To GTX 770 or not to...ok, it's definitely the 770. BUT: Double the VRAM for + ~$40?

[Raswan]

Got some Amazon gift cards all saved up, and the constant BSODs and driver crashes on my trusty 5870 in BF4 all tell me it's time to hop on the upgrade train. History tells me my GPU will stick around for 3 years. That said, I have a relatively strict budget of under $350. So, to business:

The GTX770 seems to be the card to get, according to Ryan Smith at this here fine website, at the ~$300 price point. Obviously with mantle coming out, if the R9 280x comes down to equal prices by the time I press the BUY button, I'll grab that. But the question remains: Do I pay the ~$40-dollar premium for double (4GB vs. 2) the VRAM? I game at 1080p right now, but this card will likely last through the first part of life for my next monitor, which will be almost certainly be 1440p (if 4k prices continue to drop precipitously, I'll need a new gpu anyway). I don't know all that much about VRAM. So, should I bite and invest the money now, or is it not going to make a difference by 2017?

Perhaps relatedly, I'm still running the cpu in my sig, non-OCd, so (it hasn't at this point, but I could be convinced) if that's going to change things in some way I'm not aware of, please let me know. CPU/mobo are next on the block for upgrade, but not until next xmas at earliest. Thanks!

 

[nwo]

I think 4GB of RAM will definitely make a difference in the upcoming years. Especially if you are gaming at 1440p. Even 1080p can already push the 2GB limit so in the upcoming years 3GB should be the standard for 1080p.

If you want your GPU to last at least 2-3 years, I'd definitely invest the extra $40 in the 4GB version.

 

[BrightCandle]

As I said before historically speaking cards tend to run out of performance for a feature about the time that feature starts exceeding the VRAM available. In the past all these doublings of VRAM have ended up being a waste of money.

There is only really one example I can think that is a counter example and that was the 5970. It was basically 2x5850 hardware but the 5850 had 2GB of VRAM, the 5970 had 2GB in total, ie just 1 GB of VRAM per core. In the end it ran out of VRAM on a regular basis, especially at eyefinity resolutions and causes a premature death in performance. But if you had a 5850 today you would find that much of the VRAM would be unused as many games run 1-1.5GB today but you still wouldn't be able to run all the graphics on high because it doesn't have enough general performance.

The 580 is a 1.5GB card, its about the point where you would want to upgrade it anyway for a higher resolution than 1080p or you would be turning settings down. There might be one or two games that would exceed its VRAM for its level of performance but its certainly not limited by its VRAM limits and its already running out of performance for the high settings that consume a lot of VRAM.

Short and long term history are against buying additional VRAM. For more VRAM to make sense you would have to show why now is suddenly the moment when games are going to require vast amounts of VRAM increases without any computation increases. I personally don't see a valid or emerging reason for that, and certainly not the mid range GPUs they have thrown into consoles.

 

[Termie]

^ Actually, the HD5850 was a 1GB card. I had two in Crossfire, and the lack of VRAM was one of the reasons I traded up, despite very little difference in pure processing power versus the GTX670 I upgraded to.

But the example you give is a perfect illustration of why someone would invest in more VRAM: dual video cards setups. The HD5970 or HD5850CF is as powerful as a GTX 760 2GB today, but no one would choose those older cards over the 2GB card. The GTX 770 is right at the edge of needing more VRAM - it will probably be fine as a single card, but I would never recommend that someone by the 2GB version if they have any intention of getting a second card, especially for 1440p gaming.

Two games that I've tested already exceed 2GB of VRAM at 1440p - Hitman and BF4.

 

[Raswan]

As I said before historically speaking cards tend to run out of performance for a feature about the time that feature starts exceeding the VRAM available. In the past all these doublings of VRAM have ended up being a waste of money.

There is only really one example I can think that is a counter example and that was the 5970. It was basically 2x5850 hardware but the 5850 had 2GB of VRAM, the 5970 had 2GB in total, ie just 1 GB of VRAM per core. In the end it ran out of VRAM on a regular basis, especially at eyefinity resolutions and causes a premature death in performance. But if you had a 5850 today you would find that much of the VRAM would be unused as many games run 1-1.5GB today but you still wouldn't be able to run all the graphics on high because it doesn't have enough general performance.

The 580 is a 1.5GB card, its about the point where you would want to upgrade it anyway for a higher resolution than 1080p or you would be turning settings down. There might be one or two games that would exceed its VRAM for its level of performance but its certainly not limited by its VRAM limits and its already running out of performance for the high settings that consume a lot of VRAM.

Short and long term history are against buying additional VRAM. For more VRAM to make sense you would have to show why now is suddenly the moment when games are going to require vast amounts of VRAM increases without any computation increases. I personally don't see a valid or emerging reason for that, and certainly not the mid range GPUs they have thrown into consoles.

Thanks for the input.

 

[Raswan]

^ Actually, the HD5850 was a 1GB card. I had two in Crossfire, and the lack of VRAM was one of the reasons I traded up, despite very little difference in pure processing power versus the GTX670 I upgraded to.

But the example you give is a perfect illustration of why someone would invest in more VRAM: dual video cards setups. The HD5970 or HD5850CF is as powerful as a GTX 760 2GB today, but no one would choose those older cards over the 2GB card. The GTX 770 is right at the edge of needing more VRAM - it will probably be fine as a single card, but I would never recommend that someone by the 2GB version if they have any intention of getting a second card, especially for 1440p gaming.

Two games that I've tested already exceed 2GB of VRAM at 1440p - Hitman and BF4.

Thanks for the additional info. No plans on running two cards now or in the near future. I'm a one-card man. So you think that even though the 770 is "on the edge of needing more VRAM," for $40 bucks it's not worth it? I'm not going to be OCing, or tweaking games until they are "just so," so really there's no point in spending the money unless I'm going to see real-world gains that are relatively obvious to the eye.

What if the difference drops to 20$ (like I see a flash sale for a PNY or something for ~$339?

 

[Termie]

Thanks for the additional info. No plans on running two cards now or in the near future. I'm a one-card man. So you think that even though the 770 is "on the edge of needing more VRAM," for $40 bucks it's not worth it? I'm not going to be OCing, or tweaking games until they are "just so," so really there's no point in spending the money unless I'm going to see real-world gains that are relatively obvious to the eye.

What if the difference drops to 20$ (like I see a flash sale for a PNY or something for ~$339?

There is always a work-around for VRAM limitations: reduce anti-aliasing, reduce textures, or in the most extreme cases, reduce resolution below your monitor's native resolution. And you'll almost always run out of GPU power before you run out of VRAM at 1440p, but even if you hit a VRAM wall, you have an easy out with the techniques I listed.

So yes, in your case, given that you will not be buying a second card, the extra cost of VRAM wouldn't be a good investment. The current delta is $70. If it were hypothetically $20, I'd probably recommend it, but I doubt you'll ever see a 4GB card discounted that steeply without a 2GB card being equally discounted. I'm routinely seeing 2GB models at $300, but the least expensive 4GB model right now is $370.