Why do they offer more vram if its useless?

[BruceOTB]

why do manufacturers offer more vram in a videocard that cant utilize the additional ram anyway?

palit gts 250 2gb is and example. and then there are lots of 9800gt and 9600gt that has 1gb

 

[Kari]

bigger numbers look better on the marketing material

 

[BruceOTB]

bigger numbers look better on the marketing material

its not this. if its this, then they should put like 512,000,000 bytes. instead of 512mb.

 

[jitpublisher]

its not this. if its this, then they should put like 512,000,000 bytes. instead of 512mb.

Yes it is this. But you have to consider that most people have no idea what 512,000,000 bytes is.
The person who is going to buy a 1 gig or 2 gig video card only understands some cards have half a gig, a gig, or 2 gig of memory.
And they have always heard more memory is better, so they look for the card with the most memory, in simplistic terms that they can understand.
Memory is cheap, so yeah a manufacturer can increase their profit by adding more memory and charging a premium for it, because some people will by it just because it has more. Have seen it over and over and over again at retail stores.
How many times have I heard a sales person say "We just got this new card in 1 (or 2gig) of memory, it is the fastest thing we have on shelf! You just gotta get this one if you really want a powerful card!) And they actually buy the thing, for about double the cost of the same card with half gig of memory that would do the job perfectly fine.

 

[Amg]

higher memoery on cards means more performace at higher res, to some degree over wise its a waste, and for those on 32bit OS I feel sorry for ya

 

[badge]

jitpublisher wrote:

You just gotta get this one if you really want...

...a cosmetics kit for your breasts. There is something wrong with this kind of marketing.

 

[badge]

I wonder if they have this available at Nordstrom's and the like? I'd like to hang at the demo booth.

 

[badge]

Newegg Shell Shocker worthy.

 

[rrr1431]

Well, that's the kind of world we live in...

 

[uncfan_2563]

yep badge. if you've noticed i'm already at the demo booth. they actually are giving out free popcorn too

 

[Gin Fushicho]

More VRam for higher Rez , if you paly at 1920x1200 for example you are going to love that VRam. but if your playing at 1680x105 1GB is good enough , and even lower 512MB is fine.

 

[BruceOTB]

a 9600gt could hardly breathe in 1920x1080, regardless of how much ram you put in it.

 

[rewindlabs]

Its called a consumer....oh look this is a cool card and it has 1GB!!!!! thats how much the GTX 260 has OMG it must be as good!.....this card MUST BE FAST !1!1!1111!!11.....

Anyways.....Vram is all good if your packing a decent GPU....but its pointless to an extent....yeah at 19xx/1xxx resolutions having extra vram for added settings is good but not if the card can barely drive these settings....

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

a 9600gt could hardly breathe in 1920x1080, regardless of how much ram you put in it.

For what game?

You forget that their cards can do 8X SSAA, which when playing HalfLife2 at high res is probably playable on even the GF9600GT, so the extra memory might still come in handy, especially if enabling HDR.

With CUDA thrown into the mix as well, there alot more applications for memory than just as a buffer for graphics.

While it's not something that 99% of users would have a need for, it's also not something people are forced to buy, so whether they get a 512MB model or a 2GB model it doesn't really matter, but having that choice is better than not having the choice iif someone found a use for it. It not like they're forcing people to buy it at a higher price, they offer both higher and lower memory options. It's like an overclocked version of a card, might be the same underlying hardware, but you pay 30% more for a changed bios versus your own overclock?

Since they buy memory in bulk, sometimes with the way the devices are configured they can slap on that larger Mbit per chip memory on pretty cheaply as left over for another line that requires that high bit per pin count (like a 256MB+ 64bit solution etc), so offering it as and option takes little effort on their part.

BTW, the more appropriate question... why do you care if they offer 2GB?
Are you jealous and feel you missed out, or do you need low GDDR prices for a pet project?

 

[tomvertommen]

I can't help wanting to add I noticed in gta IV you can see having more vram allows you to choose better video settings.

You can actually see the amount of vram you'll be needing for particular settings.

Furthermore the price difference between two identical cards except for the amount of vram isn't that big.

 

[rewindlabs]

I can't help wanting to add I noticed in gta IV you can see having more vram allows you to choose better video settings.

You can actually see the amount of vram you'll be needing for particular settings.

Furthermore the price difference between two identical cards except for the amount of vram isn't that big.

Yeahp....but is the card even capable of running these larger textures without losing phenomenal amounts of performance...

 

[tomvertommen]

Well,

I can't answer that...We should test that to know it.

 

[badge]

I use the [strike]My Beautiful Breasts Essentials Kit[/strike] 9600GT 512MB in my HTPC currently. Use it mostly to watch DVDs on a Samsung 40" at 19 x 10. I could use a little more [strike]My Firm and Beautiful Breasts Primer[/strike] VRam. The 256 bit memory interface perks up what I have already and should work nicely with an enhancement.

 

[blackhawk1928]

why do manufacturers offer more vram in a videocard that cant utilize the additional ram anyway?

palit gts 250 2gb is and example. and then there are lots of 9800gt and 9600gt that has 1gb

This is because a lot of stupid mindless brainwashed people will make them tons of profit by gullibly believing that more vram will help

 

[BruceOTB]

For what game?

You forget that their cards can do 8X SSAA, which when playing HalfLife2 at high res is probably playable on even the GF9600GT, so the extra memory might still come in handy, especially if enabling HDR.

With CUDA thrown into the mix as well, there alot more applications for memory than just as a buffer for graphics.

While it's not something that 99% of users would have a need for, it's also not something people are forced to buy, so whether they get a 512MB model or a 2GB model it doesn't really matter, but having that choice is better than not having the choice iif someone found a use for it. It not like they're forcing people to buy it at a higher price, they offer both higher and lower memory options. It's like an overclocked version of a card, might be the same underlying hardware, but you pay 30% more for a changed bios versus your own overclock?

Since they buy memory in bulk, sometimes with the way the devices are configured they can slap on that larger Mbit per chip memory on pretty cheaply as left over for another line that requires that high bit per pin count (like a 256MB+ 64bit solution etc), so offering it as and option takes little effort on their part.

BTW, the more appropriate question... why do you care if they offer 2GB?
Are you jealous and feel you missed out, or do you need low GDDR prices for a pet project?

whats up with you pal? why so offensive? are you hurt cuz ur one of those who bought a gts 2gb?

answering ur question, im just wondering because AFAIK, vram is useless if ur graphics card cant utilize it. (duh)

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeahp....but is the card even capable of running these larger textures without losing phenomenal amounts of performance...

Or conversely is it faster to run uncompressed textures or have the overhead of compression?

It's not an easy thing to check, but it's very dependant on the title and the methods used, and the settings prefered by the user.

Just look at when HL2 was young and the X800XL with the extra memory outperformed the X800Xt and GF6800U in 8XAA scenes because of that, and the GF9600GT is easily more powerful than those 3 cards.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

whats up with you pal? why so offensive? are you hurt cuz ur one of those who bought a gts 2gb?

answering ur question, im just wondering because AFAIK, vram is useless if ur graphics card cant utilize it. (duh)

As useless as your question and your posts about it. [:thegreatgrapeape:6]

 

[edeawillrule]

Or conversely is it faster to run uncompressed textures or have the overhead of compression?

It's not an easy thing to check, but it's very dependant on the title and the methods used, and the settings prefered by the user.

Just look at when HL2 was young and the X800XL with the extra memory outperformed the X800Xt and GF6800U in 8XAA scenes because of that, and the GF9600GT is easily more powerful than those 3 cards.

When HL2 was young 256mb vram was a solid amount and 512mb of vram was almost unheard of.

Here's a good analogy to this whole discussion (kindof anyway): Think of a road in a highly populated area. Which would be best a 2 lane (512mb) or a 4 lane (1gb)? The correct answer is 4 lane because it is needed for fitting all the traffic through.
Now think of a road in an area with a very low population. Which would be best a 2 lane (512mb) or a 4 lane (1gb)? The correct answer in this case would be 2 lane because 4 lanes would be completely unnecessary for the tiny amount of traffic and would never be used.

Now back to the real issue. In a modern game could a gpu use a full gig of memory? If you can play at high resolutions like 1920x1080 and above yes. Can a mid-range gpu (Think Radeon HD 4670/Geforce 9600 GSO) play any modern games at high resolutions? Not at acceptable detail levels.

So what is the point in putting 1 or 2 gigs of memory on low to mid range graphics cards? To people that aren't well versed in graphics cards the more memory they can get on the card the better seems like the most logical conclusion.

In retrospect that analogy I just wrote kindof sucks but hopefully it at least makes some sense.

 

[Gin Fushicho]

When HL2 was young 256mb vram was a solid amount and 512mb of vram was almost unheard of.

Here's a good analogy to this whole discussion (kindof anyway): Think of a road in a highly populated area. Which would be best a 2 lane (512mb) or a 4 lane (1gb)? The correct answer is 4 lane because it is needed for fitting all the traffic through.
Now think of a road in an area with a very low population. Which would be best a 2 lane (512mb) or a 4 lane (1gb)? The correct answer in this case would be 2 lane because 4 lanes would be completely unnecessary for the tiny amount of traffic and would never be used.

Now back to the real issue. In a modern game could a gpu use a full gig of memory? If you can play at high resolutions like 1920x1080 and above yes. Can a mid-range gpu (Think Radeon HD 4670/Geforce 9600 GSO) play any modern games at high resolutions? Not at acceptable detail levels.

So what is the point in putting 1 or 2 gigs of memory on low to mid range graphics cards? To people that aren't well versed in graphics cards the more memory they can get on the card the better seems like the most logical conclusion.

In retrospect that analogy I just wrote kindof sucks but hopefully it at least makes some sense.

I like that analogy , maybe it will get some of things people have been saying through others skulls. lol.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

When HL2 was young 256mb vram was a solid amount and 512mb of vram was almost unheard of...

In retrospect that analogy I just wrote kindof sucks but hopefully it at least makes some sense.

Not a bad analogy, but you miss the point. Not everyone plays modern games, some people buy mid-range cards to play their older CS:S etc games at their highest supported resolution/settings.

For people like that whho cannot afford a higher end card, but still want to play at 8X SSAA, you'll get that cross over where a higher power card with 512MB of memory might get limited whereas a less power core card might be more than sufficient for the game as long as it has space for AA with HDR.

I'm in no way saying this is the common use, or even the best use of someone's money, but there are situations where it won't be useless and may be fine for the application.

Just depends on the app and situation. Same with GPGPU or 3D Workstation situations, not the norm, but would be useful for large data sets.