How Long Will 2 GB of VRAM Last?

[Christopher Gonzalez]

Is 2 GB of VRAM going to handle games in the future? Or is there no way of telling? I'm really only interested in 1080p on a single monitor, just 4 GB for future proofing is what I'm debating.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130925

versus

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814162137&Tpk=galaxy%20770%20hof

Thanks Guys!

 

[sirslicey]

Unfortunately, the amount of VRAM doesn't matter much at all, it's mostly the memory bus width.
These Benchmarks here will show you the difference in gaming.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

Go with the standard VRAM model, you'll save $40 and get the same performance. The Galaxy card will do just fine.
Nevertheless, manufacturers doubling the VRAM on a card is essentially only for marketing.

 

[Christopher Gonzalez]

Unfortunately, the amount of VRAM doesn't matter much at all, it's mostly the memory bus width.
These Benchmarks here will show you the difference in gaming.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

Go with the standard VRAM model, you'll save $40 and get the same performance. The Galaxy card will do just fine.
Nevertheless, manufacturers doubling the VRAM on a card is essentially only for marketing.

I've seen 770 benchmarks where the 4 GB and 2 GB show no differences in performance even at high resolutions, but it scared me how everyone says 2 GB is enough memory... If that truly is the case, then I'll be going with the 2 GB card for sure.

A 256 bit bus width basically means that each byte holds 256 1/0s correct? I'm not much of a genius when it comes down to this, but I believe that's how it is, right?

 

[Avro Arrow]

2GB is more than enough, even for Crossfire or SLI. It will still be enough when you're ready for your next upgrade so don't worry about it.

 

[fudoka711]

How much vram you have isn't such a huge issue as is the bandwidth and the gpu's actual horsepower. Since you're only going to be gaming at 1080p on a single monitor, then 2gb should suffice for a few years. The only couple AAA games I know of that can use more than 2gb of vram are skyrim (with mods) and max payne 3. Maybe Far Cry 3? I can't remember if there are others.

Your cpu/gpu's horsepower will generally bottleneck performance before not having enough vram would. So I would go with the 2gb model and save some money.

 

[Christopher Gonzalez]

How much vram you have isn't such a huge issue as is the bandwidth and the gpu's actual horsepower. Since you're only going to be gaming at 1080p on a single monitor, then 2gb should suffice for a few years. The only couple AAA games I know of that can use more than 2gb of vram are skyrim (with mods) and max payne 3. Maybe Far Cry 3? I can't remember if there are others.

Your cpu/gpu's horsepower will generally bottleneck performance before not having enough vram would. So I would go with the 2gb model and save some money.

What do you mean by AAA games? If that is some weird effect like Anti-Aliasing, well I'm not looking to do much of that...

And I will also be using Shadowplay and if that goes wrong, Fraps. I will be doing HD editing as well.

 

[manofchalk]

2GB will become a limitation, eventually, just like 1GB is right now. Some games (I have observed it with Crysis 3 on my machine) can consume more than 2GB at 1080p when your pushing high settings.
However, I doubt 2GB will actually become a proper bottleneck for a while yet.

Basically, 2GB is plenty, 3GB of VRAM can be useful, 4GB+ is pointless.
I suggest if your concerned about how much VRAM you need, get yourself a 780, or wait and see what cards arise from AMD's Hawaii cards, as typically they have high quantities of VRAM.

EDIT: "AAA Games" refers to your super expensive (from a production standpoint) games, all your big ticket ones like GTA, COD, Battlefield, Assassins Creed and the like.

 

[sirslicey]

2GB is relatively "enough" for 1080p gaming. If you want to play at higher 2k res, then think about a GTX 780 or Radeon HD 7970. These cards all have high memory interface bandwidths.

As far was what the Memory Bus Bandwidth actually means, I'm not 100% sure, I just know that it will basically bottleneck high VRAM, and not make any difference in the end.

 

[darkspartenwarrior]

My skyrim with 4k textures and ENB maxes out at about 2800mb with full SMAA/FXAA/SweetFX and 16xAA/lumasharpen, etc.... I haven't even finished my graphics mod list either, it will climb, it pushes my 3gb 7950 and can get it down to as little as 15 fps sometimes(25 average).

But apart from Skyrim heavily modded and Crysis 3. All other games should be fine, just dont crossfire/SLI it.

 

[cookybiscuit]

Long enough where any card you can buy now will be outdated by the time 2GB isn't enough.

 

[fudoka711]

How much vram you have isn't such a huge issue as is the bandwidth and the gpu's actual horsepower. Since you're only going to be gaming at 1080p on a single monitor, then 2gb should suffice for a few years. The only couple AAA games I know of that can use more than 2gb of vram are skyrim (with mods) and max payne 3. Maybe Far Cry 3? I can't remember if there are others.

Your cpu/gpu's horsepower will generally bottleneck performance before not having enough vram would. So I would go with the 2gb model and save some money.

What do you mean by AAA games? If that is some weird effect like Anti-Aliasing, well I'm not looking to do much of that...

And I will also be using Shadowplay and if that goes wrong, Fraps. I will be doing HD editing as well.

AAA games are blockbuster games. They include games such as Call of Duty, Battlefield, Skyrim, Far Cry 3, Grand Theft Auto, Crysis, etc. Don't worry, it has nothing to do with AA [anti-aliasing] (which you might not need to turn up that much since you're playing on 1080p).