Video Card RAM

[Neemund]

I'm looking for a new budget video card to replace my X1300. At the moment I have an idea of what I’m looking for but haven’t decided on the RAM. I would like to know your opinion on the advantages/disadvantages of 512MB of GDDR2 vs. 256MB of GDDR3. (At the moment all 512MB GDDR3 cards I’ve found are out of my price range) My thoughts are that having twice as much slower RAM would be beneficial as it would not have to communicate across the PCIe bus as often for new data. But then again, the faster RAM would be able to transfer its data faster, negating the disadvantages of having to communicate more often.
All things being equal (GPU, GPU speed, # of shaders, price, etc.) which would be a better choice?

[Dan0512]

Your're usually always better of with less faster RAM, but in some extreme cases (huge resolutions/textures) more slower RAM can actually be faster.

Which card are you looking at, which games and at which resolution do you plan to play?

dan

[Neemund]

I do a lot of 3D modeling in Maya, but I doubt the video card is doing much of the processing work there. I generally run 1600x1200x32 when working with Maya or Photoshop. The only two games that I play regularly are Warcraft 3 and Oblivion. I generally play both at 1360x1024 resolutions with 4x anti-aliasing, unless the FPS get really low then I’ll turn it down to 2x AA. Either way, I know I’m bringing my poor X1300 (450mhz GPU, 500mhz GDDR2) to its knees.
I’m currently looking at the X1650 series, the Gforce 8600GT, and waiting for benchmarks and prices on the Radeon HD 2400/2600 before I make a final decision. If I do upgrade in the near future I’m looking in the sub-$100 range. And I’m always looking for any advice anyone is offering.

[Dan0512]

Then I think the faster memory is your best option. When games use more than 256, the cards you've listed will probably be too slow and you'd have to turn down the resolution or the textures to keep the fps up anyway.

dan