Some queries about Civilization V

[WilliamWatts]

starcraft said:

WilliamWatts said:

starcraft said:

Any 5*** series in particular?  I know NOTHING about Video Cards at all anymore.  IT used to be simple when it was NVIDIA Geforce this and that.  Now I am lost at sea.

HD 54xx = light weight 80 stream processors. 12GB/s Bandwidth

HD 56xx-5730 = medium weight 400 Stream processors. 25GB/s Bandwidth

HD 5750/70 = light heavy weight 400 Stream processors 55GB/s Bandwidth

So either a medium weight or a light heavy weight depending on what kinds of games you want to play. If its just lighter strategy etc games pick the former but if you want first person shooters etc pick the latter.

Should I care much about the difference between 512MB and 1GB for the Graphics card?  Should I then be avoiding NVIDIA cards?

Also, is there any advantage in these new I-cores over a decent Dual Core?

Not really, you're talking about a laptop screen and you'll sooner be limited by bandwidth before memory size. However the higher end you go the more 1GB makes sense over 512, does that make sense? You could get away with a 54xx series for Civ but it wouldn't be much good for games

Nvidia aren't as power efficient, they don't support the latest Direct X version, their architectures are older. They are essentially cruder and they aren't nearly as good.

I over Core 2 is the a significant difference, especially the latest ix processors. They are much more power efficient, longer batter life moreso than the extra performance achieved.

http://www.dse.com.au/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/4b81bfcd02481aa62740c0a87e0106b5/Product/View/XC6468

Is an example of a good solid laptop. Its screen resolution which is 1366/768 is matched to the bandwidth of the graphics card and it comes with a 2 core 4 thread processor on the efficient 32nm process. If you wait a little bit you'll see these prices come down. Intel always reprices their parts in April so May can be a good time to buy.