4gb Nvidia cards all a SCAM?!

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
M

mike88931

Honorable
Oct 1, 2012
99
0
10,630
I was told the memory bandwidth of 4gb gtx 670 and 680 cards is too low to take advantage of much more than 2gb of vram rendering the rest useless. This seems like almost too devious of a move by the companies endorsing these cards so I am just asking if anyone knows this is true or not. If it is that is a dick move by galaxy, gigabyte, asus, and pretty much every leading gpu seller.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Don't believe everything you hear. However, for the most part, 4GB cards are a waste, but not because of the lack of bandwidth, but because games don't need that much ram except in the most extreme setups, such as 3D Vision Surround while using 3 or 4 670's or 680 4GB editions.

The same is true for the 6GB AMD cards, only there is never a need for those with current games. That doesn't mean that it will remain to be true.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I seem to be a rare breed of gamer who actually does need that much vram, i will save you the long explanation. But, judging from the fact that the 6gb 7970 has the same bandwidth as the 3gb does that mean that only 3gb is able to be used?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
...Wow, what?

No. The reason they make 4GB cards is so that when you're using an SLI setup, you get 4GB usable VRAM for triple monitor setups. (Because VRAM in SLI doesn't stack.)

If someone for whatever reason made a 4GB 660ti, because of it's lowered memory bandwidth, it wouldn't work very well.

So here's the thing. Don't take everything at face value. If these cards were scams, it would be all over the tech parts of the internet as soon as a reviewer got his or h er hands on one of them.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


...again, no. It means that there's more than enough memory bandwidth on the 3GB card to not be saturated by even 6GB of VRAM.

And again, look at what we're telling you... most of us use the normal 2GB cards. The reason you'd get more is if you're dealing with extremely high resolutions, often coupled with 3D.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
well the thing is there were demands for such cards. remember GTX580? they said GTX580 is fast but the lack of VRAM always makes people want to multi monitor gaming heard towards 6970 because it has more VRAM. (even with SLI the original still stuck with 1.5GB VRAM). then some board partner starts equipping 580 with 3GB VRAM but people with tech knowledge know such card will only truly shine if you use it in SLI + nvidia surround gaming.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Would 6gb be useful for multiple instances of a game? A friend plays everquest with 4 accounts open in 4 windows. Would that or any other game take more VRAM or would that be system RAM?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Only in certain games under certain conditions can use that much and certainly can use more than 4gb but for 1080p it is pointless. Bandwidth is not the issue and under some situations it helps to have more than you need as that local vram is much faster than trying to stream more data over pci-e. Given the general latency of pci-e (like 100ns~) having more will help to avoid running out and hitting a much worse bottleneck. As for bandwidth Kepler can be horrendous despite already having some of the fastest clocking gddr5 on the market.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Generally speaking, up to a 1920x1200 resolution monitor all you need is 1GB of VRAM. Up to 2560x1600 2GB of VRAM is fine; I don't believe 3GB is necessary. For a 3 monitor setup 4GB of VRAM is definitely necessary.

Of course GTX 670 is really not powerful enough to drive 3 monitors so you would buy two of them to use in SLI (or three). Whether using SLI or XFire the same textures are loaded into the VRAM of both video cards so two GTX 670 with 4GB of RAM each means you still only have 4GB of RAM for all three monitors.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote
From all the benchmarks I've seen, it is still debatable if 4GB is even needed for 5760x1080. Even 2-way SLI cannot reach good enough FPS to run at the settings needed to run out of VRAM. At least in every benchmark I've seen. I suppose if you mod, or use 3D Vision surround, then more VRAM will be used easier.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote



I disagree. I ran into problems inre to smooth game play back when crysis came out for lack of adequate vram at 1680x1050. I game at 1920x1200 now and 1gig would never cut it. Not even in XP anymore I don't think.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I guess FarCry2 and countless other games have memory leaks too. That must be why having more than 1gig of vram on cards above 1600 res is mandatory anymore. ......... unless you like playing at lowered settings and playing the game the way it was meant not to be played ? I've been down this road. I know better...... but there are those that think 2core processors are still the way to go.......... Iran has nukes. Saddle up your horse old timer we're about to go to war.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

You likely have a lot of background apps or just something wrong with your system. Far cry 2 has been out a long time, when 1GB was the norm, and no one had troubles with Vram.

FC2_01.png


It may just be Aero. Aero has remained a problem with gaming for a while. Especially on 1GB cards.

Here is a .bat script for you, so it is easy to toggle on and off:
@echo off
sc interrogate uxsms | find "1062"
if %errorlevel%==0 goto :sc_start
sc stop uxsms
exit

:sc_start
sc start uxsms
exit
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
I don't want to start an argument here but stop posting those stupid charts. All they are are automated benchmarks put up by people that are too lazy to sit in front of their computer and actually play the games to see how they "feel" while playing those games at different settings and different resolutions.

Frame Per Second mean absolutely NOTHING if the game won't play smoothly and flawlessly. It's a true misrepresentation of facts.

Find a few whores around the net that aren't lazy and who aren't doing it for monetary gain and read their reviews........ honestly it's almost impossible to find dedicated bench-markers like that.

 
Upvote 0 Downvote


I'll take a look, but I think it would be easier for you to, as I'm quite certain you won't find one that exists. The game did not have VRAM issues with 1GB cards, much less 2GB's, when on a single 1680x1050 screen.

Edit: I can't find anything to support your claim, but it is hard to find qualifying reviews. The closest thing I found was one saying that it was very hard to play at absolution max settings for anything, but then provided plenty of 1GB cards that could max it.

You may notice that my first benchmark did show minimums, which suggest there is no vram issue. Is it possible the possible hitching you experienced was due to something else?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote

I thought I read it was CryEngine, but I could have remembered wrong, but either way, they both had memory leaks. You'll see a ton of hits if you google "Far cry 2 memory leak".

edit: You are right, I guess that makes 2 engines with memory leaks at around the same time. Unless it wasn't the engines that was the problem.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote


Today, you will want 2GB cards, when Far Cry 2 was released, you needed 1GB cards.

Just because a game had a major bug, does not mean that you need more vram. They just needed to fix their game. You'd run out of memory on Far Cry 2 with 2GB of vram, it just takes longer.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom