Difference between 1gb and 2gb cards?

[ElloImJoe]

Hey, looking to upgrade my computer with a budget haha

I'm wondering if current games would actually use/need the 2gb of memory or if I should be fine with 1gb.. Hoping to run these on max, if not near max settings.. (Ex. Guild Wars 2, Battlefield 3, Far Cry 3, etc.)

I know the 2gb is going to be better than 1gb but just wondering if it will be noticeable/ worth the extra $

 

[Sunius]

Depends on the card. Generally, the cards that will max out said games don't have a 1 GB option. Which card were you looking at?

 

[ElloImJoe]

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2316882&CatId=7387

Mainly curious if its worth that much just because of the 2gb

 

[esrever]

the 1gb should be enough. If you become stressed, lower anti aliasing.

 

[Sunius]

2 GB is definitely an advantage for that card. Games like Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3 reportedly use more than 1 GB of VRAM. It's a very decent card, though I doubt you'll be able to totally max out said games. As esrever said, you might need to reduce anti aliasing.

 

[ghostconn]

It's hard to explain lol.. a 1gb card with a bus of 256bit vs another card with the same clock settigns and same ram size but a bus of 448bit would be way better at anti alasing and geometry texture scaling ect.... READ THIS MUCH BETTER TO UNDERSTAND THEN MY GIBBERISH TALK LOL

Just because a GPU has a wider memory bus does not mean however that it has more memory bandwidth.
As an example, the GTX 260 has a 448 bit memory bus and 111.9GB/s bandwidth where the 4890 has a 256 bit memory bus and 115.2GB/s bandwidth.
This is because the 4890 uses GDDR5 RAM as compared to GDDR3 on the GTX 260.

^ that was posted by outlaw6669

 

[camohanna]

It is worth more because if better shaders, clock speeds etc. The amount of gb's it has is just one part of the equation that depends on the price of the card. The higher all these things are, the more expensive it will be. Dont be fooled by the amount of gb's. $50 cards can have 1Gb while high end cards such as the nVidia GTX 580 have 1.5Gb of memory and they are just as good as the ATI counterpart, the HD 7870 which has 2Gb of memory. Hope this clears it up.

This is the GPU Hierachy- http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html

 

[JKatwyopc]

If you are talking about the same GPU then having more video memory is only a benefit if you are playing games that need the extra memory. It doesn't affect the performance of the card at all. As was already stated by Sunius, Battlefield 3 and Far Cry 3 can use more than 1 GB of video memory so if you are playing those types of games then the extra memory is worth the price, otherwise it's not.

 

[swifty_morgan]

if you're gaming at 1600 or above resolution buy the 2gig card.

 

[Sumukh_Bhagat]

Your VRAM usage depends upon on Settings you play, like you'll play Far Cry 3 in Ultra 1080p you'll reach 2024 MB usage.

So it depends upon on the card, Yes the Card. Because if it is a High End, it will probably be more than 1 GB. More than High-end then it will come with 3, 4 and even with 6GB.

You'll need the 2GB version of 7850. Yes, that Twin Frozr will work.
But I'd suggest you this : http://recs.richrelevance.com/rrserver/click?a=3e89ae564e77b361&vg=f5607066-7792-4fe4-3695-2a4eda721e0b&pti=1&pa=content1&hpi=2247&stn=ClickCP&rti=1&sgs=&u=287594582012120502041611720040123&uguid=f55f7066-7792-4fe4-3695-2a4eda721e0b&channelId=WEB&s=287594582012120502041611720040123&pg=1565&p=2316880&ind=2&ct=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tigerdirect.com%2Fapplications%2FSearchTools%2Fitem-details.asp%3FEdpNo%3D2316880%26csid%3D_61