So explain this to an idiot....

[NateMac]

Ok. The reason I'm even asking this question is because I stepped out of the "know" on video cards like five years ago, so now I need a little help.

I've got:

Dell XPS 400
Pentium D 3.2
4 Gig DDR2 on 64-bit Win7

Right now I'm running an ASUS Radeon x800 256 Mb on that platform. Just so happens I randomly was given a Radeon HD 3650 512MB.

Is it worth changing out the cards? I've got respect for the x800 b/c it was actually a respectable upper-mid card when it was sold. Its not DX10 though. The HD 3650 is like a cheap ******* kid by comparison, but if it gets me appreciably more fps, then hey, why not? DX10 would be nice for Aero, but does the card do anything to speed up PR running BF2's engine? Or would the x800 be better since all we need is DX9 anyway?

Thanks for your input.

[Soakerman]

Yes it is worth it the new card will run the game a lot better and it will be able to be played on higher graphics. Also you could use the new card for other games not just PR

[Solver]

Yes, the 3650 is definitely better. Aside from having double memory, it's simply a newer generation card with a newer GPU, using the RV635, if I recall correctly. Two generation newer in fact. So swap the video cards because it will be more powerful by any reasonable metric. As a side-note, I expect your performance to be bottlenecked by your CPU in fact, which is among the first and therefore weakest dual-core CPUs, from before Intel's various Core series.

[motherdear]

moved to tech