EVGA Announces 6 GB GeForce GTX 780 Graphics Cards
Finally, there are 6 GB GTX 780 cards on the horizon.
EVGA has announced that it is expanding its lineup of GTX 780 graphics cards, which because the GTX 780 has been on the market for quite a while now, may come as a surprise. Fortunately, the change that's incoming is actually a rather notable one – namely that the company is building 6 GB variants of the GTX 780 card.
The cards will come in a number of different versions, including a model with Nvidia's NVTTM cooler, as well as a model with EVGA's own ACX cooler.
Beyond the doubled frame buffer, these graphics cards won't feature any further changes.
EVGA has also announced that it will be running its "90-day Step-Up" program. The idea behind this program is that if you bought your current EVGA-made graphics card within 90 days of the step-up program starting, you can upgrade your card to a GTX 780 6 GB by trading in your 'old' card.
Pricing of the 6 GB GTX 780 cards will start at $550, with availability scheduled for somewhere in the next few weeks.
We can also expect to see 6 GB variants of the GTX 780 Ti arrive soon, though it isn't clear yet when those are coming.
would be more sensible than a 6GB version of the older 780. Someone who wants
more than 3GB is likely to be using multiple displays, 4K, 3D, or some combination,
in which case they're the kind of people who'd probably prefer the best products
available (given the cost of the displays involved). If this was a 6GB 780 Ti, I'd be
recommending it to various people I know for certain CUDA tasks that don't need
64bit fp, but since it's only a 780, one might infer that perhaps 6GB Tis could be in
the pipeline aswell, in which case it makes sense to wait a bit & see.
Ian.
This is 100% rumor and conjecture. As we've seen time and again, just because it's newer has a bigger number doesn't mean it's better. Nvidia hasn't even confirmed the model naming scheme yet, but I'd bet that since it's a brand new die and new generation of chip, they won't stick with GTX8xx, if only because it'd be so similar to the GTX8800, but that's just a guess.
Here's to being in before the "you don't need that much VRAM" comments while people are complain about Titanfall needing 3GB+ to support the high-res textures.
I'm more interested in these newer 780s about 4-6mo's from now when Nvidia *does* have some new stuff out. I'd like to see the prices drop 15-20% and then they'll be awesome for real-time rendering in my newly-installed Unreal Engine
I checked, the Titan-Z is two Titans with 6GB each, so not really a 12GB card.
Btw, interesting to note that when the 780Ti was first announced, the PR led
many to believe a 12GB version would indeed be part of the lineup, eg. see:
http://www.eteknix.com/nvidia-announces-gtx-780-ti-12gb-graphics-card/
Whatever the reporters were told at the time, if the info is true then it's very
likely we'll see at least a 6GB 780 Ti at some point.
Ian.
hue
someone has read a good article
someone has read a good article
That's a terrible article. It's full of outdated and misguiding information. The gist of the comments on VRAM are "you don't need it if you don't want to run Ultra". That's hardly sound advice.
3GB of VRAM is probably plenty right now, but I have 4GB in my SLI setup and I can say for certain that the 3GB envelope is quickly being pushed.
The idea that you only "need" the bare-bones power to just barely run a game on high (or a 5-year old game on Ultra) isn't good building advice. Most people don't want to just barely be able to hit 60 or 120FPS; they want it to be a solid, Ultra-quality 60 or 120FPS.
In fact, that article comes to the conclusion that you don't need more than 1GB of VRAM. That's true, if you want to run on med-high settings on 1yr or older games.
someone has read a good article
That's a terrible article. It's full of outdated and misguiding information. The gist of the comments on VRAM are "you don't need it if you don't want to run Ultra". That's hardly sound advice.
3GB of VRAM is probably plenty right now, but I have 4GB in my SLI setup and I can say for certain that the 3GB envelope is quickly being pushed.
The idea that you only "need" the bare-bones power to just barely run a game on high (or a 5-year old game on Ultra) isn't good building advice. Most people don't want to just barely be able to hit 60 or 120FPS; they want it to be a solid, Ultra-quality 60 or 120FPS.
In fact, that article comes to the conclusion that you don't need more than 1GB of VRAM. That's true, if you want to run on med-high settings on 1yr or older games.
I would hardly call that article terrible. People who choose to stay informed may have known a great deal about what was posted. Others, not so much. There was obviously, a lot of time put into that article.
Also, many who initially start off saying they want the best blah blah blah quickly begin back-tracking once they see how expensive their dreams are(the last build I did in the example). I would argue that spending $700.00+ on a GPU for gaming is crazy. The price that you pay to get that extra performance couldn't be justified, rationally. A system at half the cost will get you 75% of that performance. Your better off investing in the core of the rig and updating the GPU(s) every two years or whichever architecture is just behind the latest & greatest, in my opinion.
I've seen what the highest end provides in the builds I do when compared to a rig like mine. It just isn't worth it, if you have a budget. I play BF4 on High settings and have recently tried the Skyrim HD texture pack. Even on my 560Ti, both are beautiful and very playable....48 & 28 FPS respectively, give or take.
Maybe they're thinking more of those who want large VRAM for modded games at high detal like
Skyrim, rather than someone necessarily using 4K. It'd be ideal for modded Skyrim, but the wrong
card anyway; if I was playing Skyrim and wanted lots of RAM, I'd rather the card was a 780Ti, not
a 780. I don't understand why they've done this to just the older 780, seems like the wrong target to
me, though I suppose two 780 6GB SLI would be cost effective.
Doomtomb, the utility of large RAM is not solely related to display resolution. Heavily modded games
can easily exceed 3GB, Skyrim being a good example (read the Skyrim best-pics thread on OCN). If
one is thus doing both (modded Skyrim @ 4K, even just a single display), then more than 3GB really
does make a lot of sense.
Ian.