"Greg Copeland" wrote in message
news
[...]
If you have a system that is a year or two old and currently have a
commodity video card in it (e.g. old MX card), then a newer card can make
a night and day difference.

In other words, if your video card isn't already at par with the rest of
your computer. And that, I can agree with.

However, that doesn't mean that you can always get a performance boost with
a faster video card. While the video cards are doing more and more work
that the CPU used to have to do, you still need to be able to get all that
data over to the new card. There also is still a fair amount of work left
for the CPU, even after the stuff the video card is taking care of.

If your CPU and memory bandwidth is your bottleneck, a faster video card
will produce NO increase in speed whatsoever.

It is important to make sure your video card and processing power are
relatively balanced, and it is true that not doing so results in a big waste
of money.

Pete