Video Card Core & Mem Speeds?

[blewandowski_69]

I am looking for a video card and everytime i think i have found a good one i see another card that has a higher Core Clock and Memory Clock speed, For example take these two cards and compare and explain them to me in which is better and why i dont no which is better and why.

#1 eVGA 256-P2-N386-AX Geforce 6800GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Core clock: 425MHz
D-SUB: 1
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 1
Memory Clock: 1000MHz

#2 eVGA 256-P2-N391-AX Geforce 6800GS 256MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card - Retail

Core clock: 490MHz
D-SUB: 1
DirectX: DirectX 9
DVI: 1
Memory Clock: 1100MHz

I take it the 2nd one is better? Please explain to me whats better.

 

[Ð88]

well yeah i guess the second one is technically better but in true retrospect you'd be better off going with the first one because the mere difference in clocks speeds can easily be corrected after you buy just by overclocking yourself. Now the second would be better if it had more pixel pipelines or something but since they are both 6800GS cards I wouldnt say they do. And also just to ask where did you find these two cards?

 

[mammikoura]

Yes the second one is better.
They are identical, exept for the core & memory speed so the one with the faster core speed is better. It's not always just about the clock speeds, there is more to it, like pixel pipelines etc. But since those are basicly the same card there should be the same amount of pixel pipelines, same core etc.

 

[blewandowski_69]

www.newegg.com
ya explain what pipelines do exactly and how they relate to the clock speeds

 

[Gamingfreak]

im not sure how it all works but to put it simply more=better, so more pipelines the better, higher clocks is better, more pixel shaders is better and so on

 

[Half Evil]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161165

HIS Hightech Radeon X800XL

ChipsetGPURadeon X800XL
Core clock400MHz
PixelPipelines16
MemoryMemory Clock980MHz
Memory Size256MB
Memory Interface256-bit
Memory TypeGDDR3
3D APIDirectXDirectX 9
OpenGLOpenGL 2.0
InterfaceInterfacePCI Express x16

Thats a nice one! Good core, nice memory, and 16 pixple pipelines! Now all pixle pipelines do.. Well screw that its like this..

You have a bunch of cars (the data). Its faster for them to go through the 16 high way lanes (pixple pipe lines) rathr then having the same amount of cars (data) going through 8 or 12 high way lanes (pixple pipe lines)

Get it? all pixle pipeline do is move the data around. and the more you have, the faster they get their.

 

[Gamingfreak]

ya i already understand that but where do pixel shaders and all that come in?

 

[Half Evil]

Uh.. Well the pixle shading proccesses (to my knowledge) are how many actual pixle shaders are shading each pixle at the same time. So.. On the x1800, or the x1900 (one of those) They have 16pixle pipelines (forget which one) but with that, it has 48 pixle shading processes. So there are 48 different little ''things'' shading the pixles..

I understand if you dont understand that. Because I can barely understand it