Question R9 380 4GB vs GTX 770 2GB

[NukaB]

Hiya,

I currently have a 770 2GB; I don't game as much as I used to so haven't upgraded it for a few years. I have the option to swap with an MSI R9 380 Gaming 4GB; obviously there's 2 more gigs of VRAM, which is super important nowadays, but I lose a bit of memory speed and core clock. Is it a good swap?

 

[ElectrO_90]

The 380 is about the same as the 770 - https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-770-vs-AMD-R9-380/2174vs3482
BUT what is your PSU?
Make sure you have a decent PSU as that card draws a lot of power. 550W+

 

[NukaB]

The 380 is about the same as the 770 - https://gpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Nvidia-GTX-770-vs-AMD-R9-380/2174vs3482
BUT what is your PSU?
Make sure you have a decent PSU as that card draws a lot of power. 550W+

I have a Corsair GS600

 

[Metal Messiah.]

I have a Corsair GS600

The GS series of PSUs from Corsair are average (mid-TIER/entry-level) ). They are not the very best models from Corsair, but it's not that bad either. You should be fine. Though, if you can upgrade to some other high-quality PSU, then it would be a much better option.

That's just a basic 80 PLUS certified unit. The OEM seems to be CWT, for this particular unit.

 

[ElectrO_90]

I have a Corsair GS600

I think you will be more than fine. Granted it's not the best psu in the world but it's far from being the worse. It is still a good brand, so I wouldn't worry about that.
Will you have both cards? Or are you swapping one for one? If you can do some experimenting with the card you have now, then install the 380 and do tests with that, you will know if you are actually getting anything better than the 770.
It's all a bit of hit and miss as they are very similar and will that extra 2GB of ram do anything? I'm not sure.
Most GPU's will use whatever ram they have or less, so even if you have 2GB more, the card may use the extra 2GB but will the performance make a difference, is hard to say.

 

[geofelt]

R9-380 and GTX770 are in the same performance tier on tom's gpu hierarchy chart.
https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gpu-hierarchy,4388.html
Likely not particularly beneficial.

Do not select a GPU based on just specs.
AMD and Nvidia use vram differently.

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, and by the game. There may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
And differences between games.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.

Video Card Performance: 2GB vs 4GB Memory

Similar video cards are often available in versions with more than one memory size. The GeForce GTX 680 is an example, and comes in both 2GB and 4GB variants. With computer components more is often better, but does doubling the memory on a video card like this actually help with game performance...

www.pugetsystems.com

Spoiler... not a significant difference.
A more current set of tests shows the same results:
http://www.techspot.com/review/1114-vram-comparison-test/page5.html

And... no game maker wants to limit their market by
requiring huge amounts of vram. The vram you see will be appropriate to the particular card.