Importance of Shader Operations

[WCB]

Hello,
I was interested in getting some expert opinions on how important shader ops are, because in looking at the radeon x1650 xt AGP vs. the GeForce 7600 GT AGP, though the latter has a wider memory bandwidth, the former has over 2x the number of shader operations. It's the only real area where the two show a huge disparity, as they're really close on most other measures, so I was wondering how big an impact that would have, performance-wise. Thanks.

[Mike]

Shader operations are important, but only to a point. The architecture of a video card is a delicate balance, too much of one thing won't help you, you have to have a good proportion of everything.

That being said, the X1650XT has far more shader performance than it can really use right now. In the end it is nearly identical to the 7600 GT in performance.

I personally like the X1650XT a little better, it has some nice image quality features that the 7600GT does not. But it's also a little more expensive, and most people would never notice the difference in image quality.

My recommendation: buy whichever you can find the cheapest, they'll both perform almost identically.

[WCB]

Thanks, Mike. Yes, I lean toward the 1650 mainly because I've got all the latest Radeon drivers and my system is rock steady, so I'm hesitant to tinker with drivers if I don't have to. By the way, thanks for a great site, I'm enjoying reading comparisons and people's opinions.