2GB GraphicsCard vs. 3GB Graphics card if have 8-16GB of system RAM

Dragonfire2142 · Oct 31, 2013

I am currently building my first gaming computer based off of what a friend of mine built last year. I'm trying to decide what graphics card I should go with a choice between two models.

The models in question are a ASUS GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card and a MSI Twin Frozr Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card. Based upon my research, both graphics cards are relatively the same, but one has 2GB of vRAM, the other 3GB of vRAM.

My question is, which one is truly better for high graphic resolution gaming (Skyrim with mods) given that I'm planning on have 8-16GB of system RAM and a Intel i7-3770 3.4GHz quad core processor.

My apologies if this type of question has already been asked before, but thanks for any help that is given.

V/R
-Ethan

diazalon · Oct 31, 2013

Dragonfire2142 :

Well more gpu memory is mostly used for LOTS of AA or multi monitors so if you are going with just a single monitor then 2gb should be enough, the amount of ram you have in your system makes no difference to the vRam

xhanku · Oct 31, 2013

Well 2gb is more than enough. And get nvidia as you also get to enable Ambient Occlusion, Transparency Supersampling, and Adaptive VSync with Nvidia drivers, which you can't on the 7950.

diazalon · Oct 31, 2013

xhanku :

Agreed get the NVDIA gtx 760

ingtar33 · Oct 31, 2013

Dragonfire2142 :

you're asking 2 questions. here are the answers

1) no single gpu except for possibly a 780/290x/290/titan can use more then 2gb of vram in standard operation. So in single card operation that 3gb of vram on the 7950 won't be an advantage in any situation over the 2gb on the 760. Both cards are almost the same speed in pretty much any game so the difference is their price for the most part.

That said in xfire/SLi both cards are fast enough to utilize MORE ram then 2gb... so the 760 in SLi with 2gb of vram can possibly become ram bottlenecked at certain resolutions. We are most recently seeing this with Battlefield 4, which at larger then 1080p resolutions we are seeing 2gb video cards from both nvidia and amd becoming ram bottlenecked in sli/xfire. So if your plans include, down the line possibly adding a 2nd video card for SLi/xfire you will want to go with the 7950 (assuming of course amd knocks out the xfire issues. recent benches seem to indicate the problem is mostly licked... so i think this is a given)

2) you mention Skyrim. Skyrim is an Nvidia optimized title. If you are planning on playing skyrim exclusively and this gpu purchase is strictly for skyrim get the 760. Nvidia gpus do better in skyrim then AMD gpus. Furthermore 2gb of vram is more then enough for skyrim (so is 8gb of system ram)

leeb2013 · Nov 7, 2013

ingtar33 :

Dragonfire2142 :

you're asking 2 questions. here are the answers

1) no single gpu except for possibly a 780/290x/290/titan can use more then 2gb of vram in standard operation. So in single card operation that 3gb of vram on the 7950 won't be an advantage in any situation over the 2gb on the 760. Both cards are almost the same speed in pretty much any game so the difference is their price for the most part.

That said in xfire/SLi both cards are fast enough to utilize MORE ram then 2gb... so the 760 in SLi with 2gb of vram can possibly become ram bottlenecked at certain resolutions. We are most recently seeing this with Battlefield 4, which at larger then 1080p resolutions we are seeing 2gb video cards from both nvidia and amd becoming ram bottlenecked in sli/xfire. So if your plans include, down the line possibly adding a 2nd video card for SLi/xfire you will want to go with the 7950 (assuming of course amd knocks out the xfire issues. recent benches seem to indicate the problem is mostly licked... so i think this is a given)

2) you mention Skyrim. Skyrim is an Nvidia optimized title. If you are planning on playing skyrim exclusively and this gpu purchase is strictly for skyrim get the 760. Nvidia gpus do better in skyrim then AMD gpus. Furthermore 2gb of vram is more then enough for skyrim (so is 8gb of system ram)

hi, I'm interested to know why those single cards can't use more than 2GB of Vram?

In BF4 with dual 7950's, ultra 1080p 4xmsaa, I've actually not seen more than 2GB Vram used. I saw a link recently that showed more than 2GB is not used until the resolution got up significantly higher, despite DICE's recommendation for 3GB (hence I sold my GTX680 to get the 7950's).

ingtar33 · Nov 8, 2013

leeb2013 :

at 1080p its doubtful bf4 will use more then 2gb of vram... at higher resolutions it certainly does.

What i was saying is the 7950/760 isn't fast enough on it's own to utilize more then 2gb of vram. See... even if a game used more vram, lets say game "X" used 4gb of vram in 1080p resolution, the 7950 and 760 both wouldn't be fast enough of a card to be ram bottlenecked by that requirement. They can't "process" more then 2gb of information in the time it takes the ram to load more information... in short the gpu isn't fast enough to be bottlenecked.

but in xfire/sli the cards SHARE vram... so 2 760s with 2gb of vram doesn't have a pool of 4gb of vram to work on, it has a pool of 2gb of vram mirrored in both cards... the result is the combined processing power for the 760s in SLi most certainly IS fast enough to become ram bottlenecked in the above example of game "X".

We see this in the SLi/xfire numbers for bf4... in bf4, SLi gpus with 2gb of vram are shown time and again to have horrific scaling issues, and even worse stuttering issues. All caused by a critical shortage of vram causing the bottleneck.

This is why xfired 7950/7970/280x gpus match up against the best gpus nvidia has in SLi, and usually beat them while in bf4.

Now as to your exact situation, in 1080p, bf4 doesn't use more then 2gb of vram...

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2GB GraphicsCard vs. 3GB Graphics card if have 8-16GB of system RAM

Dragonfire2142

Honorable

ingtar33

diazalon

Honorable

xhanku

Honorable

diazalon

Honorable

ingtar33

Glorious

leeb2013

Honorable

ingtar33

Glorious

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