2nd GTX 680: Will VRAM be an issue?

[omeds]

I have 2GB at 1440p, does the job no problem in current games.

 

[rgallant]

I'd sell the 680 and get a single 7970ghz edition and OC the piss out of it. That will get you by, on medium to high settings until the new cards come out. The 7970 will be FREE after selling your 680. More Vram and more performance for the low, low price of FREE sounds like the best stop gap option, since thats all thats available right now, stop gaps. Titan is fast, but if you even have to mention cost in your OP at all, then Titan is probably a bad idea. You'll be sick to your stomach when the value drops by $350 or more as soon as new cards come out.

what he said
-nv has a long time marketing of the pro's of sli [buy 2]only to cripple it's card with single card vram so the next generation products will shine with more vram and more powerful sli of last generation will show badly in reviews vs new card generation.
-dgaf about after market double vram cards by partners as they are not really ref.nv cards.

 

[thestrangebrew1]

Just curious , knowing nothing about the physical development of a graphics card, but why can't manufacturers just slap say 8gb of ram or 16 even & call it a day? Why does it seem like such a monumental task to throw on more ram on a graphics card?

 

[3DVagabond]

I have 2GB at 1440p, does the job no problem in current games.

Do you run at max settings though? With 2x680 he's going to be able to run at higher settings than with a single card. That will use more RAM, and at that point, it could create a bottleneck.

 

[omeds]

Yes I do, I have 3-way 680's.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Do you run at max settings though? With 2x680 he's going to be able to run at higher settings than with a single card. That will use more RAM, and at that point, it could create a bottleneck.

I use max settings on mine with a U2713HM. Never an issue, not even close.

 

[omeds]

Well I cant run 8xMSAA in Crysis3 or a few other games for example, but all can handle at least 4xMSAA + transparency AA, and many with SGSSAA, AO etc. A lot of modern games will stream small amounts of data if needed so its rarely an issue. I mod the crap out of my games too so its not as if I play console ports that are lite on textures and such.

 

[3DVagabond]

I use max settings on mine with a U2713HM. Never an issue, not even close.

You've got 3gig. I wouldn't expect you to be vram limited.

 

[3DVagabond]

Yes I do, I have 3-way 680's.

Cool. I didn't realize you were running tri SLI.

 

[BrightCandle]

I don't know what these responders are on, you do not need more than 2GB . if you take a look at the reviews on gamegpu.RU you can see how much modern games take up and its not even close to 2GB most of the time.

If you heavily modify sky rim with extra textures you can get up to that but in 99% of games with SLI and surround resolutions you won't hit the vram limit' its just not that big of a deal. 2GB is perfectly fine and will work great in SLI. Just check out gamegpu.RU to prove it to yourself.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You've got 3gig. I wouldn't expect you to be vram limited.

I got 2GB. Pretty obvious from my signature as well.

 

[3DVagabond]

I got 2GB. Pretty obvious from my signature as well.

Sorry. Confused your specs with Balla's.

 

[Fx1]

BF3's max system requirements aren't very high...

Go check the 690 GTX and tell me where it struggles with 2GB of VRAM per GPU.

End of discussion.

 

[UaVaj]

Just curious , knowing nothing about the physical development of a graphics card, but why can't manufacturers just slap say 8gb of ram or 16 even & call it a day? Why does it seem like such a monumental task to throw on more ram on a graphics card?

GDDR5 is not exacly cheap like DDR3.

given the power of current GPU - titan included.
for playable and enjoyable experience - simply not enough GPU to warrant more than ~2.5GB of vram.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Okay,

So I have posted about this situation on more than one occasion. You are welcome to fact check me but I refuse to get into a flame war with anyone.

I have 670 SLI. I can play almost every game at 5760x1200 with full settings. There are some exceptions but they are so very few - for instance with all the skyrim mods on and edited draw distance I take a huge hit outside because I can cap the VRAM.

BF3 is NOT A GOOD EXAMPLE for your vram. BF3 is designed to maximize your vram. If you have a 1gb card you can play bf3 capped and it will use all of your vram - same if you have 2gb.

vram usage is not a linear progression based on resolution! Just because you use 1gb at 1080p does NOT MEAN you will use 2gb at double the resolution.

This is because the textures in the game are stored at the quality you choose in vram no matter what, and often that texture is reused multiple times however the driver simply redraws the texture from the same information it has. Going from 1920x1080 to 2560x1440p will be only a small increase in vram usage and not double like you would think (again keep in mind that some game engines will cache extra textures and effects if you have the resource available which is good but not necessarily indicative of the necessary vram at that resolution) If someone wants to dispute this it is simple enough to do. If you have 2560x1440 resolution measure your vram usage and reopen the game at 1920x1080 resolution, you will see that the vram usage will not be cut in half.

The only factor that you may be limited in is where you will run into GPU limitations anyways - for instance 8xAA at that resolution will not be doable in many games, however even with extra vram you would not see a difference anyways because you would choke the GPU even if you had extra RAM.

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4...rce_gtx_680_4gb_video_cards_in_sli/index.html
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/4...rce_gtx_680_2gb_video_cards_in_sli/index.html

Here is a comparison of 2gb sli and 4gb sli at 2560x1600. The faster cards? 2gb sli.

There will be some very few games where 4gb sli will be better - only when you are just on the edge of being able to run it with the gpu. So the question will be, is it worth the money to you to have one game run better (ie one extra level of AA) and every other game run the same or worse?

digitaldurandal out.

 

[digitaldurandal]

I don't know what these responders are on, you do not need more than 2GB . if you take a look at the reviews on gamegpu.RU you can see how much modern games take up and its not even close to 2GB most of the time.

If you heavily modify sky rim with extra textures you can get up to that but in 99% of games with SLI and surround resolutions you won't hit the vram limit' its just not that big of a deal. 2GB is perfectly fine and will work great in SLI. Just check out gamegpu.RU to prove it to yourself.

BrightCandle,

It is the problem with open forums, everyone gives bad advice. They have little to zero understanding of how the VRAM is actually used and use anecdotal and vicarious experience to push their incorrect views on people who do not know any better.

The mob has an opinion on everything and if you challenge that opinion the mob will turn on you. It doesn't matter if you are correct or not. Just look at Galileo.

 

[BrightCandle]

BrightCandle,

It is the problem with open forums, everyone gives bad advice. They have little to zero understanding of how the VRAM is actually used and use anecdotal and vicarious experience to push their incorrect views on people who do not know any better.

The mob has an opinion on everything and if you challenge that opinion the mob will turn on you. It doesn't matter if you are correct or not. Just look at Galileo.

I know what you mean. Anything that doesn't put AMD in a positive light is deeply attacked on these forums right now. But the amount of disinformation and dishonest bullshit is really getting me down. I would rather have a decent debate over the finer points but the broad strokes of truth are being warped beyond imagination.

I like to trade in well tested principles, understanding and science. I try not to stoop to the level of these idiots but its really really getting tiresome arguing on the one hand with reviews and data and on the other getting called this weeks insult and being called biased.

There is just this massive campaign to try and make AMD's cards out to be these super amazing 100% better cards by certain individuals, where in reality NVidia 680 and AMD's 7970 top cards trade places depending on the game. In dual card there is no contest, AMD's cards are just broken and have been since release and many months before on the previous generation. These are the fundamental facts, the reviews show this time and time again and the data keeps saying it. If VRAM was running out we would see a big impact on the games, but we don't at all. I have run 3 monitors for a long time and even 1GB of VRAM was rarely a problem on my 5970's, it just isn't the big deal people are making it out to be and its not supported by the reviews which show there to be no real problem with 680 SLI and surround resolutions.

These forums have this bubble of twisted reality you have to constantly struggle to cut through. Its insane, some of these guys are so far gone I think they should be in mental institutions. But hey what do I know, just another random dude on the internet just like every other chump in here. The only difference between me and them is I showed you my source on which my opinion is based.

 

[Grooveriding]

snip

digitaldurandal out.

I remember you making the same argument to me a while back about claiming your 570's 1.25GB was sufficient, now you are doing the same about your 670's 2GB.

There are situations where you can bottleneck 2GB of VRAM today, just like there were situations you could bottleneck 1.25GB of VRAM then. Both times you've felt the need to defend your current personal amount of VRAM and claim otherwise. Before it was 1.25GB, now it's 2GB. 🙄

 

[UaVaj]

BF3 is NOT A GOOD EXAMPLE for your vram. BF3 is designed to maximize your vram. If you have a 1gb card you can play bf3 capped and it will use all of your vram - same if you have 2gb.

small correction. at 5760x1080. with everything maxed out.
680sli is averaging 60fps and minium 45fps. vram usage is 2.6GB.

unless you have excess memory to test with. you do not know the max memory usage.

the key point is to have enough vram so that the gpu does not have to constantly go to the ssd to swap data. that most if not all the necessary data is already in vram.

 

[digitaldurandal]

small correction. at 5760x1080. with everything maxed out.
680sli is averaging 60fps and minium 45fps. vram usage is 2.6GB.

unless you have excess memory to test with. you do not know the max memory usage.

the key point is to have enough vram so that the gpu does not have to constantly go to the ssd to swap data. that most if not all the necessary data is already in vram.

It runs fine 5760x1200 on 2gb vram. I have it, I do it. If you run into vram issues it will be seen by extreme down spikes in fps for a moment. It has already been shown that the game will use more vram if you have it. I already discussed this detail about BF3 and some UE3 games.

It is not indicative of a vram wall without 2.6gb if you search around you can find this SAME discussion and some members tested and posted vram usage and fraps time lapses. There was negligible difference at all.

 

[digitaldurandal]

I remember you making the same argument to me a while back about claiming your 570's 1.25GB was sufficient, now you are doing the same about your 670's 2GB.

There are situations where you can bottleneck 2GB of VRAM today, just like there were situations you could bottleneck 1.25GB of VRAM then. Both times you've felt the need to defend your current personal amount of VRAM and claim otherwise. Before it was 1.25GB, now it's 2GB. 🙄

Yes, when the 570's were out they were fine for 2xAA and 5760x1200 on pretty much any game. The amount of VRAM used has increased over time.

I already posted showing benchmarks at 1600p comparing 4gb to 2gb.

How about YOU show me otherwise - instead just like last time you come in here and bash my statement with zero proof and just ad hominem. I have not had the 570s for quite some time.

Again can you bottleneck 2gb of vram - i already stated you could but you just wanted to bash someone because it is your personal enjoyment on the forums to do so.

Sure Skyrim + multiple mods and some games at 8xAA will cause vram issues with 2gb. Unfortunately a) the 4gb cards are slower period b) the gpu cannot handle those settings at that resolution anyways so it is a moot point.

If you want to post some evidence to the contrary feel free. Otherwise don't come in here bashing me.

 

[Elfear]

I know what you mean. Anything that doesn't put AMD in a positive light is deeply attacked on these forums right now. But the amount of disinformation and dishonest bullshit is really getting me down. I would rather have a decent debate over the finer points but the broad strokes of truth are being warped beyond imagination.

Wait, digitaldurandal said that one of the downsides of an open forum is that misinformation can be given out too easily which is in reference to the thread's topic about Vram limitations.

How in the world did you pull your above quote from the responses in this thread? Where are all the rabid fanboys in this thread claiming AMD is the only/better choice because of the extra 1GB?

Me thinks you're tilting at windmills.

Back OT - The only game I've found to need more than 2GB of Vram at 1600p is Skyrim with mods. There may be a couple others but 99% of the time you'd be ok with 2GB.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Why is it weird to you that in a year and a half the amount of necessary VRAM for surround gaming has changed Grooveriding? I felt when half life 2 came out that 512mb was sufficient for 90% of gaming situations - does that mean I should have preffered 2gb at the time? It is natural for the requirement to grow - and especially because the GPU power grew so that more RAM was usable.

Look up comparisons of 570 1.25gb SLI surround vs 570 3gb SLI surround and you will find negligible difference - same with 2gb vs 4gb today. The gpu simply cannot handle all the vram being utilized anyways. Which is the same thing that I said to you like 20+ months ago when I was playing Mafia maxed with AA on 570s in SLI and you called me a liar because your setup had issues with it.

 

[Aikouka]

Just curious , knowing nothing about the physical development of a graphics card, but why can't manufacturers just slap say 8gb of ram or 16 even & call it a day? Why does it seem like such a monumental task to throw on more ram on a graphics card?

Three reasons:
1) Cost: GDDR5 isn't that cheap
2) Space: Each GDDR module must exist on its own and requires their own (32) traces.
3) Support: Without using any extra hardware, your video card will only support [MEMORY_BUS_SIZE / 32] number of GDDR5 chips. GDDR5 chips are currently available in 2Gb (or 256MB) sizes. The GTX 680 uses a 256-bit memory bus. 256 / 32 = 8. 8 * 256 = 2GB. Essentially, it's "natural" for the GTX 680 to use 2GB because nVidia essentially pigeonholed it that way.

 

[digitaldurandal]

@thestrangebrew1,Aikouka

Also they basically have gone overboard with mid and low end cards before putting 2 and 3gb VRAM on them but there is little reason because without more GPU power.
8gb of VRAM is wasted even on a modern card. Sure you could cache every effect and texture in the game but it will use more power and add no performance