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Will 2GB VRAM be enough for a couple years?

Tags:
  • Superclocked
  • GTX 770
  • 1080p
  • RAM
  • GB
  • Geforce
  • Graphics
  • Gtx
  • GPUs
  • VRAM
  • Graphics Cards
  • 1920x1080
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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June 21, 2014 2:15:24 PM

Hi, I am planning on getting a GeForce GTX770 SuperClocked 2GB. Will the 2GBs be enough for a couple years? And is it a good graphics card? I have a 1920x1080 screen by the way, with 12 GB of RAM.

Thanks,
-A person

More about : 2gb vram couple years

a b U Graphics card
June 21, 2014 2:17:40 PM

You'll be playing fine throughout the years with that resolution and that graphics card. You don't need more than 1GB unless you have resolutions higher than 1080p, or are playing games that are extremely graphic intensive.
June 21, 2014 2:42:41 PM

TechCIDLC said:
You'll be playing fine throughout the years with that resolution and that graphics card. You don't need more than 1GB unless you have resolutions higher than 1080p, or are playing games that are extremely graphic intensive.




According to GPU-Z, I was just using about 3.5 GB of VRAM playing Titanfall at 1080p.
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a b U Graphics card
June 21, 2014 2:46:24 PM

2GB will be fine unless you are using some insane texture mods or running extreme amounts of AA.
a b U Graphics card
June 23, 2014 6:12:52 AM

Peter Steele said:
TechCIDLC said:
You'll be playing fine throughout the years with that resolution and that graphics card. You don't need more than 1GB unless you have resolutions higher than 1080p, or are playing games that are extremely graphic intensive.




According to GPU-Z, I was just using about 3.5 GB of VRAM playing Titanfall at 1080p.


To be more precise, you had 3.5GB of data buffered to your graphics card's VRAM. Actually using it is a whole different matter. Also, not all of it is from the game, the OS dynamically assigns VRAM, which means part of that is also available if needed.

Back in the days when Microsoft released Windows Vista's superfetch, people would fret about it and foresee the need for 32GB RAM in average PCs because windows was using all of their uber PC's 16GB. In time, most people came to understand that the data was buffered to the system memory in order to try and make use of the idle resources, and not because it was actually needed.

Nowadays, we live a similar situation with VRAM. People keep reporting high VRAM usage, which should certainly be expected. If your card has 4GB VRAM , why wouldn't the game load more data in advance? Does that mean you actually need that? Nope. There have been many cases where a game was suspected of needing more VRAM, but then again cards with an oversized buffer performed exactly the same.

I can't seem to find it now, but I remember once seeing a report on resolution x VRAM usage where it was found that even at 1440p, the frame buffer itself was rather small (in the 500mb range). VRAM usage does increase dramatically when filters are applied, and that does scale with resolution, so one could argue that if you are going for super high resolution and image quality, you might need more VRAM. Still, you are likely going to hit a GPU capacity ceiling much sooner.
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