900GTO or even the £116 7900GS.

I play games on my PC like BF2 / CS Source / COD2 etc. (I am planning on getting a Hanns-G 19" Widescree monitor (native res 1440 x 900) to play games on)

Sorry for the long post, and thanks for your help. :)

Hi. As expected, there's no simple answer. What is important on a graphics card is actually a combination of several factors. GPU Speed, Memory speed, Memory interface (bit) and Pipelines are all important. The 'speed' ratings are obviously important, but the Bit and Pipelines basically describe how wide the motorway is - it's no good having something fast if it's only going down a narrow pipe, and likewise if you've got a wide pipe then a lower speed can still produce a good result.

Memory and GPU speeds are equally important.

Memory type isn't important, it's only that you can only reach certain speeds with certain types of memory - so it's superceeded by the speed.

Neither SLI or Crossfire are at all value for money, however if you must have them, SLI is a more mature and established technology. The game is always changing however.

VIVO doesn't make your TV card redundant, it just helps with video processing, it doesn't act as a TV tuner.

The 7900GS would be fine at 1440x900 resolution I think

I have an EVGA 7900GT (with a Core2Duo system) and it plays BF2 and CS:S (and HL2:E1) on full detail with 4xAA & 4xAF just fine.

Go with the 7900gt for the money. There is also this thing called dying technology wich is about to happen in a year or two with all these existing cards. Do you plan on buying any new pc games in the future are just in love with the games you have now? If you plan on buying new games in the future in DirectX10 format then save your money and buy the cheaper of the group and upgrade it in the near future to the new technology. If your not worried about that and you only care about the here-and-now, then by all means get X1900XTX and play all the games out now at high resolutions and be forced to upgrade that $500 which at that time will be worth half that for another $500 to $600 card to able to play the most up-to-date games of that time. But you may be one of those who buy and update there graphics every 2 to 3 years and this is a moot point anyway.

X1800XT 256 or 512 versions, 256 can be had for £140 from Ocuk, found that it's (256 or 512) a better overall card than 7900gt