680 Discussion (2gb not enuf Vram - agree or disagree)

Russell_PC

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The 680s are amazing yes!..
but, I cant accept the 2gb Vram limitation,
yeah I know "2gb is fine and dandy cause no current games ever use more than 1.9gb at 1080p etc etc etc" ...
BUT, 2gb is not enough for future proof reassurance, there's a couple games almost maxing out the 2gb limit as is, and give it 2 years, maybe even 1 year, and games will well undoubtedly breach those 2gbs.

And not to mention SLI future proofing,
I mean if you wanna plug in 2 or even 3 extra 680 into your system down the road sometime for that extra power, well shame, cause the 2gb is gonna bottleneck the additional power due to the graphical demands of the future, and a lot of that extra processing power from 2way, 3way, and especially 4 way SLI will go to waste.

Anyway,
The reason for this Discussion is to vent some of my frustration while I wait for the 4gb cards to be released.
And that's when the 680 will really be amazing! (in terms of future proofing).

What ever you point of view, if disgree or agree, feel free to comment, justify, & discuss bellow :)

My point of view:
I'm not saying 2gb isn't enough VRAM - for now,
What I am saying is that it wont be for long.

 
I disagree with you.

Until this year, pretty much no game required more than 1GB unless you are using a 3 monitor gaming system, 1GB was plenty. For the last 2-3 years, AMD has been releasing 2GB cards, and we are finally seeing games start to take advantage of it. Now the top end cards come with 3GB of vram. It'll likely be another 2-4 years before dev's start to break the 2GB barrier.

Dev's don't willy nilly add resource requirements. They take the hardware of the day and design around those limitations. You won't likely see a need for more than 2GB any time soon, because that is what the top in cards have, with the 7900's as the exception and look how long it took to take advantage of the last 2 generations of cards vram exceptions.
 

vilenjan

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Single monitor? 2gb is plenty. 2 1080p monitors and SOME games might run in to small problems, but most will still be fine. Triple monitor on other other hand will tax the 2gb in many demanding games at high settings.

What AMD is doing is future proofing its cards. Atm a 680 or a 7970 is wasted on any single monitor set up, but say in 2+ years you want to SLI/Crossfire another card so you can still play all the latest games at max settings. Imagine you have a 5870 from 2+ years ago, and its starting to show its age, you crossfire them, but now you run into issues with 1gb buffer with the more demanding games.

AMD remedied this with the 6000 and 7000 series. A 560-448 or a 570 will have problems down the road if u SLI them due to the 1gb/1.25gb buffer. A 2gb 6950 and a 6970 will not, for example.

In short, the 2gb on the 680 GTX os more than enough for NOW, and the 3gb on the 7970 os overkill in most situations. Fast forward 1-2 years and crossfire/SLI set ups, and you can see why Nvidia might be cutting corners in the wrong place.

 
It's been my experience that a GPU is obsoleted by it's lack of "DX" support or shader capabilities way before it's polygon pushing power becomes an issue. I would still be using my gtx 285 if it wasn't for DX 11 and I only upgraded to a gtx 680 because of my three displays.
 
SLI does not increase memory needs anyway so you main point about a bottleneck is a little odd, and what games use 1.9gig at 1080p? its always been shown 1gig was plenty for 1080p. Unless you ate going to rung multiple highres monitors it doesn't matter at this point
 

Russell_PC

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I dont disagree with anyone here
and I spose it all comes down to preferance really,
for 99% of people 2gb will be enough, and I agree with this completely
I just think for that 1% circumstance of futureproofing with the plan to SLI everytime your card/cards fall behind current demands.
only in this case do I think that 2gb isnt enough
as vilenjan said it is enough for now but, and i totally agree, that in most cases this is true, and that the majority of problems will be with buying another card down the road if thats ur plan.
 

Russell_PC

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metro 2033 uses 1.9gb of VRAM when at absolute max when run on 1080p (this includes the use of windows aero)

and when i said vram will bottleneck what i mean is that when demands are high enough that multi SLI is needed with the 680, the proccessing power will be well above adiquate, but it'll be held back by the 2gb vram by this point
 


SLI does not require more vram. Pretty much the only thing that increases the need for vram is higher resolutions or extreme AA situations. Why do you keep saying that SLI will need more vram?
 

monsta

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Theres a 4gb version of the 680 going to be released soon , even the Gainward Phantom 4GB has already been seen online, if you are really worried about the vram you can always get the 4gb version.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/gainward-gtx-680-phantom-4gb-in-the-works/
 

Russell_PC

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Im saying, in the future, when ur single 680 is falling behind, and u decide to by another one so u can get ur framerate back up to 60+ at max settings.

im not saying SLI uses vram, im saying there will be a point when the 680 can no longer max out the games of the future, so you'll need to buy another one,

now you'll have 2 x 680s and ur proccesing power will be able to run these games again,

BUT chances are that these games will now use more that 2gb of vram, and even tho the ur new SLI configuration can process these future requirements, the vram will no longer be enough

i never said sli uses vram, all i said was games require both vram and proccessing power, and there will be a point where sli processing power will be enough but these future requirement will exceed 2gbs
 

monsta

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In all the reviews and benchmarks the 2gb on 680 seems to perform quite well against the 7970 with the 3gb of vram.In many instances it even out performs the 3gb card, I believe vram becomes an issue mostly with lower end cards, the 680 has enough guts to perfrom with 2gb without a hitch on even high resolutions. Do you remember the 580 1.5 gb and the 3gb versions , it made hardly any difference in the benchmarks.
 

Russell_PC

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its definitely a beast of a card that's for sure.
and you're right, Its been proven to be the best single gpu available and 2gb vram is well an truely enough for now

I'm just an extremest, and a paranoid future proofer, and for me it isnt enough :)
 

Russell_PC

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I just like to here peoples opinions on the matter
Its good to hear what people think about the situation
while I wait for my 4gb card to be released
hence why I started this thread :)
 

vilenjan

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SLI does by itslef does not increase the need for more ram, but the coept behind it does. In SLI you are doubling (well not really doubling, but 70-80% increase) of the GPUs, this is done so that GPUs can process more data, but you are not increasing the vram to compensate.

Example time:
An AMD 5970 will still run anything there is today in terms of raw processing power. But the card technically only has a 1gb buffer (2gb split between 2 gpus), while a few games will tax a 5970s computational power, many will bottleneck on the 1gb buffer (world of warcraft on ultra at 1080p on a single monitor breaks 1gb). This is bad.

An 590 GTX and 6990 have about the same computational power, yet the 590 GTX only has a 1.5gb buffer, while the 6990 has a 2gb buffer. When they were release, it was not an issue, but you can tell that its starting to become a problem now and will only get worse in the coming year.

Than again good luck buying a 680 GTX its sold out everywhere I looked :p
 

vilenjan

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PCgamer, grats on reading WHY vram is important and making yourself look like a fool. If you actually read the comments, you would see that the bigger buffer is beneficial for the future for those that will sli/crossfire their cards. And yes a crossfired 4870, even the 1gb version will outperform an SLI 8800 ultra because the 8800 will choke on its small 768mb ram.

Given a more modern example, SLI a 560ti and crossfire 6950 2GB and than. Both these setups are very strong, yet one will chock at highest settings in many new games on a single monitor, I will well you guess which.

As I mentioned earlier, WoW (not a graphically demanding game in shape or form) will break the 1gb vram barrier on ultra settings at 1080p.
 

PCgamer81

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I am not a fool.

But I am sleepy. Wake me when the 2GB 4870 passes the 1.2GB 570, crossfire/SLi or not.

I am not saying that VRAM is not important. I am saying that speed is far more important than size. Because it is. Period.

A 4GB 6990 gets thumped by a 580SLi at 1.5GB, and a 6GB 7990 will be thumped by a 680SLi, irrespective of definition.
 

PCgamer81

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Even at 5760x1200, the extra 1GB of VRAM didn't give the 7970x2 an advantage over the 680SLi.
 

vilenjan

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But you see I did not use a 2gb 4870 in my example, thats overkill and i know it.

Can a 6990 ever effectively use 4gb? probably not, will a 580 GX SLI or a 590 GTX be bottlenecked by the 1.5gb of ram in some situations (more and more as time goes by)? you betcha.

Nvidia is, for no good reason, bieng very thrifty with its vram allocations, and AMD, for msot of its cards, is right on.

Again if all you are ever gonna use is a single card, you should be fine, but with SLI and dual gpu cards, you will run in to vram limitations on the Nvidia, but rarely on AMD cards. I would rather have a little bit more vram than I need than have my set up choke with too little.
 

PCgamer81

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I would much prefer the extra VRAM, also. More VRAM is almost always a good thing and never a bad thing. I do think your argument holds water, IMO.

But at the same time, when I do decide to upgrade, I am going to go with two 680s and not two 7970s or even a 7990 like I had planned on earlier. I am not going to let VRAM factor so far into my decision that I will choose a weaker card. I typed it in bold, because that's everything I'm trying to say.
 
G

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metro 2033 uses so much vram because it's a horribly optimized game. Does it really look that good for what it uses?

The only game using up vram on the 680 is battlefield 3 and that's under extreme resolution/settings.

There are also 4gb 680's coming out.
 

sixstringchild

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I play a modded Skyrim at 1920x1200 and I've maxed out my 1.5 gb limit on my 3 way 580 sli set up. I understand the OP's point about wasted power. Though the memory is not shared, frame rates are capped by the swapping of textures into system memory which is horribly slower than the gpu's on board memory. The VRAM bottlenecks and I'm getting 40 fps in some cases. Before anyone starts with the "that's more than playable" argument. I think most sli users are hoping for "more than playable" for the amount invested. I should be getting a solid 60 fps and I'm not because my VRAM is maxed. All it takes is a few high res textures and you are stuttering all over the place. I think currently 3 gb's is the sweet spot. Given my experience I'd wait for a 4 gb 680.