which is more important for a video card?

[Roberthree]

I'm deciding between these two:

 

 

 

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... sisid=8245

 

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/prod ... sisid=8245

 

 

 

Basically one has more clock speed, the other has more memory.

 

 

 

Recently I've been having a graphics glitch in WoW where all my spell icons and such dissapear. You still see the keybinding numbers and text, but the rest is gone.

[OldJoe]

Shaders, generally speaking. (but ATI and Nvidia uses different manufacturing techniques)

 

512mb version is the one you should pick.

 

If you play on 1920x1080 you should pick a faster card (then 1gb comes into place, but 9400 is too slow at that res anyways to the memory size still doesn't matter).

 

But why are you buying from dell? Picking up a new piece for (presumably) Dell computer you already got? Or getting a Dell and choosing a card?

 

You might want to uninstall the current drivers to your current card and install the latest before you buy anything new.

 

I know WoW isn't the most demanding game, but pick a 9500gt if you can.

[Roberthree]

I'm using dell because I have a dell account and they make a nice little list of compatible stuff. I know nothing about this kind of stuff so thats really useful. Also, i plan on using the dual monitor function when i install the new card, if that matters.

[eggzs]

For that card, I would say the 512MB version as it is much cheaper. More graphics memory is good but only really usefull at high resolutions or a large amount of textures need to be stored and the 9400GT does not have enough processing power to push along pixels at high res.

[Roberthree]

I plan on using this at the maximum resolution.

[eggzs]

What's the "maximum resolution".

[JoeDaStudd]

Get one of these cheaper then the more expensive one and will perform a lot better.

[Laura]

I hate to seem like I'm hijacking this thread, but will my ATI Radeon 3450 256MB not work well with a 1080p resolution monitor? I recently bought one, scheduled for delivery soon. But I know that the card at least supports 1080p with the HDMI port, so what will I be missing out on with a "sub-par" card?

[JoeDaStudd]

I hate to seem like I'm hijacking this thread, but will my ATI Radeon 3450 256MB not work well with a 1080p resolution monitor? I recently bought one, scheduled for delivery soon. But I know that the card at least supports 1080p with the HDMI port, so what will I be missing out on with a "sub-par" card?

 

It will play 99.9% of HD movies fine (depending on the rest of your system) and play RS HD fine.

 

The issue will be with PC gaming (I'm talking recent graphic intensive games, not WoW). Where you'll have issues getting a playable FPS (Frames Per Second). Its fine for lower resolutions 720p, but at 1080p (twice the number of pixels) you'll have some big issues.