2nd GTX 680: Will VRAM be an issue?

[digitaldurandal]

Question is: why doesn`t it exist any reviews that have tested all the games and logged how much VRAM they use on different settings.

That way we wouldn`t have to deal with this and the 1000 other VRAM discussions that keep popping up all the time. We always fall to the "well in this game I had like 1.4GB of VRAM used" "But in Skyrim I had over 2GB used"
And no definite proof or argument have been given and we keep repeating it over and over again

I was trying to find one. There was one at one time right when the whole 2gb vs 3gb nvidia vs amd discussion popped up at the start of this generation. I cannot remember the site and google was zero help. I think it was techpowerup or one of the other sites with tech in the name. They tested up to 2560x1600.

 

[BrightCandle]

Pcper have just done an incredibly detailed and ground breaking review, using a pair of 680's and 7970's as well as the cards singularly. They include BF3, Skyrim, far cry and host of other modern high end triple A titles and test them to a level of smoothness deeper than any review has ever gone before. Further to that they tested at 1080p, 1440p and surround 1080p resolutions. You know what they found? Zero problems with VRAM on the 680's, there are no cases where even in surround where the card just suddenly badly performs in comparison to the 7970 which has 50% more VRAM, nor does SLI show sudden and violent drops due to lack of VRAM. Its just not there.

You can modify a game so that it needs more, but by default they don't. They don't because the 680 doesn't have more VRAM, and to make a game that required so much wouldn't make any sense.


Will some future game use more than 2GB? Of course it will, that is the nature of computer progress. But there is no problem with 2GB today and we don't know when that will change as we can't predict it, but its unlikely to be before the next crop of cards come out. But I can be sure no games company will release a game that wont run on NVidia's high end cards anytime soon with their higher settings because software is designed for particular hardware and the current platform high end is limited to 2GB.

I have now shown you two resources that show no issues with VRAM, and I still expect the reality distortion field to continue. Doesn't make it true however. OP read the 2 resources I gave you and come to your own conclusion, asking these guys is like asking for a sane person in a mental institution, you know the answeralready but you also know every one of them will tell you they are the sane one and every one else is crazy.

 

[BrightCandle]

Question is: why doesn`t it exist any reviews that have tested all the games and logged how much VRAM they use on different settings.

That way we wouldn`t have to deal with this and the 1000 other VRAM discussions that keep popping up all the time. We always fall to the "well in this game I had like 1.4GB of VRAM used" "But in Skyrim I had over 2GB used"
And no definite proof or argument have been given and we keep repeating it over and over again

I gave you a link 2 pages ago for a review site that tests all the recent games and captures the amount of VRAM they use. It also happens to test the 690 alongside the 7970 and 680 as well as other cards and CPUs and gives you pretty round picture of how the various options perform. You just didn't read it.

 

[digitaldurandal]

no wonder grooveridling is on your case.

you proven you obviously have no clue regarding vram usage in relation to gpu power. go and read post #9.

if you still lost. i will try to explain again.

No you are lost post 9 is irrelevant to the OPs question UaVaj.

His question was, "Now my question is, will I be severely VRAM limited if I get another 2GB card?"

And the answer is a resounding no, in most situations he will not be severely limited. In some games he may need to choose 4xAA instead of 8x or 2x instead of 4x. That is about the extent of the impact with most current gen titles with a few exceptions such as Hitman or Skyrim + many mods + AA.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Pcper have just done an incredibly detailed and ground breaking review, using a pair of 680's and 7970's as well as the cards singularly. They include BF3, Skyrim, far cry and host of other modern high end triple A titles and test them to a level of smoothness deeper than any review has ever gone before. Further to that they tested at 1080p, 1440p and surround 1080p resolutions. You know what they found? Zero problems with VRAM on the 680's, there are no cases where even in surround where the card just suddenly badly performs in comparison to the 7970 which has 50% more VRAM, nor does SLI show sudden and violent drops due to lack of VRAM. Its just not there.

I appreciate that someone else is here to make this statement. The myth of needing to spend big money on more VRAM for the majority of users and even surroundview/eyefinity users is overwhelming on forums and source after source shows this but people refuse to acknowledge it for some reason.

I have seen only a few statements of games which are an exception to this - which I acknowledged prior to anyone pointing them out.

If you are going to play Skyrim for 400 hours with all mods at 1440p then by all means get 4gb of VRAM. If you are going to play a general mix of recent and current generation games then 4gb VRAM is simply not necessary right now.

 

[UaVaj]

No you are lost post 9 is irrelevant to the OPs question UaVaj.

His question was, "Now my question is, will I be severely VRAM limited if I get another 2GB card?"

And the answer is a resounding no, in most situations he will not be severely limited. In some games he may need to choose 4xAA instead of 8x or 2x instead of 4x. That is about the extent of the impact with most current gen titles with a few exceptions such as Hitman or Skyrim + many mods + AA.

you already made up your mind you are 100% right. will not follow grooveridling footsteps. can not fix stupid. carry on.

 

[UaVaj]

for those that want to further understand.

with a 680 sli setup.

-----

crysis3 only need 2gb of vram is becuase crysis3 is too taxing on the two gpu.
in order to get playable and enjoyable frame rate out of crysis3 with two 680 gpu. resolution has to be lowered. aa has to be lowered.
with the lowered resolution and the lowered aa. there is no need for any more than 1.843gb vram. 2gb edition plenty.

in 680 tri-sli or 680 quad-sli setup or titan sli setup. the situation changes. now there is more gpu power.
there is now enough gpu power to deliver playable and enjoyable framefrate at higher resolution with higer aa. hence the need for larger vram.

in single 680 or less. crysis3 gonna demand lesser resoulution and lesser aa to be playable and enjoyable. since most folks will keep it at 1920x1080. that mean aa gonna take the hit.

-----

bf3 needs 4gb edition becuase even at 5760x1080 with all the eye candy on. two 680 gpu has enough power to deliver playable and enjoyable frame rate.
with the higher resoulution and max out aa. 2.6gb vram is what it calls for. hence the 4gb edition.

 

[Cloudfire777]

I gave you a link 2 pages ago for a review site that tests all the recent games and captures the amount of VRAM they use. It also happens to test the 690 alongside the 7970 and 680 as well as other cards and CPUs and gives you pretty round picture of how the various options perform. You just didn't read it.

You said "Just check out gamegpu.RU to prove it to yourself".

For one, I`m not trusting some russian site I never heard about. Two, I don`t know russian. Three, I`m not gonna bother looking through an unknown site when I don`t know what to look for.

I`d appriciate it though, if you can posta clickable link, then I might consider it. Other than that, there doesn`t exist any reviews that shows VRAM usage with this and that setting on this and that resolution. Its a shame really

I was trying to find one. There was one at one time right when the whole 2gb vs 3gb nvidia vs amd discussion popped up at the start of this generation. I cannot remember the site and google was zero help. I think it was techpowerup or one of the other sites with tech in the name. They tested up to 2560x1600.

TechPowerUp unfortunately doesn`t post VRAM usage, neither do any other sites. You just have to come to a conclusion yourself based on 1080p and 1600p and see if there is performance difference between a 3GB vs a 2GB going from one res to a higher one where the amount of VRAM might have played a role. But even there its too hard to see because there are other parts playing in too, like memory bandwidth. So you are kinda stuck with "was it the memory bandwidth or was it the amount that pushed the 7970GHz over 680 with 8xAA on 1600p in Metro, or was it both?!"

 

[digitaldurandal]

TechPowerUp unfortunately doesn`t post VRAM usage, neither do any other sites. You just have to come to a conclusion yourself based on 1080p and 1600p and see if there is performance difference between a 3GB vs a 2GB going from one res to a higher one where the amount of VRAM might have played a role. But even there its too hard to see because there are other parts playing in too, like memory bandwidth. So you are kinda stuck with "was it the memory bandwidth or was it the amount that pushed the 7970GHz over 680 with 8xAA on 1600p in Metro, or was it both?!"

It is easy to see if you need vram. Look at sites that gives a timelapse. You can see hitching in response time changes that are sudden and only last for a part of a second. It is difficult to tell when looking at min/avg fps however you can get a good idea - if the minimum fps is fairly in line with the average and not a large deviation away then at the very least you can see that hitching is not occurring often in the game.

Sites like HardOCP which have been giving timelapse fps for a while and some new reviews with actual response time variations can help you get a better idea of the quality of gameplay.

I have already linked multiple sites showing that 2gb is fine even at high resolutions. All of the naysayers on here so far have called me names or made immature comments. Who do you think is winning this debate?

My statement still stands UaVaj, Grooveriding, and Moonbogg (to a lesser extent although I think his post about puppies didn't add anything to the thread and was unnecessary) make a lot of statements but they do not post any evidence - which I have done multiple times. They choose to call me blind, stupid, or a puppy killer but they cannot click links from multiple sources and see the evidence for themselves. Instead they are the blind calling people blind. I have literally stated for two pages post evidence as I have to back up your claim or stop misleading people who may later read this post to research a purchase.

In the end the choice is up to the OP. Does he trust someone who barely can post in English, continues to call me names and act like a child without any evidence. OR does OP read the links provided look at the time lapse FPS readings and response time lapses and make an informed decision.

I am done with the conversation though, there are too many trolls on this board and it was not previously so flame heavy. I am not going to continue to post evidence and link after link to people who are just going to quote me then say I am stupid without actually making a single argument to help OP make a decision. My only hope is that people who later read this will realize that calling someone stupid or blind doesn't really make much of a credible argument at all. However my hope for humanity dwindles with each post I read.

 

[Elfear]

No you are lost post 9 is irrelevant to the OPs question UaVaj.

His question was, "Now my question is, will I be severely VRAM limited if I get another 2GB card?"

And the answer is a resounding no, in most situations he will not be severely limited. In some games he may need to choose 4xAA instead of 8x or 2x instead of 4x.

This is true for the most part. Most games will run just fine with 2GB of vram at 1440p.

Crysis 3 would be one of those exceptions however.

Source

With FXAA 2GB would be just fine but higher settings and you might be hitting the swap file. This is a moot point with one card because no 2GB card has the GPU grunt to enable higher AA modes, but with SLI/CF your vram could become the limiting factor.

Hitman Absolution looks to be another title that needs a lot of vram. This is a quote from [H] concerning 5760x1200.

"In the apples-to-apples test we have 2X MSAA enabled, and you can see that TITAN is literally over 100% faster. The reason is because GTX 680 SLI is severely bottlenecked at 2X MSAA due to its limited 2GB framebuffer, it isn't achieving the highest possible framerates it could, due to that limit. Therefore, TITAN is able to outshine it and achieve its full potential of performance in this game, which is amazing."

Regarding 1600p and 4xMSAA

"With the GeForce GTX TITAN we were able to play this game at the highest in-game settings with no less than 4X MSAA enabled at 2560x1600. To this date, no other video card has been capable of giving us that level of performance. The 2GB GTX 680 struggles at 4X MSAA because of its VRAM limit, and the 3GB HD 7970 GHz Edition struggles because it just isn't fast enough at 4X MSAA in this game.

The minimum framerate is also important, as in this game, with VRAM being a limiting factor, it can drop quite low. The GeForce GTX TITAN only drops to 39 FPS at 4X MSAA, which is amazing, while the GTX 680 with 2GB drops to 29 FPS, and the 3GB HD 7970 GE drops to 34 FPS. "

Source

Here are some Skyrim benchmarks I did last year. I wish I had a 2GB card to test against at the time to see if the amount of vram allocated was close to the amount of vram used.

 

[Eureka]

So is there a consensus yet for single monitor, 2560x1440? Thinking of picking up one of these monitors and upgrading to either a 7970 or 680. I want to lean towards the 680 since I'll be moving to a mITX case in the near future... but the VRAM worries me. Will I hit the performance limit first or the vram limit first, going forward?

 

[digitaldurandal]

same cannot be said for bf3. 5760x1080 with all the eye candy. 60fps avg / 35fps min. vram usage is 2.621GB. you definitely want the 4gb edition for bf3.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/01/14/asus_geforce_gtx_670_directcu_ii_4gb_sli_review/6

You are wrong. I have already proven that. Stop posting misinformation. 2gb cards actually provide a better experience in bf3 at 5760x1200.

Now please post a source of your claim as I have for the fourth time or stop posting lies.

 

[digitaldurandal]

This is true for the most part. Most games will run just fine with 2GB of vram at 1440p.

Crysis 3 would be one of those exceptions however.

All three games you mention I have already pointed out as exceptions in my posts. There are never absolutes. I am not saying there is never a time when 4gb is helpful, I am saying they are far and few between. In Skyrim with mods it is basically a step of AA. In Hitman it may have a larger impact. Crysis 3 was designed to break your system.

Again the OPs question was will he be severely limited by VRAM and some posters are saying yes when all evidence is no, not usually, and when limited in most games it will be a marginal quality bump. As a matter of fact in most games he will get more frames with the 2gb cards than the 4gb.

 

[Fastx]

That could change once AMD finishes cleaning their drivers though. They say they worked out dx9 crossfire response variances and they are working on dx10/11.

If you happen to have a link handy on this I like to read up on this, you can either post it or pm it to me if you want if you don't no probem I'll try and find it per G.

TIA

 

[Cloudfire777]

Crysis 3

Skyrim

Thank you very much. Really helpful :thumbsup:

 

[digitaldurandal]

@CloudFire

Yes this one title will require that he does not use 8xMSAA & 8xAAA & FXAA at 1440p (although I doubt that even with VRAM the GPU will run smoothly at these settings).

And he will be limited to 2xAA instead of 4xAA in another game, however his overall performance in most titles will actually be the same, sometimes even better with 2gb.

EDITED: removed sarcasm.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Here is why I mean we should have some reviews that test the different resolutions. You get like 100-500MB extra VRAM usage in Crysis 3 jumping from 1200p to 1600p. Very interesting imo

 

[Final8ty]

This is true for the most part. Most games will run just fine with 2GB of vram at 1440p.

Crysis 3 would be one of those exceptions however.

I remember when i had my first exception with quad 3870 512MB with Race Driver Grid, the exceptions grew quite fast after that.

 

[digitaldurandal]

If you happen to have a link handy on this I like to read up on this, you can either post it or pm it to me if you want if you don't no probem I'll try and find it per G.

TIA

http://anandtech.com/show/6857/amd-stuttering-issues-driver-roadmap-fraps

 

[ShintaiDK]

VRAM usage is not the same across different GPUs. Also its not easy to measure correct VRAM usage either. Plus a GPU with more memory might simply allocate more, even if not used.

The only real way is essentially to see when FPS drops off the chart. Thats when the memory bottleneck hits.

 

[Fastx]

http://anandtech.com/show/6857/amd-stuttering-issues-driver-roadmap-fraps

Thanks Digital!

 

[Elfear]

Thank you very much. Really helpful :thumbsup:

No problem.

@CloudFire

Yes this one title will require that he does not use 8xMSAA & 8xAAA & FXAA at 1440p (although I doubt that even with VRAM the GPU will run smoothly at these settings).

With one 7970 it actually ran pretty well at max settings. With SLI/CF it would be no problem at all.

Here is the FPS graph at 1600p 8xMSAA, 8xAAA, and FXAA (basically the last two data point from the graph above). The OC setting was 1325/1600.

I agree with you that most games will be just fine with 2GB of vram and, for those few that aren't, turning down a few settings will correct the texture thrashing. The OP asked whether he would be limited by 2GB and with dual/triple/quad cards than the answer is yes. You have the GPU power to run a game at max settings but insufficient vram. If you're spending $$$ on video cards, why would you want to turn settings down because of a vram limit?

Anyway, I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill but knowing what your limits are can help make an informed decision. If the OP doesn't play any of the games mentioned and upgrades often, 2GB won't be a problem at all.

 

[omeds]

This is true for the most part. Most games will run just fine with 2GB of vram at 1440p.

Crysis 3 would be one of those exceptions however.

Source

With FXAA 2GB would be just fine but higher settings and you might be hitting the swap file. This is a moot point with one card because no 2GB card has the GPU grunt to enable higher AA modes, but with SLI/CF your vram could become the limiting factor.

Hitman Absolution looks to be another title that needs a lot of vram. This is a quote from [H] concerning 5760x1200.

"In the apples-to-apples test we have 2X MSAA enabled, and you can see that TITAN is literally over 100% faster. The reason is because GTX 680 SLI is severely bottlenecked at 2X MSAA due to its limited 2GB framebuffer, it isn't achieving the highest possible framerates it could, due to that limit. Therefore, TITAN is able to outshine it and achieve its full potential of performance in this game, which is amazing."

Regarding 1600p and 4xMSAA

"With the GeForce GTX TITAN we were able to play this game at the highest in-game settings with no less than 4X MSAA enabled at 2560x1600. To this date, no other video card has been capable of giving us that level of performance. The 2GB GTX 680 struggles at 4X MSAA because of its VRAM limit, and the 3GB HD 7970 GHz Edition struggles because it just isn't fast enough at 4X MSAA in this game.

The minimum framerate is also important, as in this game, with VRAM being a limiting factor, it can drop quite low. The GeForce GTX TITAN only drops to 39 FPS at 4X MSAA, which is amazing, while the GTX 680 with 2GB drops to 29 FPS, and the 3GB HD 7970 GE drops to 34 FPS. "

Source

Here are some Skyrim benchmarks I did last year. I wish I had a 2GB card to test against at the time to see if the amount of vram allocated was close to the amount of vram used.

Would just like to point out I played Crysis3 from start to finish with 3-way 2GB 680's, VH settings and 4xMSAA at 1440p and it was fine.
First of all 1440p is 11% less pixels than 1600p, and secondly you dont have issues the instant you hit a Vram limit. You have a bit of leeway to swap and stream textures. If you go over by a small amount its not an issue, but if you go over by a few hundered MB then you will get increasing texture thrashing hitches/stutters, up until performance is severely degraded.

Most modern games stream btw and will use more Vram if you have it available, but thats doesnt mean its required, BF3 is a good example of this, as is Crysis2.

 

[Eureka]

Would just like to point out I played Crysis3 from start to finish with 3-way 2GB 680's, VH settings and 4xMSAA at 1440p and it was fine.
First of all 1440p is 11% less pixels than 1600p, and secondly you dont have issues the instant you hit a Vram limit. You have a bit of leeway to swap and stream textures. If you go over by a small amount its not an issue, but if you go over by a few hundered MB then you will get increasing texture thrashing hitches/stutters, up until performance is severely degraded.

Most modern games stream btw and will use more Vram if you have it available, but thats doiesnt mean its required, BF3 is a good example of this, as is Crysis2.

Did you watch your VRAM usage? Was it hitting 2GB?

 

[omeds]

I agree with you that most games will be just fine with 2GB of vram and, for those few that aren't, turning down a few settings will correct the texture thrashing. The OP asked whether he would be limited by 2GB and with dual/triple/quad cards than the answer is yes. You have the GPU power to run a game at max settings but insufficient vram. If you're spending $$$ on video cards, why would you want to turn settings down because of a vram limit?

Anyway, I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a molehill but knowing what your limits are can help make an informed decision. If the OP doesn't play any of the games mentioned and upgrades often, 2GB won't be a problem at all.

The answer is yes but in practice I've had no issues using 4xAA+trSSAA in any game at 1440p with 2GB. 8xMSAA presents an issue in a few games though.