# Video Card Question

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-card-question/434317>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 21, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-card-question/434317 "2008-01-21T00:32:04Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2008, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-card-question/434317/1 "2008-01-21T00:32:04Z")

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So, it’s time for the ol’ computer to get a video card upgrade. Problem is, I have very little idea as to what I’m doing.

I know that I have a PCI-e bus type, and that I’m currently using a Radeon x700 with an ATI chipset. I further know that I am not interested in another ATI card – I’d much prefer to go with a nVidia chipset.

[This](http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_family.html) page is what’s confusing me the most. The GeForce 7900 shows as having a 14x improvement over integrated graphics, as opposed to the 13x for the 8600. Does this mean that the 7900, even though it’s a series earlier, has superior performance to the later 8600?

When a card says it’s using DDR3, as with [this](http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814143116) card, does this mean I need to be using DDR3 RAM in my computer to realize its full potential? I currently have two channels of DDR2 RAM, would this negatively impact the performance of this card?

And finally, say I did purchase the last card there that I linked – what sort of difference in graphics performance could I expect to see in terms of picture quality, framerate, etc etc, over my current x700? For the record, my computer only truly gets put through its graphical paces when I play my various games – Civ IV, Medieval Total War 2, World of Warcraft, Oblivion, and the like.

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**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-card-question/434317/2 "2008-01-21T00:42:20Z")

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Hottest at the moment are the 8800GT cards.

This PC has a 8600GTS, which is a substantial improvement on the 7600 GS and 7800 GS I have in two of my other PCs. Sorry, I don’t have figures to hand, and you’d need to adjust for processor speed and XP vs Vista, but [this](http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/GeForce-8800-GT-256,review-29841-15.html) should help: the 8800 is double the performance of the 8600.