What GPU brand to choose? and 2gb vs 4gb?

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kiwi213

kiwi213

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Aug 21, 2014
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Hello,

After owning nvidia all my life, I recently decided to go for an Gigabyte R9 280x because it was cheaper than the 770. Turns out the card was faulty (artifacting and bsoding) so I got a full refund on it.

I'm planing to spend a bit extra and go for the 770. My question is, what brand to go for? The cheapest seem to be asus and gigabyte at around 229 pounds but I want to go for quality, as gigabyte has recently failed me with that R9.

Another question is, I'm gaming right now at 1050p (1680x1050, I know, it sucks, but I'm planning a 1080p upgrade). Should I go for the 2gb version or 4 gb version?

I want to be future-proof for at least a year, before upgrading to a new one. I'm mostly playing BF4 and some MMOs, but from what I've heard BF4 pushes to around 2.5gb vram.

Rest of the system:

FX6350@4.2
8GB DDR3 1333
Gigabyte 970a-UD3P
Corsair CX600
SSD+HDD
 
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Z


Go with 4GB if you don't mind the extra bit of increased price. I have a 2GB 770, it's more than powerful enough to run everything I can throw at it in max settings, but in certain games I have to turn the texture quality down a notch simply because I only have 2GB of VRAM.

New games are starting to recommend 3GB of VRAM as the minimum for max settings, Battlefield 4 wants 3GB for max texture quality (although I run it just fine with 2GB), The Witcher 3 completely locks out ultra settings unless you have 3GB of VRAM, Titanfall will stutter badly on insane texture quality with only 2GB of VRAM, and Watchdogs can use around 3.5GB of VRAM...
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EasyLover

EasyLover

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Dec 30, 2013
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I've played BF4 on High settings using EVGA GTX 660 SSC 2GB version without any performance issue. My advice would be to wait as 800 series from nVIDIA is expecgtedly being released in Sep-14. So, why not wait till then and either grab 800 series card or buy 770/780 at lowered price then.

Anyhow brand wise, your options are EVGA, Asus. Just compare the core clock speed and price of both. go with cheaper one or with the one having higher clock rate.

It would depend upon the game and settings. If you wish to play Watch Dogs at ultra settings, 2GB version cards will cut it for sure. Playing Watch Dogs at High on GTX 660 gives 30 FPS smooth though.
 
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Z

zaysk

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Mar 10, 2013
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Go with 4GB if you don't mind the extra bit of increased price. I have a 2GB 770, it's more than powerful enough to run everything I can throw at it in max settings, but in certain games I have to turn the texture quality down a notch simply because I only have 2GB of VRAM.

New games are starting to recommend 3GB of VRAM as the minimum for max settings, Battlefield 4 wants 3GB for max texture quality (although I run it just fine with 2GB), The Witcher 3 completely locks out ultra settings unless you have 3GB of VRAM, Titanfall will stutter badly on insane texture quality with only 2GB of VRAM, and Watchdogs can use around 3.5GB of VRAM if you have enough of it. Sure performance may be "acceptable" with 2GB, but you're going to run into stuttering as textures are constantly loaded in and out of your maxed out VRAM.

Older games like Fallout and Skyrim will suck up as much VRAM as you can give them if they're modded out with HQ textures, I literally max out my VRAM the instant I load up my game in Skyrim.

The list of games that want at least 3GB of VRAM is only going to grow with time, so if you want to be future-proofed to the best of your ability, get 4GB of VRAM. Don't make the mistake I did and listen to some random on this forum that says "you don't need more than 2GB of VRAM for 1080p" That may have been true last year, or even earlier in this year, but now the newer games want at least 3GB.
 
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