Does gtx 980 and gtx 970 really uses the full 4gb?

[lord hircine]

The gtx 660 can only use up to 1.5gb even tho its listed as 2gb on the sites. Is this the same case for the gtx 980/970?. I want to buy a gtx 980 but i want to make sure it can actually use the full 4gb instead of just 3.5gb. Thanks!

 

[sammy sung]

Well, seeing as the GTX 770 just falls short of using it's full 4GB VRAM before it runs out of power, I'd say yes. Just as an educated guess

 

[spentshells]

The 660 can address the full 2gb just not at full efficency.

 

[Joseph DeGarmo]

My GTX 660's OSD header shows the GPU running up to about 1500 MB memory. It seems to be capped at 1.5 GB due to the 192-bit interface. That's one reason for my process of upgrading to a GTX 970 myself. I would like to have not just 2x performance, but also more video memory for ultra-resolution textures and heavily-modded games like Skyrim.

 

[spentshells]

My GTX 660's OSD header shows the GPU running up to about 1500 MB memory. It seems to be capped at 1.5 GB due to the 192-bit interface. That's one reason for my process of upgrading to a GTX 970 myself. I would like to have not just 2x performance, but also more video memory for ultra-resolution textures and heavily-modded games like Skyrim.

Depends on the game.

 

[GRUxTSAR]

It will not use all of it unless you OC the hell out of the card. The memory clock has to be over 9000

 

[spentshells]

It will not use all of it unless you OC the hell out of the card. The memory clock has to be over 9000

Okay NP, I believe you, but after all the reviews I read I couldn't find anything stating what you have above. From a hardware point of view what you are saying makes sense. Help me if you could by pointing me in the right direction.

 

[GRUxTSAR]

It will not use all of it unless you OC the hell out of the card. The memory clock has to be over 9000

Okay NP, I believe you, but after all the reviews I read I couldn't find anything stating what you have above. From a hardware point of view what you are saying makes sense. Help me if you could by pointing me in the right direction.

Oh the whole thing about the memory clock was a joke. But yeah the card won't use the full 4gb unless you really OC hard

 

[spentshells]

Well the memory is actually the only thing that would need to be overclocked on the 660 to get it to use 2gb after reading and in some cases rereading the reviews it sounded like you were right, the gimped memory interface could likely only handle the 2 gb if overclocked
the 980 and 970 can definitely address the 4gb