FPS and performance

[Welly_Mukhtar]

Ok so far i have :
msi z97 motherboard
corsair 600 W ac (something like that)
16 gb ram
intel i5 4690k
ssd hyper x

I'm planning to buy gtx 960 but still stuck between the 2gb and 4gb. I've bought this specs for couple of games and one of them is the witcher 3, is there any difference between them as FPS when the graphics is on high (with out the hairwork on)

 

[neieus]

There is no difference in the frames per sec the issue will be in the trade off on if you're able to actually use 4GB of memory before your frames become to low.

 

[Welly_Mukhtar]

There is no difference in the frames per sec the issue will be in the trade off on if you're able to actually use 4GB of memory before your frames become to low.

sorry i didn't quite understand what you mean by the trade off, more specific please

 

[MarkW]

If a game needs more than 2GB to draw out the frame, and your video card only has 2GB, then it will begin to use DDR3 memory on your motherboard to complete the frame.

DDR3 is much, much slower than GDDR5.

If the option for 4GB is within your budget, take that option. Especially if you plan on continuing to use that video card for years. Games are being designed to use more and more memory on the video cards. And that will continue.

And if that Corsair 600w is a Corsair CX 600 watt power supply, please get yourself a better power supply than that. It is a Tier 4 unit on our Power Supply List here, and that means we do not recommend its use in any gaming system. We recommend that people only buy a tier 1 or 2 power supply.

 

[Welly_Mukhtar]

If a game needs more than 2GB to draw out the frame, and your video card only has 2GB, then it will begin to use DDR3 memory on your motherboard to complete the frame.

DDR3 is much, much slower than GDDR5.

If the option for 4GB is within your budget, take that option. Especially if you plan on continuing to use that video card for years. Games are being designed to use more and more memory on the video cards. And that will continue.

I love your answer but my question is will the FPS be higher (with the 4gb) or the same? cause i'm going to spamm the witcher 3 and i want a good decent FPS to play it

 

[MarkW]

Again, if you buy the 2GB version, and Witcher 3 or some new game you buy next year wants more than 2GB to draw the frames, its going to have to go to much slower memory on your motherboard to do that.

Now think about what needing to use much slower memory on your motherboard is going to do to your framerates? Its most certainly not going to help them.

 

[neieus]

What I'm saying is that in the end it will not make a difference. They both perform exactly the same however lets say for example you want to play at 60 FPS but you also want to turn up the detail or play at a higher resolution. Increasing the detail and/or resolution will require additional memory from the GPU which is a + for the 4GB card. The trade off is that by the time you increase the games detail or resolution your performance will be so low that you'll need to turn down the detail to keep a decent frame rate so that's the trade off. Which should you choose? if they aren't that different in price then the 4GB card is better however that's the only thing that sets them apart as the performance is equal. The additional memory will hardly ever become a factor since the trade off to use the increased memory requires additional graphics detail and/or resolution thus dropping your frame rate in the process.

Finally if you're willing to get the 4GB card then IMO you should just save a little more for the 970 instead of the 960.