How much of a problem is the GTX 970 3.5GB of actual RAM?

[NucleusWoodlouse]

I'm trying to decide between the GTX 970 and the R9 380.

How much difference is there between the 3.5gb and 4gb of either card.

 

[mcnumpty23]

weird i just answered that question for some one else

hasnt affected me with my gtx970

currently playing witcher 3 with no vram issues

 

[renz496]

On single card? Probably there isn't much to worry about. Especially on lower resolution. But in SLI that 3.5GB probably going to affect performance.

Btw 380 competes with 960. Not 970

 

[mason marnell@1457018692]

I doubt unless your playing 1440p+ you won't see ram issues, and I don't think sli would make a visible difference either.

 

[renz496]

Actually it depends. For single card 970 probably it will have a hard time maintaining 60FPS even before the card reach 3.5GB usage. But with 970 SLI the config will have more raw power. I'm saying this as 660SLI owner in the past. Just like 970, 660 also have weird memory config because nvidia were going to use 2GB with 192 bit bus. That 3.5 GB on 970 probably not much of an issue even on SLI if VRAM usage does not significantly increase in some games due to new generation of console have more RAM.