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6GB 780 vs. 980

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  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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October 7, 2014 2:42:16 PM

Hi all,

I have an EVGA 780 6GB SC I bought over the summer that just barely missed being eligible for Step-Up. I'm debating whether to sell it and get a 980 or not. They're going for almost what I paid for it on eBay right now.

I'm a 1920x1200 single monitor gamer currently (on a dual display rig) but I wanted the ability to do the triple monitor surround thing in the future. Basically the reason I bought the card was future proofing and having the ability to run almost anything at maxed settings with great image quality.

Are there any downsides to selling and getting the 980? It seems to be significantly faster than a non-Ti 780 but has less memory - I've seen reports that games are coming out that are already up against 6GB on maxed settings (Shadow of Mordor for example). That's really the only thing that worries me - that I'll be stuck a year or two from now running out of VRAM on new games.

More about : 6gb 780 980

October 7, 2014 2:44:09 PM

dont get a GTX980, instead get another GTX 780 6GB.
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October 7, 2014 2:52:54 PM

the extra ram makes no difference what so ever. it's a marketing gimmick. it makes no difference what so ever. zero. if the GPU itself was deisgned to use 3GB of VRAM than that's all it will use. you were tricked out of your money. sorry.

get a GTX 980, OC it, and be happy.
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October 7, 2014 2:56:58 PM

terroralpha said:
the extra ram makes no difference what so ever. it's a marketing gimmick. it makes no difference what so ever. zero. if the GPU itself was deisgned to use 3GB of VRAM than that's all it will use. you were tricked out of your money. sorry.

get a GTX 980, OC it, and be happy.


Actually no that is not correct, the 780 does use it, if i needs to, for example in 4k it uses the more memory.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/69713-palit-gefo...
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October 7, 2014 3:02:21 PM

M0j0jojo said:
terroralpha said:
the extra ram makes no difference what so ever. it's a marketing gimmick. it makes no difference what so ever. zero. if the GPU itself was deisgned to use 3GB of VRAM than that's all it will use. you were tricked out of your money. sorry.

get a GTX 980, OC it, and be happy.


Actually no that is not correct, the 780 does use it, if i needs to, for example in 4k it uses the more memory.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/69713-palit-gefo...


so, where in this benchmark do you see that the 6GB of memory is actually helping the card? even with the factory overclock that the Palit GTX 780 6GB comes with, it is still slower than the GTX 780 Ti by about 10%, which is about the same margin (+/- 2%) by which a regular GTX 780 OC is slower. sorry, you got tricked too.

EDIT:

here isa much better benchmark to go by:


BF 4 in 4K res test, includes rated from a stock GTX 780, stock GTX 780 Ti, and an overclocked GTX 780 6GB. it is just a bit faster than a stock GTX 780 by still slower than a GTX 780 Ti. the modest speed advantage is due to the factory overclock.
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October 7, 2014 3:08:44 PM

Here is one older test that shows little performance difference between 2gb and 4gb of vram. Including triple displays.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Pe...

When it comes time to game on a 4k monitor or on triple monitors, you are going to need serious graphics capability which, as of today will need two GTX970 class cards in sli or better.

If it is essentially an even trade, sure, get the GTX980(if you can find one)

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October 7, 2014 3:11:49 PM

terroralpha said:
M0j0jojo said:
terroralpha said:
the extra ram makes no difference what so ever. it's a marketing gimmick. it makes no difference what so ever. zero. if the GPU itself was deisgned to use 3GB of VRAM than that's all it will use. you were tricked out of your money. sorry.

get a GTX 980, OC it, and be happy.


Actually no that is not correct, the 780 does use it, if i needs to, for example in 4k it uses the more memory.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/69713-palit-gefo...


so, where in this benchmark do you see that the 6GB of memory is actually helping the card? even with the factory overclock that the Palit GTX 780 6GB comes with, it is still slower than the GTX 780 Ti by about 10%, which is about the same margin (+/- 2%) by which a regular GTX 780 OC is slower. sorry, you got tricked too.


Im actually talking about the SLI one, not the single gpu. if you read my first post, i said not to get a GTX 980 and instead get another GTX780 6GB.
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October 7, 2014 3:14:13 PM

geofelt said:
Here is one older test that shows little performance difference between 2gb and 4gb of vram. Including triple displays.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Pe...

When it comes time to game on a 4k monitor or on triple monitors, you are going to need serious graphics capability which, as of today will need two GTX970 class cards in sli or better.

If it is essentially an even trade, sure, get the GTX980(if you can find one)



exactly!!! the link you posted shows ZERO performance difference in games. only the heaven benchmark shows a difference at minimum frame rates (4 vs 11 FPS) but that could just be a fluke. sometimes background processes could cause a lag spike in games. happens to me.
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October 7, 2014 3:21:22 PM

M0j0jojo said:
terroralpha said:
M0j0jojo said:
terroralpha said:
the extra ram makes no difference what so ever. it's a marketing gimmick. it makes no difference what so ever. zero. if the GPU itself was deisgned to use 3GB of VRAM than that's all it will use. you were tricked out of your money. sorry.

get a GTX 980, OC it, and be happy.


Actually no that is not correct, the 780 does use it, if i needs to, for example in 4k it uses the more memory.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/69713-palit-gefo...


so, where in this benchmark do you see that the 6GB of memory is actually helping the card? even with the factory overclock that the Palit GTX 780 6GB comes with, it is still slower than the GTX 780 Ti by about 10%, which is about the same margin (+/- 2%) by which a regular GTX 780 OC is slower. sorry, you got tricked too.


Im actually talking about the SLI one, not the single gpu. if you read my first post, i said not to get a GTX 980 and instead get another GTX780 6GB.


and if you read my post, you would see that i meant that the the extra RAM does absolutely NOTHING. if he wants to SLI he may as well get a GTX 780 with 3GB of RAM for SLI. wont make a difference. the extra RAM simply can't be used by the graphic card. it was not designed to use it. putting a Porsche transmission on a Civic won't make it do quarter mile runs in under 12 seconds. and that's that.

manufacturers spend an extra $30 on VRAM to bump the price of their cards by $150+ and people keep buying em for some reason.
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October 7, 2014 3:38:27 PM

terroralpha said:
M0j0jojo said:
terroralpha said:
the extra ram makes no difference what so ever. it's a marketing gimmick. it makes no difference what so ever. zero. if the GPU itself was deisgned to use 3GB of VRAM than that's all it will use. you were tricked out of your money. sorry.

get a GTX 980, OC it, and be happy.


Actually no that is not correct, the 780 does use it, if i needs to, for example in 4k it uses the more memory.

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/69713-palit-gefo...


so, where in this benchmark do you see that the 6GB of memory is actually helping the card? even with the factory overclock that the Palit GTX 780 6GB comes with, it is still slower than the GTX 780 Ti by about 10%, which is about the same margin (+/- 2%) by which a regular GTX 780 OC is slower. sorry, you got tricked too.

EDIT:

here isa much better benchmark to go by:


BF 4 in 4K res test, includes rated from a stock GTX 780, stock GTX 780 Ti, and an overclocked GTX 780 6GB. it is just a bit faster than a stock GTX 780 by still slower than a GTX 780 Ti. the modest speed advantage is due to the factory overclock.


It's actually just that specific game at those specific settings (especially no AA) which doesn't utilise more than 3gb vram. Other games, settings and resolutions do. So no, it's not wasted to have more than 3gb vram, it just depends on the game and settings.
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October 7, 2014 3:46:25 PM

More VRam = Bigger Display at better quality
More Vram does not mean better FPS

Simply Put what are you after? A large display to watch 4k movies or a Large Display Gaming rig to play on multiple monitors?

Quality & FPS getting a balance is the fun part.
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October 7, 2014 3:54:10 PM

OK I think everyone here covered everything mostly
As for the GTX 980 VRAM not being enough for a game like shadow of Mordor you should check some benchmarks already posted on YouTube using the less powerful yet still very powerful 970 and you will find it running at 79 fps with all setting ramped up to max
So is games going to need more VRAM in the future not technically if you use the same resolution in the future only if you change your display to triple monitors or 4k or something that you will need the extra VRAM
And yeah I think you should defiantly get it if that's what you want not to mention the extra VRAM is really a publicity stunt it doesn't work
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October 7, 2014 9:29:22 PM

More vram doesn't give you better performance, that shouldn't even be up for argument, but it will negatively impact performance if you don't have an adequate amount of it with whatever settings you use for the game. The thing is, is the OP thinking of the near future in ultra settings at higher resolutions or do they only care about the present? Is it more cost effective for them to buy another 6gb 780 rather than just 1 980 ti (or maybe 2) or whatever the next card is going to be for that near future? Probably. Call it a marketing gimmick or poor optimization, to some extent it may be both and manufacturers are more than likely holding back on the amount of ram integrated into the new cards to spur upgrades in the next iteration, but running out of vram can only be offset by turning down the settings and not all people want to turn down those settings.
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October 9, 2014 11:34:53 PM

leeb2013 said:
It's actually just that specific game at those specific settings (especially no AA) which doesn't utilise more than 3gb vram. Other games, settings and resolutions do. So no, it's not wasted to have more than 3gb vram, it just depends on the game and settings.


not a single person has produced any evidence, in any review or benchmark, at any resolution or settings, that shows any advantage of having 6GB or VRAM on a GTX 770 or GTX 780. the reason i linked the benchmark to THAT specific game was because the other guy mentioned it.

show me something that says otherwise or don't bother posting speculation.
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October 9, 2014 11:50:32 PM

You can have the fastest gpu with the newest architecture, and the advantage that a somewhat slower, older card with more vram will have by not running out of if is no stuttering from overfill and not having to offload some of the cached textures, shaders or whatever off to the much slower method of combining it with system ram or total system memory. Looks like ports are going to start to be brute forced from now on, unfortunately. Yeah, I'm not happy about it either, but as I said before on here, unless the software is dissected, disproved as being so necessarily resource intensive and pressure is placed upon management and publishers to reverse this trend in development (which is likely tied into Fordist like production methods that want the most cost efficient types of turnover, it's why there's things like crunchtime), what can be done about it?

I don't think anyone in here has argued that more vram means more performance, as opposed to say good memory with a healthy overclock. Just that not enough means bad performance.
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