Video card suggestion (VRAM and more)

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StJimmy_96

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Nov 18, 2015
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Hi everyone, I'm here to ask the community a suggestion about video cards.

My problem is that the video card I'm using right now (Radeon HD 6850 1GB) is giving me some trouble in terms of performance. For example, in order to play, I must run GTA V at medium-low settings and not even in full HD. Another example is with the latest Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 which I can't run in full HD even on the lowest settings or in HD with medium-high settings.

To make it short: this card is becoming outdated and I feel the need of replacing it.
My budget is about 150 € and I'm actually interested in AMD R7 370.

The point is: is this a right choice ? And if so, should I buy the 2GB or 4GB version ?
I know what VRAM is but I have never tested pratically how it changes performances on video cards.
I have the feeling that, in 2015, buying a 2GB video card to make an upgrade is pretty pointless and a waste of money, but I'd like to have some more opinion about this.

If you need to know here are my computer's details:
_Intel Core i5 3550 @ 3.3GHz
_(2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 RAM
_Gigabyte B75-3DV MotherBoard
_AMD Radeon HD 6850 (1 GB )
_Corsair CX600 PSU
Thank you in advice,
 
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clutchc
You've just about covered the whole VRAM issue perfectly. I presume you game at 1920x1080. More textures, DoF, A-A, etc still takes more processing and rendering power from the GPU. And the future games' advances in graphics won't make your gfx card any more powerful. Still, if the price difference where you buy from isn't all that much, I guess there's no harm going for the 4GB version...
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clutchc

clutchc

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You left out the make/model of your power supply. That will be the determining factor. However if you are limited to 150 €, the R9-370 is probably the best choice. Since it uses less watts than the HD 6850, that should be OK with whatever PSU you have now. Here is a general comparison between the R7-370 and HD 6850: http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-HD-6850-vs-AMD-R7-370/m7743vsm30480
It should be a worthwhile upgrade.
As to the VRAM size, I would stay with 2GB. A card of that class won't be able to utilize much more than that at 1080p resolution.
 
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StJimmy_96

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Nov 18, 2015
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I'm sorry, I forgot to add the PSU. I just edited the post with it. However it is a 600W Corsair CX600.
Anyway you said that the R9-370 should be the best choice but I really can't find any benchmark or review, did you maybe mean the R7-370 you mentioned later ?
By the way from what I can see now the 4GB version costs something like 20 € more than the 2GB card. So I guess I could spend 20 more euros for some more VRAM, maybe for future gaming requirements (?).

 
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clutchc

clutchc

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Typo on my part. Yes, I meant the R7-370. The 600W Corsair will allow you to go for a more powerful gfx card, but probably not at 150 €. If you want to raise your budget by that 20 € or so, look into the GTX 950. It is a tad faster than the R7-370: http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/AMD-R7-370-vs-Nvidia-GTX-950/m30480vs3510
It actually uses less wattage than the R7-370, but I didn't mention it at first due to your budget.
 
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StJimmy_96

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Nov 18, 2015
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Well I guess I found what I was looking for, talking about the model and I thank you for that.
The only left out question is: what's the difference between 4GB and 2GB videocards ?
I mean... I know with more VRAM you can bind more textures to your videocard memory so that it can access video resources faster than reading them from the disk everytime and I understand with a budget graphic card (like R7 370 or GTX 950) you really can't run games at maximum resolution and quality due to the card's speed and effiency limits (there wouldn't be 2000 € videocards otherwise) and, since that, you won't need 4GB of VRAM, since only ultra high textures and shaders would use that much memory space.
But, if everything I said 'till now is correct, how about the future ? What I mean is if I could make the lifetime of this R7\GTX l'm about to buy longer if I buy the 4GB version ?
 
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clutchc

clutchc

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You've just about covered the whole VRAM issue perfectly. I presume you game at 1920x1080. More textures, DoF, A-A, etc still takes more processing and rendering power from the GPU. And the future games' advances in graphics won't make your gfx card any more powerful. Still, if the price difference where you buy from isn't all that much, I guess there's no harm going for the 4GB version...
 
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