CUDA vs Clock Speed vs VRAM?

[Spirrwell]

Well the information I present here will likely yield to a simpler question, as in which one of my graphics cards are better, but I'm not sure what I should be looking at in comparison.

(When I say clock speed I'm referring to the graphics clock speed)

Basically I still haven't been able to upgrade to a new GTX card which I was asking about in another thread some time ago, but I have multiple cards laying around and I'm just not sure if I should pay more attention to the amount of CUDA cores, the clock speed, or the VRAM more or less.

As you can see in my signature I'm currently running a 9600 GT. Although it's a special one, it has 1 GB of VRAM, and it's factory overclocked to 700 MHz.

Here are some of the other cards I have lying around somewhere:

Two NVIDIA 9800 GT cards. (can run in SLI) Although I believe they need new fans or something as they had some problems.
One NVIDIA 8800 GTX
Another NVIDIA 9600 GT that has less VRAM and a normal clock speed (not optimal to run in SLI with my current card)

The 8800 GTX has double the CUDA cores (128) of my current card but has a slower clock speed of 575 MHz as well as only 768 MB of VRAM. Although I've been led to believe the 512 MB of VRAM is all that any modern game may ever use depending on resolution, which I currently use one DVI monitor at 1680x1050.

The 9800 GT has almost double the CUDA cores (112) yet has only a clock speed of 600 MHz

Both the 9800 and 8800 have a higher texture fill rate than my current. The 8800 has a greater memory bandwidth as well.

Basically I need to know which one would be best overall to go with without buying a new card?

------------------------------------

(Side hardware question, would I benefit from Dolphin by pushing my i7 2600k up to 4.0 GHz from 3.7 GHz?)

[admin89]

In Dolphin
GT 9600 / GT 9800 -> GTX 650 / AMD 7750 (100$) is a small upgrade (3x Internal Resolution[IR] -> 4xIR most games, you have to lower IR to 3x with GPU intensive game like Mario Galaxy though)
Same as above -> GTX 650Ti Boost / AMD 7850 is a huge upgrade (can handle 4xIR in GPU intensive games)

Quote:Side hardware question, would I benefit from Dolphin by pushing my i7 2600k up to 4.0 GHz from 3.7 GHz ?

If you have aftermarket cooler , please push it to 4.5GHz or higher for most CPU intensive games (Recommend : 4.8GHz)

[garrlker]

For dolphin the best card would be the 8800 GTX. But for pc games I would buy 2 fans for the 9800 GT's and SLI them. Dolphin doesn't benefit from SLI setups but pc games do. Although either way you can get 3x internal resolution with a 9800 GT. It's a toss up. Your best bet would probably be the SLI setup unless all you do is play games on dolphin. And yes, taking your i7 to 4.0 would help.
Edit:
@ Admin89
He wants to know which card is best without buying a new one. Don't get me wrong though, I agree with what you said. He definitely needs a 650 Ti boost.

[Spirrwell]

My apologies, I screwed up, I actually found the cards and the 9800s are really 9800 GTX+ BFG cards I think I found my answer. I feel dumb now...

[admin89]

Quote:without buying a new card

Oops , i didn't see this line

9800GT and 9600GT almost have the same performance in Dolphin
9800GTX+ can handle 4x IR in most games

[garrlker]

Oh, well then yeah. SLI the 9800 GTXs and that will give you good performance in games and in dolphin. Don't feel dumb, happens to all of us.

[MayImilae]

Quote:SLI the 9800 GTXs and that will give you good performance in games and in dolphin.

Dolphin can't use SLI so... doesn't really help there.

[admin89]

He mean PC games ( though there are many PC games don't benifit from SLI/Crossfire/Dual GPU) and Dolphin

[NaturalViolence]

@Spirrwell

The clock rate you're referring to is the core clock rate. The shader clock rate is far more important.

[RachelB]

Quote:Although I've been led to believe the 512 MB of VRAM is all that any modern game may ever use depending on resolution

Not true at all. Plenty of recent games can use 1-2 gb, even at that resolution.