What is the typical memory capacity of a high end video card?

and how does the memory effect the quality of the video?|||Two things. There's the memory, than the memory bus-width. For example, there's the 7600gt 256mb ram/128-bit. Than there's the 7800gt 256mb ram/256-bit. The latter destroys the former.



If you want to game at a resolution of 1600x1200 and lower than all you need is 512mb ram/256-bit, which most, mid-range/high end cards are.



The 8800gt was considered High-end 6 months ago, and was around $225. Today you can find it for $99-125, and it still kicks but.



http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=3…



http://ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=3…



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as…



Here is some information you can read on Video cards that will turn you into a Video card Expert.......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_…



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_…



after you skim those, it should make it more clear. When it shows the Memory MHZ/Speed in the charts, you have to multiply those by 2 to get their 'Effective' speeds. So a card that says 600mhz core/900mhz memory, is really 600mhz core/1800mhz 'effective' memory.



There are a few more factors you have to think about. It's called Shader Processors, those are just as important as memory. I don't know much about that topic, but I know the more the better. There is also the MHZ/Speed of the GPU and what DirectX number they are.



DirectX 10 is the newest program/version. Newer cards are capable of this. DirectX10 is the successor to DirectX9 and so on. It allows programmers to add better graphics that the cards can render.



I'm getting confused now after all of this so I'll just stop there.



But to answer your question....



512mb, 768mb, 896mb and 1024mb.

It doesn't 'effect' the video quality of movies, or a of video games. It allows you to crank the graphics up higher and play at higher resolutions, so the game looks 'crisper'. You can use a low end 8600gt to play video games and HD/Blu-ray movies. You can also play a game with medium settings, medium resolutions. If you used a high end card to play that same game with medium settings and medium resolution, both games would look exactly the same. However, your frames per second would be lower on the 8600gt. Your Eyes can't notice anything below 30frames per second, so if an 8600gt can't play assassins creed at 1280x1024 and high settings above 30fps, than you will get a terrible/choppy gaming experience, than you pick up a GTX 280 and your game is going to play at a much higher resolution and a much higher graphics settings with well over 30fps.



Here is a link to sort of figure out what Frames per Second is all about. Those charts are time frames and during intense battles and graphics situations it puts strain on the cards and lowers the FPS, so you will notice 'DROPS' in the FPS(frames per second). A low end card would register at the bottom of those charts, and if it dips below 30fps all the time, it won't be much fun to play.



TADA!



Just recently Nvidia released the GTX series. 260/280. They come with 1024/512-bit bus. and 896/444-bit bus. This is meant for higher resolutions such as 1920x1200 and 2500x1600(30" display).



You also have to consider the processor you have. If you only have a Pentium 4 3.0ghz with an 8800gt, your game might only be 50 frames per second, because the processor can't supply the video card with enough info. If you get a Core 2 Duo and overclock it to 4.0ghz, it will let the video card show it's true potential and you could get 150fps in the exact same game with the exact same settings.



On the flipside is ATI, the 'other' video card manufacturer. They just released the 4870 and 4850. They only have 512mb, and a 256-bit bus. However, the 4870 comes with GDDR5 memory, so it's clocked at 3600mhz (effective) so the smaller memory/bus-width is able to keep up with the Nvidia cards at higher resolution.



6 months ago, high end was the 8800gtx/8800gts g92 core, 9800gx2, and the 3870x2(basically two cards on one chip). These cards were $500 bucks. Now you can find them for $199.



The king of the hill now is the 4870x2, 2 GPU die's on one card(2-in-1) and the GTX 280. Both are the top cards for NVIDIA and ATI.



The video card market it so sweet right now, because with these two monsters being released, the old high end cards are dropping in prices like nobody's business.|||1 GB and it won't effect video quality|||512 - 1 GB is typical for performance video cards.



Higher amounts of video RAM are used for caching textures and graphical elements - this is mostly used by 3-D game programs. So more Video RAM helps the programs which are designed to use it, and will make little or no difference to most programs, which are not designed to exploit it.|||This type of hardware change rapidly. Today, people would typically get 512MB on their video cards. However, 1GB would be the typical in 6 months, so today it is 1GB I'd say for the highest performance.This memory is like RAM. The more memory you have the better your game will run. For example if a game uses a lot of Video RAM and you don't have enough the game will run real slow, or sometimes it won't even start. What would affect the quality of the video is more likely the chip of the video card, if it doesn't support the graphics it won't be able to show the rendering of the models, or objects. But, as talking of the memory size, I'd say that it would only affect speed. Although, you have to see that the card is compatible with the game or that it supports the game. Because although you have 1gb of memory in the video card, and the card doesn't support the game, the lots of memory will be useless.