Gtx 760 sli? Direct x12 Vram?

[run5000]

Hello
I am planning on soon getting another 760 for sli. Right now i have the gigabyte gtx 760 2gb. But now i can buy a Asys 4gb vesion. With direct x12 coming out soon and the apparent stacking of vram would it be more beneficial to get the 4gb version which would give me overall 6gb of vram? I know its not out yet but i was just thought some people might have more knowledge on the topic. Also if vram does stack on direct x12 do you think it would require both cards to have the same amount of vram?

Thanks for any help

 

[HCSn]

It might, it might not. We don't know 100% for sure that any vram will stack in dx12, no games based on it are out yet. I can tell you that putting two 760's in SLI is probably not worth the headaches of SLI. It's a pretty old card and buying another pretty old card to scale it isn't worth the money either. If I were you I would save your money and/or sell the 760 and get a newer, more powerful single card.

 

[StarChief]

Direct X12 myths aside, I think you should sell your current 760 and buy a single GTX 970/R9 390

Better performance all across the board and in a single card, which is much better for gaming because a single behaves more when it comes to games.

 

[sizzling]

Making a hardware choice today based on unknown future software is a very bad idea in my opinion. Sell your 760 and go for a better single gpu solution

 

[TheCheapGamer]

I agree with sizzling. Getting a R9 380/390 or even a GTX 970 will munch the performance of 2 760's.

 

[geofelt]

Until DX12 is supported by YOUR games, there is little value in planning for it.
sli will win you synthetic fps benchmarks, but gameplay is better with a good single card.

I would not chase vram.

VRAM has become a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, so there may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
Spoiler... not a significant difference.

 

[sizzling]

Until DX12 is supported by YOUR games, there is little value in planning for it.
sli will win you synthetic fps benchmarks, but gameplay is better with a good single card.

I would not chase vram.

VRAM has become a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, so there may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
Spoiler... not a significant difference.

All sensible but personal experience of hitting the 3gb of my GTX 780 has shown me that stuttering becomes a real issue when I hit my max vram and this is gaming at 1080p. Personally I wouldn't buy a card with less than 4gb these days if planning on playing the latest games

 

[run5000]

I dont know.. I was kind of set on buying another 760 because it was the cheaper option and also because i have only used my current 760 for a year. I use one monitor for gaming and i play at 1080p Medium or high settings. Do you think Gtx 760 in sli would last till 2017? I might just end up waiting then and getting a 980 when the price goes down a little if there are quite a few problems with sli.

 

[geofelt]

When the graphics driver needs something not already in vram, where does it get it?
If the code is resident in system ram, it comes across the pcie interface and displaces something less likely to be used already there.
That is a relatively quick process. If the code needs to be fetched from the hard drive, that is a lengthy process.
If you have a SSD, that process is 50x faster than with a hard drive.
Here is an interesting assertion I found that suggests that fps can actually improve with a ssd:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/why/forGamer.html

 

[HCSn]

I dont know.. I was kind of set on buying another 760 because it was the cheaper option and also because i have only used my current 760 for a year. I use one monitor for gaming and i play at 1080p Medium or high settings. Do you think Gtx 760 in sli would last till 2017? I might just end up waiting then and getting a 980 when the price goes down a little if there are quite a few problems with sli.

By 2017, 760's will be really outdated. Just save up and try to get a good deal on a better card.

 

[skit75]

When the graphics driver needs something not already in vram, where does it get it?
If the code is resident in system ram, it comes across the pcie interface and displaces something less likely to be used already there.
That is a relatively quick process. If the code needs to be fetched from the hard drive, that is a lengthy process.
If you have a SSD, that process is 50x faster than with a hard drive.
Here is an interesting assertion I found that suggests that fps can actually improve with a ssd:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/minisite/SSD/global/html/why/forGamer.html

Ehh... more marketing than assertion in my opinion. Samsung wants you to buy SSDs. Nothing in independent review suggests what Samsung's marketing is suggesting, at least not in a manner that anyone but a benchmark utility might notice. Unless something is wrong with your HDD, a SSD won't get you noticeable FPS increases.

 

[Jezzyjz]

It might, it might not. We don't know 100% for sure that any vram will stack in dx12, no games based on it are out yet. I can tell you that putting two 760's in SLI is probably not worth the headaches of SLI. It's a pretty old card and buying another pretty old card to scale it isn't worth the money either. If I were you I would save your money and/or sell the 760 and get a newer, more powerful single card.

OK. I know DX12 is going to stack VRAM, however, older games, Witcher 3 and GTA 5 will not stack, they could but the developers would have to rewrite the entire engine. So that's never going to happen. Future DX12 games will be able to take advantage of stacking, again though, this is solely dependant on the developers and if they implement that within the game. On a different note, you'll only get 100% of all the benefits of DX12 with the new nvidia 900 series cards.If anyone tells you anything different to what I've said here then correct them, if they don't listen then forget them, they are full of bull.

So to anyone out there who says don't upgrade yet, well, they obviously don't want to take full advantage of DX12, which is pretty dumb in my opinion.