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http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2012/6/18/the-4k-graphics-card-shootout.aspx

An interesting chart that we created may explain the huge disparity between the GTX 680 and HD 7970 in minimum FPS and we believe it has everything to do with onboard RAM. Looking at the graph we've made, you can see that the two cards basically use about the same amount of RAM on the high preset, but the difference is much wider in the ultra preset. In the high preset, the GTX 680 uses 1436 MB while the HD 7970 uses 1471, a negligible difference, but a difference nonetheless. With the ultra preset, however, we noticed two things. The HD 7970 uses 2342 MB while the GTX 680 uses 2043 MB, which would normally lead one to say that the HD 7970 is purely a more memory hungry graphics card. But there is one factor many will overlook. The GTX 680 has 2048 MB of installed RAM while the HD 7970 has 3072 MB of RAM, which means the GTX 680 basically exhausted all GDDR memory when trying to run Battlefield 3 in 4K at ultra settings.
 
I don't think he understands the GPU core/shader clocks do most of the work.. Not the VRAM..VRAM handles most of the AA/Pixels

And with the new AA from Nvidia, high amounts of VRAM demand is no longer an issue as it was before..The only thing I'd be worried about with VRAM is how many screens/what resolution I'd be able to play optimally on.

I mean hell, I'm switching to two 570s from a 670..Which have a little over half of the 670's VRAM and you don't see me complaining about VRAM problems..
 
ok, lets see if i have this straight and not putting words in your mouth.

you do not need more than 2Gb Vram but if you have more it can/will be used and not everyone understands that?
 
I thought FXAA was supposed to be the new AA..Either way. I have no problems whatsoever playing high-end games on full settings.

I mean, that is unless I switch to a higher resolution..
 
can anyone explain me ... on 3 monitors 1920x1080 while playing bf3 on 4x msaa ultra ... 2 gb gtx 680 were bottlenecked by vram or that was something other ? why it got 10 fps dips ? cause of vram ?

okey ... lets look on situation ... i moded skyrim witch needed 3 gb vram not more not less ...

i benchmark it on gtx 680 2gb and gtx 680 4gb .... waht will be different ??? on gtx 680 4gb verios will i get more fps ya ?




 
Guys- seriously. This debate needs to remain clean, concise and with well-documented points/counter-points. The Mod team will not continue to tolerate the childish nonsense (insults/behavior/name calling, etc) that tends to crop up in these discussions.

Consider this a friendly reminder to everyone.
 
Like rubix said; Let's just keep this clean. Besides, we don't want this thread to get closed (again). Everytime something like this happens, the mods have to clean it up, and I can only assume it gets seriously annoying.
 
Some facts shower:

Type - Resolution - Aspect - Pixel count
Digital cinema 4K- 4096 × 1714 - 2.39:1 - 7,020,544
Digital cinema 4K- 3996 × 2160 - 1.85:1 - 8,631,360
Academy 4K - 3656 × 2664 - 1.37:1 - 9,739,584
Full Aperture 4K - 4096 × 3112 - 1.32:1 - 12,746,752

So, let's compare to current benchmarks within that amount of pixels:

3x 1080p monitors = 5760 x 1080 = 6,220,800

That's still under the biggest 4K resolution around (which is near the double amount of pixels!), but let's see what Toms has to say about that resolution:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-680-sli-overclock-surround,3162-5.html

From the conclusion:

In several instances, a second card means the difference between unplayable performance at 5760x1080 and a generally smooth experience.

So, from that quote alone, you can conclude that the GTX680's 2GB is not going to gimp it noticeably in 4K res, but the GPU's computational power will first (SLI doesn't double the amount of VRAM, just your theoretic computational power). The same can be applied to the 7970's 3GB, but it *could* last longer thanks to it's higher bandwidth, but don't know about the computational power (6950 2GB vs 1GB comes to mind there). And off course, you WILL need a second video card for a higher pixel count, no matter which camp you go with. That's the most important conclusion IMO.

Also, to be fair, the 7970 is with (now) old drivers in that review, so the FPS count for the 7970 should be higher now (15% was it?) plus new XFire profiles for the scaling.

Cheers!

EDIT: Some typos and additional phrases.
 



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