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    Dell Studio 15: Question: 256mb vs 512mb ati 4570

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by FiFe, Aug 11, 2009.

  1. FiFe

    FiFe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hi, I'm planning on purchasing a Dell Studio 15 and I want it to play games like Grand Theft Auto 4 smoothly.

    Now my question is, I have $1120 to spend, and can either afford to upgrade the video card to 512mb, OR keep it at 256mb and upgrade my HD to 500gb from 250gb. So will my fps and quality increases be significant enough to justify upgrading the video card to 512mb or would the 256mb suffice.

    A fast and informative reply would be most appreciated, Thank you.


    current build specs:
    Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 2.1ghz
    vista home premium x64
    4gb ram
    5400rpm HD
     
    FiFe, Aug 11, 2009
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  2. Streetmagus

    Streetmagus Notebook Consultant

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    You would notice no performance difference between the 512mb and 256mb cards.
     
    Streetmagus, Aug 11, 2009
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  3. FiFe

    FiFe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ok, thanks for the quick response.

    Would you care to elaborate why I would not notice any difference between the 256mb and 512mb card in gaming?

    And if not for gaming what advantages would there be to the 512mb card? Or is Dell just trying to suck an extra $100 out of me for nothing?
     
    FiFe, Aug 12, 2009
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  4. karan1003

    karan1003 Notebook Evangelist

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    As far as my understanding goes, extra v-ram is only more useful for commercial applications, i.e. rendering, whereas gaming is more reliant on the actual chipset on the card. Your card has more v-ram, but the same chipset. Therefore, the situations where having a 512 would be of significant help over the 256 are few and far between, assuming you're not designing games or 3d scenes in Maya or 3dsMax.
     
    karan1003, Aug 12, 2009
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  5. Johnny T

    Johnny T Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    But is the Vram type any different between the two cards? (ie DDR2 or GDDR3?)
     
    Johnny T, Aug 12, 2009
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  6. FiFe

    FiFe Notebook Enthusiast

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    They do not specify, all that is posted is:

    256MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 [Included in Price]
    512MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 [add $100]
     
    FiFe, Aug 12, 2009
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  7. Streetmagus

    Streetmagus Notebook Consultant

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    They've both been confirmed to be GDDR3. Bus size 64 bit on both, hence why 512 is sort of pointless. karan1003 has the basic idea why.

    Honestly, the only reason why I chose the 512mb was to satisfy the 25% off coupon criteria.
     
    Streetmagus, Aug 12, 2009
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  8. Johnny T

    Johnny T Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Oh I know why it's pointless. I was just wondering whether they actually differ in any other way. :p Thanks for the info.
     
    Johnny T, Aug 12, 2009
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  9. FiFe

    FiFe Notebook Enthusiast

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    Thanks a lot everyone, you're all my heroes for saving me from wasting $100 on something that would be pointless to me. lol <3

    I'll be using this forum a lot more now. :)
     
    FiFe, Aug 12, 2009
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  10. Fragilexx

    Fragilexx Get'cha head in the game

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    It's a typical "I'm a big company preying on folks who do not know any better" issue. With a 64bit bus the GPU will run just as fine with 256MB as with 512MB of vram. As has been said before, both of them ship with GDDR3 so there is no advantage except you get to put "512MB" in your signature instead of "256MB". ;)
     
    Fragilexx, Aug 12, 2009
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  11. karan1003

    karan1003 Notebook Evangelist

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    Anything to deepen my understanding? I'm asking for purely academic reasons.
     
    karan1003, Aug 12, 2009
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  12. abaddon4180

    abaddon4180 Notebook Virtuoso

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    abaddon4180, Aug 12, 2009
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