Ben's Bargains Serving Fresh Deals 24/7

Save $10, get the same thing: http://bensbargains.net

Or, save $8, get a card that's double the speed, which also has passive cooling and an HDMI output: http://bensbargains.net

it seems Ben is slipping.

Um both those are 256mb cards and don't have free shipping.

then add Shipping: $5.99 so you save $4 on a rebate 2 months later. but in the meantime you paymore.....

the second one adds Shipping: $5.99. so you save $2 but only after a rebate, until then your out more money.

So who is slipping here?

Until the parrot chimes in nothing is decided!

Not much here except no Rebate/Free Shipping... at $30 still pricey. Supports HDMI output with integrated HD audio, DirectX 11 UVD, DisplayPort and more. But would have been nice to include the half height bracket.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/652/1/
http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/diamond3450/

This is on par with 8400GS and talk the other day was an 8400GS does not support PureVideo which I find surprising.
http://bensbargains.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=106709&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127367

What I don't understand is why these cards are built on a 64bit memory bus. Would it cost too much (more) to put a 128bit bus, and would it not boost performance? I'm at a loss here guys, so if someone can explain this, it would help. Thanks.

#8: sure.

The size of the memory bus is one of the easiest ways manufacturers can lower the cost. Making cards with larger memory buses(like the 512bit bus on the Radeon 2900 or the GeForce GTX 28x) causes the card manufacturing costs to be considerably higher.

Since low end cards like this are not meant to be gaming cards, manufacturers can cut the memory interface down to make the cards cheaper.

The real purpose of these cards are to run HTPC's, doing full acceleration of HD video, which they have no trouble with. There's no reason to use a bigger memory bus if all you're doing is accelerating video.

#7 just ignore that burp douchbag (#4). He is the sick burp that posted some horrific pictures on this site some time back.

How about this one?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131084R

Deactivated Item

In stock, not deactived.

The second card Cheezwiz linked is the best option, not because it's faster (which is silly, none are adequate for gaming so give up the nonsense as it's a bit like claiming a Toyota Corolla isn't as good as a Toyota Camry for moving a refrigerator), but because it comes with a low profile bracket that doesn't block a 2nd slot, meaning the core purpose for buying such a card, HTPC use, can be achieved in a low profile system case.

8400GS does support Purevideo, but it's up to you to trust the designers instead of web rumors.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_8400_Gs_faq.html

IIRC, support came out in 2007 or 8, it's always good to look at newer rather than older docs, or to put it another way when nVidia releases new docs they need to get rid of or edit the old ones.

CW17: So the idea that a width of 64bit is good enough to do video. I can accept that. What I would like to try to figure out is how much "really" is saved in cutting a cards performance in 1/2 by cheaping out on the bus speed. Is it the cost of the memory, the PCB design, or what? Does it have something to do with the GPU design? Any thoughts on anything above? Thanks

What's the best car for moving a refrigerator?

<table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>cablephil2001 wrote:</td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">CW17: So the idea that a width of 64bit is good enough to do video. I can accept that. What I would like to try to figure out is how much "really" is saved in cutting a cards performance in 1/2 by cheaping out on the bus speed. Is it the cost of the memory, the PCB design, or what? Does it have something to do with the GPU design? Any thoughts on anything above? Thanks</td> </tr></table><span class="postbody">

First, your GPU has to be reasonably high in performance for a halved memory bandwidth to actually half performance.

Second, they're not going to tell us exact manufacturer cost differences, but often an additional PCB layer or two won't be needed so the PCB costs less. You need a certain # of memory chips for any particular bus width too, so there's the chip costs and then there's needing a larger board to hold them, and more robust power supply for them making the board larger still.

It has to do with the GPU design to the extent of it having it's own inherent bottlenecks, and the max bus width it can support.

It's really an irrelevant issue, this GPU is not fast enough to be considered a gaming card, and if we cared about bus width we'd be talking about 256bit or higher, not whether it's 64 or 128. You can cut bus width by using faster GDDR5 memory, but these things aren't going to happen on a $20 video card. Be happy it's so cheap, if you are willing to pay more for more performance there are more expensive cards too!

Look at it another way, if they made country roads 4 lanes wide instead of 2, you might be able to drive a little faster as you have less chance of swerving off the road, but it's not going to make as much difference as a better car and either way if your goal is getting ... [Truncated]

Thanks Guys: for all the info and "schoolin'".

Thanks CompWiz, you rock!