I've been shopping for a new GFX recently and want to clarify something up. I heard that you need more memory from your GFX for more texture usage, which means higher-res screens, right? Well, I run a 20in. widescreen LCD at 1680x1050 and would like to know if a 256MB card or 512 would be better. Both cards will be a X1950XT and the games I plan on playing will be LFS and TDU on hi-res.

Also, the 512 card I'm looking at seems to have a X1950 Pro PCB, it has 628 Core clock but a 1400 mem. clock. That isn't a full spec XT as one should have a 1800 mem. clock, but my question is that would the 400mHz make performance noticably slower?

I'd go for the 512 MB one, purely because while the res you've got the 256 will "do", but games are pushing the limits up and up.

FTR i run a 7950GT 256 on that res, and it plays LFS and TDU fine, but i REALLY wished i'd coughed up the extra £10 to get the 512 MB version.

Ok, but as you have read, thee memory clock of the 512 card is on a Pro PCB so it is 400mHz slower, would that be a noticeable difference?

200 MHz is a fair bit, tbh, but i'd still go for the 512 MB card. Are you sure there isnt a card a little more expensive with higher clocks? If it were me i'd get the cheapest XT (or Pro if it were too expensive) 512 MB i could find and an after market heatsink, vMod it and overclock to high heaven.

(Well, actually i'd get the cheapest 7900GTO i could find, but i just prefer nVidia)

Well, the 512 one is the cheapest XT on Newegg for under $200, any others are over $300.

BTW, whats vMod?

^Volt moding the PCB to allow higher overclocks, same deal as overclocking a CPU, more voltage = more overclocking room. Most stock GPU heatsinks can't handle heavy volt moding.
~Bryan~

Soldering? With a few (and i mean a few!) cards you can up it in the BIOS of the card (ie mine is stock at 1.25v, and i can up it to 1.35v or 1.45v) and with most cards you can use a conductive ink pen to link a few pins together with traces - to vmod the memory (a vmem mod) you can often do it just by shading in a resistor using a pencil!

Higher vCore can be done in the BIOS, but often for 1337z0r overclockz0rz the BIOS value isn't enough and they resort to the conductive ink pen on the motherboard trick.

I wouldn't class vmodding as extreme, tbh, not if you have decent cooling and an understanding of what your doing.

Ok, well, thanks for the help I just ordered a X1950XT 512MB and it should come this week. I don't think I'll vMod it, just maybe overclock the memory a little.

I've heard good things about OCing those cards. As for Volt modding, I don't consider it 'hardore' overclocking, as long as you know what your doing it's all good. But I don't think any newer ATi or Nvidia card has cooling able to handle any DECENT volt mods.
~Bryan~

A Vmod isnt that extreme if you ask me. It all depends on our own hardware skills off course. You can even do a Vmod with a pencil. By using the calc you can diverd the layout of the PCb and leave some resistors out. That way way you get a higher Vcore.

So what is extreme. I have to reminf you if you do this the wrong it will be extreme for a nanosecond

Extreme is co2 or nitrogen cooling, or perhaps making a CPU out of highly skilled uber efficient monkeys, overclocking is a problem as you must get into the case to feed more bananas to the monkeys
~Bryan~
On topic note, whats the performance gap between a x1950 Pro and a XT? (Asuming they are both 256 or 512)

CO2? WTF?!

LN2, Phase, Cascade, Air, Ion, Water, Chilled Water, TEC and Dry Ice i've all seen - but CO2?

Yeah I've done it...didn't really work too well LOL. it was XTREME HAXX....as a newb. Long story really, haha, lets just say once upon a time I was a dumbass with a Windows 95 office platform.
~Bryan~