I'm planning a new rig for when I recieve my tax returns and I'm at a toss-up between two GeForce 8600GT cards, both manufactured by XFX. I know my fellow lads and lassies at tbcs have the knowledge to help me make a decision so I need your input!
card A - XFX PVT84JUSD4 GeForce 8600GT link
Core clock: 680MHz
Memory: 256MB 1600MHz GDDR3
Price: $109.99 (-$30 MIR)
card B - XFX PVT84JYAJG GeForce 8600GT link
Core clock: 540MHz
Memory: 512MB 1180MHz GDDR2
Price: $99.99 (-$10 MIR)
My guess is that the extra 256MB of memory on card B is negligible if it runs more than 400MHz slower than card A. On top of that, the GPU is clocked at 140MHz higher on card A than card B. However, as much as I'd like to say that my "tech level" is "high" like most Newegg reviewers seem to, I honestly lack the experience to tell these cards apart in regard to real life application. What do you all think?
-Zac
P.S. This scenario reminds me of a ti4200 64MB vs. fx5200 128MB debate I encountered a few years ago, where the amount of memory was irrelevant as the titanium easily blew the fx card out of the water.