Graphic Card Features?

what do things like a 128-bit or 256-bit buswidth mean as far as performance? will that make more of a difference than a certain few hundred MHz? and of the two speeds of the card, is the higher memory clock more affective or is the typically lower chipclock speed more affective? and will running either of those two speeds the same as the FSB speed improve performance as in the cpu/memory sync.? and pipelines? basically i've just figured that when some manufacturers would give you double the megabytes but with lower speeds and buswidth/piplines, they would think the consumer would assume the most important feature is the memory size (or hope they dont look at the other features/not even know what they do )? cuz i figured it's probably not the case most of the time, concerning the importance of the card's functions and abilities or features.

Theres way to many varribles that will depend on which card is best for your system. 256bit bus is better for most cards, though it will show little difference in most cards. As for speed, it depends on the card, i have a 9800 that runs at 430 and a 6800 that runs at 410, and the 6800 eats it for breakfast. You really want to watch for pipelines, they will give you the most gain. Unless you get a newer card like the 6800 or X800 256 MB ran isn't giong to show any improvments.

yea right now i'm running with a 9800 pro:

• 128MB DDR
• 256-bit buswidth
• Chipset/Core Speed: 380MHz
• Memory/Effective Speed: 680MHz

im hoping an o'c would do me good

yes, they also make a 128-bit 9800, which is worse, by far. i would recommend ATI Tool.

OC'ing always does good
When comparing between cards, its too difficult to point to a single number and say "there, that is the deciding factor that makes one card faster than the other" (though pipelines have big impact). On a given card though, increasing clock and/or memory speeds will definitely give you a boost. Just don't go too far or you'll get artifacts.