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128mb or 256mb memory in graphics card upgrade?

I plan on upgrading my graphics card to an ATI Radeon 9550 128 bit AGPx8 card. My computer is OLD - Pentium 4, 1.8 Ghz, 512 mb ram, AGPx4 m-board. I don't game but I do CAD. What's best for me, considering my current hardware bottleneck position? I understand 256 mb may, under certain circumstances, keep the burden on the newer card and prevent crossover via my slow AGPx4 bus on the way to taxing the slow main processor, but is this overkill for my system and will it run much hotter than 128 mb?

Public Comments

  1. Go for the 128mb but I would try to double the system memory as well for the video card supports. If the video card requires it, then you should have the computer system ready to support it.
  2. My recommendation: since you're doing CAD double your memory first then upgrade your graphics to 256 as the cost difference between the 128 and 256 already minimal. The key to any PC is the memory as softwares now use a lot of them. To me the choice of a graphics card depend on the pixel resolution my monitor or the one that I plan to buy is capable of supporting. Both should be a match. We're infront of our monitors for long periods of time and setting it on a resolution that I am comfortable working with is a very important consideration. BTW, I also do CAD and a lot of graphics work.
  3. Upgrading your video card isn't going to help you much, since the rest of your system is so slow. If your RAM isn't PC3200 (200 Mhz), then I'd recommend you buy two 1GB sticks of PC3200, and a good cpu heatsink. Why a good heatsink? Well, because the average 1.8A P4 would run at between 2.6 & 2.8 Ghz. Learn how to overclock. Your other choice is going to be the Asrock VSTA motherboard, and an Intel E6300 cpu. This particular motherboard can use both DDR and DDR2 RAM. Even with a $59 PCI-E GeForce 6600 vanilla video card, plus the motherboard and processor, the total isn't much over $300. And then your system would be about 10 times as fast as it is today. Seriously.
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