3gb vs 4gb,amd vs nvidia

[Karthik Endhiran]

hi guys i am looking to buy a graphics card of 3gb or 4gb within the $400 range. it is only for gaming and i wont do sli. but i have a monitor of 1080p and 144fps limit. i want to play everything maxed out and have the card atlest for 3-4 years. is it better to go for 4gb or anytihng lower is enough. also suggest the pros and cons of each card please. i am open for both nvidia and amd cards.
specs:
mobo: intel DH67VR
Processor:Intel i5 2400(3.1GHz)
ram:2X4gb(1333mHz)

 

[Hussein Bazzi]

ok here is what u should consider...you will have to pay either 350-600 dollars to pick one of those
you want a single card that will last you 3-4 years playing them maxed out as much as possible.....
so you narrowed down your choice to Nvidia: GTX 770 (4GB version), GTX 780 (3GB), GTX 780ti (3GB) the ti version i a bit pricey at 600-700 dollars
AMD: R9 280x (3GB), R9 290x, (4GB)
as for your CPU and RAM ther fine they wont bottleneck any of these cards. Its not about the 3GB or 4GB that make the card better, unless you are playing on multiple displays then you will need that card that can crank up 4GB. I was playing battlefield 4 earlier today and i hit 1975MB video memory on a single display running on 1080p maxed out 80+ FPS I am using a GTX 780. So my advice is to go with that. The GTX 770 is better than the R9 280x but it has less VRAM. If you want the taste of both sides definitely go with the GTX 780 which cost me 500 dollars and it will last 4-5 years

 

[jmeister]

You could go the route I would take, and get two 7950's off ebay for arround $200, and crossfire them. That would be the most cost effective. Otherwise, if you're scared to get anything used off ebay, just get a r9 290 off newegg.

 

[lowriderflow]

now that the mining craze is done driving up AMD prices, i think a 280x is your sweet spot. they can be had for $300 after rebate, and come with 3 free games! the free games promotion just started this week, and you get to choose from a list of about 10.

 

[Karthik Endhiran]

ok here is what u should consider...you will have to pay either 350-600 dollars to pick one of those
you want a single card that will last you 3-4 years playing them maxed out as much as possible.....
so you narrowed down your choice to Nvidia: GTX 770 (4GB version), GTX 780 (3GB), GTX 780ti (3GB) the ti version i a bit pricey at 600-700 dollars
AMD: R9 280x (3GB), R9 290x, (4GB)
as for your CPU and RAM ther fine they wont bottleneck any of these cards. Its not about the 3GB or 4GB that make the card better, unless you are playing on multiple displays then you will need that card that can crank up 4GB. I was playing battlefield 4 earlier today and i hit 1975MB video memory on a single display running on 1080p maxed out 80+ FPS I am using a GTX 780. So my advice is to go with that. The GTX 770 is better than the R9 280x but it has less VRAM. If you want the taste of both sides definitely go with the GTX 780 which cost me 500 dollars and it will last 4-5 years

780 is really out of y budget but i saw benchmarks with 280x outperforming 770. also does amd have features like nvidia's geforce experience. i have used only nvidia cards till date. and does amd card have any cooling problems.280x also has 4gb.

 

[bhuvanesh123]

are you going to play competitively?? BF3,BF4,COD?? like international level?? because 1080p i dun think 4gb is necessary, gtx 760 will do in almost most of the cases now, get 770 or 280x to be on the safer side.....Dun go to flipkart, go to ritche street if you are in Chennai.

 

[Karthik Endhiran]

are you going to play competitively?? BF3,BF4,COD?? like international level?? because 1080p i dun think 4gb is necessary, gtx 760 will do in almost most of the cases now, get 770 or 280x to be on the safer side.....Dun go to flipkart, go to ritche street if you are in Chennai.

i am in chennai and the budget is 35kto36K.what are the card available.i am not into competitive playing

 

[bhuvanesh123]

R9 290(non x), from sapphire is the best for that money. Or wait for the maxwell's to release, and dun go AMD route please. the 14.4 beta simply sucks. shell out little more for drastically better performance. get 760 gtx sli, since its 18k galaxy. Scaling is awesome and 2*760gtx >= 780ti. 2 GB is more than enoough to push 2k gaming. So its definitely enough to max out all games 100fps ultra for the future.

 

[Karthik Endhiran]

R9 290(non x), from sapphire is the best for that money. Or wait for the maxwell's to release, and dun go AMD route please. the 14.4 beta simply sucks. shell out little more for drastically better performance. get 760 gtx sli, since its 18k galaxy. Scaling is awesome and 2*760gtx >= 780ti. 2 GB is more than enoough to push 2k gaming. So its definitely enough to max out all games 100fps ultra for the future.

i wont sli. but is 2gb enough or should i get the 4gb.

 

[Hussein Bazzi]

2GB wont be enough...i told u earlier that i reached 1975MB usage on the 780 @1080p...get the r8 280x then...i dunno about the r9 290 and avoid SLI keep that heat away from your system especially having concerns on budget

 

[bhuvanesh123]

For 1080p, No need at all, i have dell ultra-sharp 1440p with 270x 2gb, playing all games except crysis and metro, in ultra. Memory is like a water tank, processing information is done by your GPU cores, only if the tap is bigger(GPU cores), there is any use for more water in the container.... sorry for the analogy, but 1080p has no need 4gb, because the cores render graphics faster than info queuing for being processed... hope you can understand the process behind it.

 

[Karthik Endhiran]

2GB wont be enough...i told u earlier that i reached 1975MB usage on the 780 @1080p...get the r8 280x then...i dunno about the r9 290 and avoid SLI keep that heat away from your system especially having concerns on budget

shall i go for the non reference model
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2151&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

 

[Karthik Endhiran]

For 1080p, No need at all, i have dell ultra-sharp 1440p with 270x 2gb, playing all games except crysis and metro, in ultra. Memory is like a water tank, processing information is done by your GPU cores, only if the tap is bigger(GPU cores), there is any use for more water in the container.... sorry for the analogy, but 1080p has no need 4gb, because the cores render graphics faster than info queuing for being processed... hope you can understand the process behind it.

i am future proofing too, for demanding games like watch dogs,ac unity,cod,nfs

 

[bhuvanesh123]

For 1080p, No need at all, i have dell ultra-sharp 1440p with 270x 2gb, playing all games except crysis and metro, in ultra. Memory is like a water tank, processing information is done by your GPU cores, only if the tap is bigger(GPU cores), there is any use for more water in the container.... sorry for the analogy, but 1080p has no need 4gb, because the cores render graphics faster than info queuing for being processed... hope you can understand the process behind it.

i am future proofing too, for demanding games like watch dogs,ac unity,cod,nfs

wait for nvidia maxwell based cards, if future proofing is your objective.

 

[renz496]

also does amd have features like nvidia's geforce experience.

not exactly the same but they have something similar. and as usual they let third party company to handle most of it. but as of date they don't have something similar to Shadow Play.

and does amd card have any cooling problems

all non reference should have no problem. for reference based card try avoid 290 or 290X.

280x also has 4gb

i have never seen 280X or 7970 with 4GB VRAM. standard configuration is 3GB. but when board partner adds more VRAM to it they usually double the amount although making 280X with 4GB of VRAM is not impossible

 

[Karthik Endhiran]

also does amd have features like nvidia's geforce experience.

not exactly the same but they have something similar. and as usual they let third party company to handle most of it. but as of date they don't have something similar to Shadow Play.

and does amd card have any cooling problems

all non reference should have no problem. for reference based card try avoid 290 or 290X.

280x also has 4gb

i have never seen 280X or 7970 with 4GB VRAM. standard configuration is 3GB. but when board partner adds more VRAM to it they usually double the amount although making 280X with 4GB of VRAM is not impossible

i am slightly confused between these two models....which one should i go for. i will oc
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2044&psn=&lid=1&leg=0
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2151&psn=&lid=1&leg=0
also does the 5.1Ghz memory interface affect performance(770 is 7.01GHz)

 

[renz496]

also does amd have features like nvidia's geforce experience.

not exactly the same but they have something similar. and as usual they let third party company to handle most of it. but as of date they don't have something similar to Shadow Play.

and does amd card have any cooling problems

all non reference should have no problem. for reference based card try avoid 290 or 290X.

280x also has 4gb

i have never seen 280X or 7970 with 4GB VRAM. standard configuration is 3GB. but when board partner adds more VRAM to it they usually double the amount although making 280X with 4GB of VRAM is not impossible

i am slightly confused between these two models....which one should i go for. i will oc
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2044&psn=&lid=1&leg=0
http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2151&psn=&lid=1&leg=0
also does the 5.1Ghz memory interface affect performance(770 is 7.01GHz)

OC or not i will recommend the one with three fan. the 290 reference fan is very notorious for it's not so well cooling performance. as for the VRAM frequency it doesn't matter since both cards were built differently.