Geforce 9800 GT

[lassie]

Hi
I have a Geforce 9800 GT in my PC and it has 512 MB RAM, and i have seen that some have 1024 RAM. So i want to ask if i can upgrade it to 1024 MB RAM?

[som99]

Nope sorry, some old cards use same PCB for 512MB and 1GB versions and you could solder new vram chips on there but that requires you to reflash the rom also.

But in your case and the 9800GT it is not possible sorry

[lassie]

Many thanks It is a PC i just got.
It has

3.2 GHZ Dual core
4 GB RAM
Geforce 9800 GT 512 MB RAM
Windows 7

Can it play some of the new games for PC?

[zipper]

Yes, with medium (- low) settings and reduced resolution.

[lassie]

Yes, with medium (- low) settings and reduced resolution.

Okay do you think it will help if i buy a bigger Graphic Card with 1 or 2 GB RAM?
What do you think it will take to play with high settings

[som99]

Don't be fooled by vRAM amount, it's common for the OEM manufacturers to use slow crap cards with loads of vRAM to trick te consumer that it's a fast card, most low end cards with a lot of vRam today is not even fast enough to use 512MB vRAM.

For example, you can buy a GeForce GT 610 with 2GB vRAM but the card is slow as heck and can't use near that amount of memory for big texures in high resolutions, so it's just marketing and you wont get more speed per auto because you get more vRAM.

On the other hand if you got a fast card then more vRAM can be used but in the low/mid segment loads of vRAM is pointless.

So give me a price range you would like to spend on a new GFX card and I can show the best for the buck.

Going to high end won't do you no good because the CPU will be the bottleneck anyways.

[lassie]

Don't be fooled by vRAM amount, it's common for the OEM manufacturers to use slow crap cards with loads of vRAM to trick te consumer that it's a fast card, most low end cards with a lot of vRam today is not even fast enough to use 512MB vRAM.

For example, you can buy a GeForce GT 610 with 2GB vRAM but the card is slow as heck and can't use near that amount of memory for big texures in high resolutions, so it's just marketing and you wont get more speed per auto because you get more vRAM.

On the other hand if you got a fast card then more vRAM can be used but in the low/mid segment loads of vRAM is pointless.

So give me a price range you would like to spend on a new GFX card and I can show the best for the buck.

Going to high end won't do you no good because the CPU will be the bottleneck anyways.

Is it a small CPU in it or is it a good enough CPU
I was thinking around 100 Euro maybe a little more

[lassie]

Are there much different between DDR 2 RAM and DDR 3 RAM

[commodorejohn]

Yes, DDR3 is quite a bit faster.

[lassie]

Yes, DDR3 is quite a bit faster.

Is it something i will notice when surfing the net? or is it more for bigger games /programs etc?

[commodorejohn]

Anything that's memory-intensive will benefit the most from faster memory (usually media applications like video players; I don't know where typical web browsing lies, but since I can browse fairly well on even a PC133 SDRAM system, I'm guessing it's more CPU-bound.) It's never going to hurt to have it, but depending on what you need to do it may be more cost-effective to stick with DDR2, especially if you already have a DDR2 motherboard (they're not interchangeable - I have seen some motherboards with two different kinds of memory slot, but I dunno if yours is such a thing.)

[carvedeye]

What sort of games are you planning on playing? if it is high end then your gonna need a high end card to go with it, then theres the cpu which will more than likely bottle neck the the card and you will also need to look at the PSU and check wether or not it has enough amps on the +12v rail(s)? Can you give a full detailed lisst of the system ie what cpu, memory, psu etc...

[lassie]

What sort of games are you planning on playing? if it is high end then your gonna need a high end card to go with it, then theres the cpu which will more than likely bottle neck the the card and you will also need to look at the PSU and check wether or not it has enough amps on the +12v rail(s)? Can you give a full detailed lisst of the system ie what cpu, memory, psu etc...

Hi the system is

AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core 6400+ 3.20 GHZ CPU
64 Bit System
and 4 GB RAM think it is DDR2 RAM
Nvadia Geforce 9800 GT 512 MB RAM
I was thinking about playing Far Cry 2, Borderlands 1 and 2 and Mass Effect 3 and some Shooters etc

[lassie]

I have read that i can put one more Geforce 9800 in my PC, so i have 2 graphic cards. Do you know if that is right

[Duce]

If it is a SLI capable motherboard, you can put another card in it.

Bear in mind said card needs to be identical, right down to firmware, manufacturer/brand, die size, etc.  Your PSU would need to be up to snuff as well.

For a 9800, SLI would be a waste IMHO.  Could go out and buy a cheap 600 series card and have 10x the performance of 2 9800's.  Even 2 9800's would not do well at higher resolutions and settings with those games you mentioned, they are 4+ year old graphics cards.