Which is better for graphics cards, more memory or higher core clock?

[Woofmeister]

New Egg has a sale going on the new EVGA 017-P3-1175-AR GeForce GTX 275. That's a standard GTX 275 with 1792MB of DDR3 memory (vs 896MB stock). With the sale price of $10 off, that makes the card the same price as the heavily overclocked EVGA 896-P3-1173-AR GeForce GTX 275 FTW Edition which has the stock 896MB of memory but a core clock of 713MHz (vs. 633MHz standard).

So, for $299.99 (not counting $10 MIR on GTX 275 FTW) your choice is lots of memory or an EVGA guaranteed faster core clock on the GTX 275.

Which one do you think is likely to deliver better performance? Sure, the 1792MB GTX 275 can be overclocked with Riva and ATITool, but it's not likely to hit the mark that the GTX 275 FTW will. On the other hand, twice the memory should be a real advantage in shader-intensive games.

Personally, I'm genuinely torn.

 

[brblx]

factory overclocked cards are typically within the range of what most all stock cards will do. my 8800GT is OC edition, but i only bought it because it was about the same price as the regular.

i would go for the one with more memory.

 

[OCGuy]

I cant think of a game other than GTAIV that would use that much memory, and probably at a very high resolution. What size is your monitor?

Go with the FTW edition, EVGA does bin their cards from what I have read on their forums.

 

[BlueWeasel]

FTW = For the Win edition?

 

[Modular]

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
FTW = For the Win edition?

Confirmed

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: Modular

Originally posted by: BlueWeasel
FTW = For the Win edition?

Confirmed

:laugh: :thumbsup:

 

[fffblackmage]

More vram + OC (overvolt if necessary) =]

 

[novasatori]

i know its not normal but my EVGA 260 does 756 core from stock 576 or whatever

i'd go with memory and push it as far as i can ocing

 

[error8]

I would also get the more ram version and overclock it.

 

[FalseChristian]

Core clock matters more for pushing texels out whereas memory clocks help out with gaming at high resolutions with AF and AA.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: FalseChristian
Core clock matters more for pushing texels out whereas memory clocks help out with gaming at high resolutions with AF and AA.

Yes, but in both cases you are talking about core and memory clock speed, the question is, which is better--faster core clock or more memory?

And those of you assuming that you could overclock the core on the 1792MB memory card to a stable 713MHz are likely mistaken even with volt modding. EVGA is very good on warranty and customer service, but, in my experience, they are pretty careful about saving their best GPU cores for their factory overclocked cards. That just makes sense from a business standpoint.

 

[fffblackmage]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
And those of you assuming that you could overclock the core on the 1792MB memory card to a stable 713MHz are likely mistaken even with volt modding. EVGA is very good on warranty and customer service, but, in my experience, they are pretty careful about saving their best GPU cores for their factory overclocked cards. That just makes sense from a business standpoint.

Does having more vram make it harder to OC?

gpureview's OC roundup
3dguru's gtx275 OC
hexus.net's OC
Legion Hardware's OC (6th paragraph)
tweaktown's OC

Seems like quite a number of gtx275 can hit 700MHz on the core.

 

[Rifter]

With my 4830 my massive core OC was very noticable in games. I was able to keep the core clock stock and raise mem to 1100 and saw no diff whatsoever in any game but did notice a diff in benchmarks. So the answer is if you are one of those guys who likes to run 3 or 4 way CF/SLI just to have the best 3dmark vantage score out there but hardly games anyways its worth OCing the mem. Otherwise i would go for the most core possible, its worth noting that i can only obtain my 800 core with the memory at stock clock. I would assume this is a power delivery problem as im sure my 800 clock takes more power and without raising the voltage its taking some from the memory. Im looking into bios hacking but its a moot point as im getting one of those factory OC 1Ghz 4890s as soon as i see one for sale in canada.

 

[fffblackmage]

Originally posted by: Rifterut
With my 4830 my massive core OC was very noticable in games. I was able to keep the core clock stock and raise mem to 1100 and saw no diff whatsoever in any game but did notice a diff in benchmarks.

I think in your case, it is because you're playing games at 720p. My impression is that core matters more at lower resolutions and memory has a much greater influence at higher resolutions.


Though IMO, the OP could go with either card and still be pretty satisfied. 896MB of vram is a lot of vram. Any more vram than that probably doesn't help much until way past 1920x1200 resolution.

 

[AzN]

1792mb of vram would be waste. High core is what you want but I wouldn't pay more for factory overclocked cards.

 

[BFG10K]

There really wouldn't be too many situations where a GTX275 would benefit from 1792 memory over 896. However 713 vs 633 is about 13% and you'd see this kind of benefit in most games that aren't CPU limited.

Like I said in the other thread, the core is almost always universally more important than memory these days.