Need Advice: GTX 770 2GB or 4GB?

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Zenuts

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Jun 5, 2013
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Hello guys!

I'm planning to build a PC based on a i5 4670K and I'll probably use only one monitor (1080p for now, but i plan on staying with this PC for at least 3 years). I'd use the PC for heavy gaming, but i will NOT use SLI (i live in Brazil, the temperatures here on the summer are quite high, i don't want to be seated near an oven).

Should i get the GTX 770 2GB version or wait (and pay a little extra) for the 4GB version?

Thanks!
 
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theonerm2

theonerm2

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Dec 28, 2009
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It depends on how long you want to keep the card. If you're going to want to upgrade in 2 or 3 years then 2GB is enough. Now if you want to keep the graphics card for 5+ years then you want more vRAM to grow into. FYI... Keeping a graphics card for 5+ years is totally doable. If you had an 8800 GT from early 2007 then you could still play a lot of newer titles. It's amazing how long certain cards can last.

 
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gridironcj

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Dec 23, 2012
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Some of you are really speaking out of your asses with your claims. The future is uncertain, so 2GB may not be ideal a year from now. One could argue it's not enough right now. It really depends on what settings you wish to play on. In most cases, you will need multiple GTX 770s to have enough horsepower for games that will eat up over 2GB. I personally play on 2560x1440 and 2GB is not a safe bet for me. Hitman Absolution uses the most vram I've seen thus far, with over 3GB used on some scenarios (this is with MSAA x8 and all settings maxed). I would assume that you'd be hitting over 2GB with those same settings on 1920x1080, so 2GB certainly can be broken at the moment at the resolution you'll be playing on. Crysis 3 uses about 2.8GB of vram at 2560x1440 with MSAA x8 and all settings maxed out. I would imagine 1920x1080 would require almost 2GB or maybe a little more with those settings. Battlefield 4 is around the corner and I would expect it to eat up quite a bit of vram, so 2GB may not be safe if you want to max all settings (including AA). Antialiasing really adds to your vram usage, so if you don't use any AA at all, then I suppose 2GB would suffice. However, I would question someone for spending over $400 on a GPU and not using any form of antialiasing.

With that said, if you're concerned with vram, get the 4GB edition if you plan on enabling SLI at some point and enabling AA. We're on the verge on "next-gen" console gaming so PC games may become more demanding as a result.
 
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Zenuts

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Jun 5, 2013
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Thanks a lot everyone. I'm at least feeling a 2GB card is enough. I was worried 'cause if GTX 770 didn't launch, I would get a 3GB HD7970. And since it's a high-end card, i'll want to play with it with full AA/AF (or at least 4x AA) in most games, and I was worried 2GB would be insufficient.

@theonerm2
I need to get a new PC 'cause mine is a Core 2 Duo E7500 + aTI HD5770. So, I'm used to a 5 years old PC, and I know it's completely doable (most games i can play on fairly high settings, but with shadows off/min). But i don't intent to sit back and watch lots of epic improvements while I'm stuck in the past (again) xD.
 
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tomalh

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Oct 19, 2011
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When I bought my cards (gtx 570 2.5GB), everyone was telling me that the 2.5gb were useless and overpriced. This was in October 2011. Today, all the guys with GTX 570 1.25GB or GTX 580 1.5GB have to reduce the AA or upgrade to a new gpu.
The 2.5GB allowed me to play all games maxed out, including max payne, which would have been impossible with the 1.25gb card. Today I use more than 2gb for BF3 in 1080p, still less than 2560... about 2100-2150max.
If I do not upgrade my monitor, those cards will be totally sufficient until next gen, if it didn't have the 2.5gb, I would need to upgrade to max games out. If I were you, I would pick up a 4gb card!

Hope this helps
 
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Zenuts

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Jun 5, 2013
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Yeah, I'm planning to get a 4GB card anyway. I understood all the visions and opinions here, but better be safe than sorry (dunno, maybe in 2 years I'll switch to a >1080p monitor and won't have the money to switch to a high-end GPU).

The only problem is finding one to buy. It bounces on Newegg (gets sold out in less than a day). I hope that in a month or so (when I'll buy it) it's more available.

Thank you all!
 
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afake namner

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Jul 12, 2013
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His post is clearly defining the usage of card above 1GB VRAM. VRAM usage will be nearly identical across NVIDIA cards and AMD, respecively, but comparing the two, yes you may be right. HOWEVER, according to the random information Steam gathers on user's hardware, (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/) 1GB is slipping away as a standard as monitor resolutions increase. So, if a 17" monitor is your choice, you may not hit 1GB with 2x MSAA but speaking from experience, a 1GB 560 GTX SLI configuration CANNOT play BF3 maxed due to memory limitations when 4x MSAA is enabled. I run a 670 gtx and hit 1.5 GB in BF3 with ultra settings on a 1920x1080. 2GB is not enough to keep on a video card one plans to have for 3-5 years even if they don't plan to use a multi-display solution. Some of us may decide to hook the PC up to a TV instead of a monitor and consequently, a TV is larger than a computer monitor, and in turn, requiring more VRAM due to resolution.

Personally I am going to get an EVGA 4GB 770 GTX ACX cooled card. Silent, powerful and "future-proof" for next gen titles.
 
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DafWales

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Sep 29, 2013
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To the more VRAM argument, its not as simple as people make it out. I currently have a Asus 6850HD 1GB GPU and am able to run BF3 at 1080p ULTRA with full AA. Now what I mean by that is, my card will actually run the game at those settings but the FPS can take a huge hit in densely populated areas, for example 64 player BF3 servers and being amongst a 20+ person close battle. Then low populated areas I can get 30-40fps.

Yes its not ideal playing at those FPS especially online, but the card will physically run, without tapping out.
Running Crossfire I could be getting 50fps which is totally acceptable for online play, which would only cost me £50-60.
This being that regardless of still only having 1GB of VRAM available to the game, I'd have two chips throwing the data through faster from the memory.

Lamens terms its the difference between a huge pile of dirt (Being the game data) and using either 1 tank of guy who can pick up a lot of dirt, as opposed to two smaller guys who can move almost the same between them.
Very difficult argument and there's no clear winner really.

All depends on what the overall average for VRAM useage is currently. But as we are coming into the Next-Gen of consoles, I would take a stab at saying this will push the PC boundries further again so 1.5GB useage being about average now might turn to 2-2.5GB being the average in the coming year or two.

Especially when this next gen seems to be very physics orientated rather than texture and polycount.
 
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