GeForce 8800GTS 320MB vs. 640MB

[gran turismo]

I can't make my mind up as to which video card to get. I am contemplating the eVGA Geforce 8800 GTS Superclocked 320 MB and the 640 MB version. The 640 MB is about $100 more, but from what I've seen in benchmarks, the cards perform at almost the same level.

Why isn't the 640 MB performing at a higher level versus the 320 MB?

By buying the 640 MB card, am I "future proofing" at all or am I better off getting the 320 MB and buying a completely new card (upgrading) in a year or two?

[Cowtown_Raider]

VGA Charts (http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html)

Seen this comparison? The overclocked 320MB version does as well or better than the 640 MB version. From what I understand the bigger memory onboard helps handle larger textures, but most games don't take advantage of that yet. I'd say go for the 320 version and upgrade in a year or two. Definitely one of the best bang for your buck cards available right now.

[gran turismo]

Originally posted by Cowtown_Raider
VGA Charts (http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html)

Seen this comparison? The overclocked 320MB version does as well or better than the 640 MB version. From what I understand the bigger memory onboard helps handle larger textures, but most games don't take advantage of that yet. I'd say go for the 320 version and upgrade in a year or two. Definitely one of the best bang for your buck cards available right now.

That's exactly the chart I've been looking at. I should note too, that I won't be playing games at really high resolutions. Probably at resolutions of 1024x768 or 1280x768. These are compatible with my lcd TV.

My understanding is that the 640 MB version begins to pull away from the 320 MB at higher resolutions.

[Cowtown_Raider]

Seems to depend on the game. Looks like most games, even at 1920x1200 resolution, the 320MB version is right there with the 640, with the exception of Dark Messiah. The 320 takes a beating with that one for some reason and comes in way below a lot of slower cards.

I was going to grab this card myself, then decided against getting a new gaming system. Just not a responsible use of funds right now. Got my 360/Wii to keep my occupied for some time...at least until Crysis comes out :)

[npham]

Currently, the 640MB versions out there do not justifty the extra increase in price. Current game just dont utilize memory that well right now. Once more DX10 games start to appear and take advantage of 500+MB of Video Memory(single card solution) you will not see that big of a performance increase. But to each their own. I guess you might be future-proofing slightly better if you went with the 640MB version

[Zero102]

I have the overclocked 320MB version. Even though it is already overclocked out of the box, there is still lots of room to improve. +150MHz on core, +350MHz on memory

That said, I take my system to lan parties, and a friend of mine takes his along too..
Both E6300 core 2 duo's, 2 gigs of ram, except I have the 8800GTS 320MB OC, and he has the 8800GTS 640MB non-OC

Every game we play I manage 3-5fps higher than him, both playing at 1680x1050

Save your cash, get the 320mb. The 640mb only matters when you need more than 320mb of texture memory, and the PCI-E bus is not able to serve the textures fast enough, a.k.a. very rarely. the 640mb always suffers due to the extra memory address space, always.

Not to mention I snagged mine for $270 at future scam a little while ago :D