I recently purchased a Dell XPS-8300 (i7-2600|16 GB DDR3 RAM|64-bit Windows7) which I intend to use primarily for GIS programs. I bought a refurbished model because it was much cheaper and because I am able to choose a graphics card of my own.
I am currently in the process of purchasing said card, but I haven't really seen much information about what kinds of cards are optimal for ArcMap or QGIS rendering as opposed to Battlefield 3 or Skyrim.
I am currently looking at an XFX AMD Radeon HD6870 PCIE 2GB Dual Mini or an XFX AMD Radeon HD 6870 900M 1 GB DDR5 DUAL MINIDP HDMI DUAL DVI PCI-E Video Card
The 2 GB model is about $40 more than the 1 GB.
I have a 460 watt power supply and do not know if the extra ram affects power consumption. The 1 GB model, from all reviews, should work fine with my system, so I am hoping the 2 GB would work fine as well.
However, since I already have 16 GB of onboard ram and have read that GPU RAM isn't really important unless you go under the amount needed for a given program and settings, I am wondering if this extra GB would be worth it for my purposes:
For example if I have a parcel dataset with hundreds of thousands of polygons, would that extra GB of GDDR5 RAM significantly improve the time it takes to render the polygons when I scroll/zoom in on ARCmap/QGIS; or does it mostly worthless due to the fact that I already have 16 GB that can be used?
Also are there any specific advantages/disadvantages to using a ATI vs NVIDIA card for GIS display programs in general?
Answer
Any old video card will work for the 2D display functions. The video card's 3D capabilities only come into play when using specific 3D GIS features such as ArcScene or ArcGlobe in ArcGIS Desktop. If you aren't planning on doing 3D visualization then it does not matter one bit.
I would spend the extra money on an SSD instead.
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