How long will 2gb last?

question12 · Apr 22, 2013

So, I'm getting 2 gtx 680s. Should I get 2gb or 4gb? How long will 2gb last, since I've heard some games like Skyrim cap 2gb? I will be playing on a 1080p screen. I know games like crysis 2 maxed out already take up to 1980mb. Are all games like that, or is it really just the Crysis games?

unksol · Apr 22, 2013

All games are not like that, and that number is not right for crysis 2.

Still id rather have 2 7970s. Cheaper, faster, 3GB, better overclocking, and if never settle is still going on 6 free AAA games

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

1980MB allocated, not actually used. Its not very good to have a rig always measuring real time VRAM usage, and not nice for the graphics card either. So by allocating 1980MB, its ensuring it WON'T run out when you're playing.

My 2GB 670's don't even run out of vram in Crysis 3 1440P Maxed out 8XAA.

jossrik · Apr 22, 2013

AFAIK, the more you crank up the settings, the more VRAM you'd want. As it stands now, there's only a couple games I know of that take 2Gb of memory, when you're running at 1080p. Three or four years down the road, who can say. The rule of thumb is get what you can afford and don't worry about it. 0)
2x680s on a 1080p screen is a bit of overkill, they're really meant to push higher resolutions. You might want to get one, and if you're unhappy with it, get the second. Since you're looking at getting a pair, not having a 2Gb VRAM limit might be a good thing. Again, Really gotta see how the games turn out. From what I hear with Skyrim, it's the mods that can easily carry you over 2Gb VRAM.

Duke Nucome · Apr 22, 2013

AH Vram is way to blown out of proportion. Vram does not make a GPU slower or faster it's the GPU core architecture that makes the GPU faster or slower. The only time Vram slows games down is with triple monitors.

question12 · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

What exactly do you mean by "always measuring real time VRAM usage"? You mean monitoring it with a program?

Cons29 · Apr 22, 2013

based on experience, yes there are times when what the card has is not enough, and yes i agree that vram is not the most important thing when it comes to speed.
but if you run out, problems will probably appear, i've experience this with bf3 (among others), graphical glitches, etc

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

question12 :

The VRAM usage is never consistent, it'll jump constantly because there are different things on the screen. Nothing that I know of actually measures real-time usage, only allocation (This being GPU-Z, MSI AB, and basically every other free product).

I can prove this allocation thing. At 1440p with no AA maxed out, I get 2031 MB used. With 8XAA I get the same. AA can take up ALOT of VRAM space.

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

Cons29 :

What is your setup to run out of VRAM on Battlefield 3? As long as you have 2GB you'll never run out on a single display. Unless you're running a multi GPU display, which you wouldn't even want to do with a 2GB card anyways.

bryonhowley · Apr 22, 2013

Well I run 3 Asus 27" monitors and have 2 Gigabyte GTX 670's 2gb cards. In the games that support it I run 5760x1080 and thus far have had no issues at all as far as VRam. The only problem I have really had is there are just not enough games that support Eyefinity/Surround out of the box. It is great on the games that do fully support it though.

Mahisse · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

BF3 is known to be one of the few games that can exceed 2GB VRAM if you crank up evertyhing on max.

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

Mahisse :

Not on single monitors. I play 4XAA maxed and haven't even gotten close to 1.6GB "allocated" (So it isn't even using it). Also, BF3 is a game that allocates more than it needs, it works perfectly fine on 1.2 GB cards such as the 570. It'll show 1.6GB, but its just taking more because it can.

Cons29 · Apr 22, 2013

that experience was when i had my 560Ti 1gb, i tried setting things to HIGH and 1gb is not enough, i get graphical glitches. 2gb is ok, ~1.7gb last time i checked. but there are games that will eat up 2gb easily

Mahisse · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

Mahisse :

Not on single monitors. I play 4XAA maxed and haven't even gotten close to 1.6GB "allocated" (So it isn't even using it). Also, BF3 is a game that allocates more than it needs, it works perfectly fine on 1.2 GB cards such as the 570. It'll show 1.6GB, but its just taking more because it can.

Well I don't exceed 2 GB myself either but I'm just reporting what others have reported around the internet. People with more than 2 GB VRAM available have reported that BF3 can use more than 2 GB VRAM... And yes we are talking about a single monitor setup. I'm not saying that BF3 needs more than 2 GB of VRAM but you can't just look at your own system and generalize for every user.

Edit: Most cases with exceeding 2 GB VRAM has been solved by driver updates in most cases.

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

I'd like to see these reports, might be an interesting read

Mahisse · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

Bah! I hate you

... Looking more into it I can't really find any good examples. I may have been confused by BF3 uses more than 4 GB system memory :na:

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

Mahisse :

HAHAHA yeah I guess you might of gotten confused

Duke Nucome · Apr 22, 2013

Mahisse :

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2012/11/05/msi-radeon-hd-7850-1gb-review/10
"In Battlefield 3 at 1,920 x 1,080, the MSI HD 7850 1GB was actually able to outperform the 2GB version thanks to its factory overclock, albeit by a single frame per second on the minimum frame rate. This suggests that the 2GB's extra 1GB of GDDR5 is all but useless at this resolution."

question12 · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

So, you're that when a program tells me that the VRAM is 1980mb, it's not actually being used, but allocated? And that's why your number says 2030mb? It's not actually being used? Because I've seen when the VRAM gets capped, the FPS drops greatly. Also, when you say multi GPU display, you mean more than 1 card going to a single screen, or more than 1 card going to more than 1 screen? Why wouldn't I want to do that with 2gb? Aren't you doing that with your 2gb 670s?

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

question12 :

JJ1217 :

So, you're that when a program tells me that the VRAM is 1980mb, it's not actually being used, but allocated? And that's why your number says 2030mb? It's not actually being used? Because I've seen when the VRAM gets capped, the FPS drops greatly. Also, when you say multi GPU display, you mean more than 1 card going to a single screen, or more than 1 card going to more than 1 screen? Why wouldn't I want to do that with 2gb? Aren't you doing that with your 2gb 670s?

opps Multi GPU display was a brainfart I mean multi display, haha.

I know VRAM can cause huge drops to 5 FPS, but I STILL haven't done that at 1440p, so for me, I don't really need 3GB cards. I had a 7950 originally, and it was great, but the lack of CFX drivers and how buggy it was annoyed me.

question12 · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

question12 :

opps Multi GPU display was a brainfart I mean multi display, haha.

I know VRAM can cause huge drops to 5 FPS, but I STILL haven't done that at 1440p, so for me, I don't really need 3GB cards. I had a 7950 originally, and it was great, but the lack of CFX drivers and how buggy it was annoyed me.

So, I should get the 2gb? I have a single 1080p screen, and if you're not even capping that with 8xAA on Crysis 3 with a 1440p screen, then I should be fine for a while, right? If the 4gb wasn't so much more expensive (about 100$), then I would just go with that.

Duke Nucome · Apr 22, 2013

4GB is for triple monitor and 4k support.

JJ1217 · Apr 22, 2013

The 670 and 680 by themselves would run out of GPU horsepower long before they could utilise the full 2GB on a single display. Maybe not with two cards, but with one card definitely.

Duke Nucome · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

agreed.

question12 · Apr 22, 2013

JJ1217 :

Definitely with one, but I'm getting 2.

How long will 2gb last?

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