graphics card question

oki doki, gots a question for the graphics card techies...

i just purchased a Nvidia (EVGA) 7900 GS KO 256 mb card that was recommended because it was cheap and supposedly powerful. so far, so good, even though my fps *seems* lower than with the 6800 256 mb card I had, in other ways it seems a lot better... seems like panning the cam around is a lot faster..

so anyway, i initially bought an 8500 GT 512 mb, but then i read a bad review and exchanged it today for the above, at same price. i went back to the store intending to get an 8600 GT (which i thought they had in 512 but apparently nvidia doesn't make one? shrug), but got talked into this 7900 GS KO.

anyway, now to the actual question...

do you think it's better to get a lesser card with more memory (like an 8500 GT), or a nicer card (like the one i now have is supposed to be) with less memory? any hints would be greatly appreciated, i have a 2.99 ghz processor and 2 gig of ram so i think i'm ok there...

thanks for any insight!

That is a personal choice rather than a technical question. Here is a link to Ivan Linden's blog where he discusses frame rate performance and includes a comparison chart:
http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/11/15/typical-frame-rate-performance-by-graphics-cardgpu/

thank you!! i missed that blog post amongst the seemingly dozens of "network issues" posts lately. that helps a lot. Although... it seems odd they wouldn't list the MB of the cards in that chart, since many of those are avail in 256 or 512... unless i'm missing something.