[smaudioz]

Hi, I'm upgrading my graphics card, primarily for BF3 which I've read in many places uses more than 1GB VRAM, some people have even reported up to 1.5GB of use. In this case should I be getting a card with 2GB of VRAM? There is one card I like the look of (MSI GTX570 Twin Frozr III - http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280mb-msi-gtx-570-twin-frozr-iii-power-edition-oc-40nm-4000mhz-gddr5-gpu-770mhz-shader-1540mhz-plus) but it's only 1.3GB and I'm wondering if even that might not be enough. If it wasn't I would be going with a GTX 560 Ti 2GB or a HD6950 2GB. This is pretty much the last thing I need to decide on before picking which card to buy after doing days of research.

My res is 1600x1200, I only use 1 monitor and won't be using dual monitors any time soon.

 

[Shion314]

Go for the HD6950. It can be unlocked and OC'ed to perform like a 6970. It trumps the 560ti.

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/1007081-560-ti-vs-6950-both-2gb.html

 

[WhitePrQjser]

You could get any of these cards:

GTX 560 2 Gb.
GTX 560Ti 2 Gb.
GTX 570 2.5 Gb.
GTX 580 3 Gb.
GTX 590 3 Gb.
ASUS MARS II 3 Gb.

Radeon HD6870 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6870x2 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6950 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6970 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6990 4 Gb.

Probably more, but those are the ones I could mention right now

 

[pioneerisloud]

No, you don't need 1.5 or 2GB of VRAM, not with a single monitor at 1200p or less.

Get the 570 and be happy, its the superior card.

 

[smaudioz]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shion314;15152339
Go for the HD6950. It can be unlocked and OC'ed to perform like a 6970. It trumps the 560ti.

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/1007081-560-ti-vs-6950-both-2gb.html

This is only the case for a few cards and even then it's not guaranteed it will work so I'm not planning on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhitePrQjser;15152340
You could get any of these cards:

GTX 560 2 Gb.
GTX 560Ti 2 Gb.
GTX 570 2.5 Gb.
GTX 580 3 Gb.
GTX 590 3 Gb.
ASUS MARS II 3 Gb.

Radeon HD6870 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6870x2 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6950 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6970 2 Gb.
Radeon HD6990 4 Gb.

Probably more, but those are the ones I could mention right now

The 570 2.5GB and anything above are too expensive, this 570 i posted is the absolute max I will go to at almost £270.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pioneerisloud;15152367
No, you don't need 1.5 or 2GB of VRAM, not with a single monitor at 1200p or less.

Get the 570 and be happy, its the superior card.

Ok I also just read some replies posted in another thread I was in saying similar stuff, thanks for the help.

 

[shnur]

You don't.
I do. (1440p)

 

[Arizonian]

Smaudioz the GTX 570 1.2GB can handle gaming very well on single monitor 1920x1200 resolution. In fact you can take on games that use up to 1.75GB of VRAM and won't struggle at all.
Quote:

Originally Posted by Shion314;15152339
Go for the HD6950. It can be unlocked and OC'ed to perform like a 6970. It trumps the 560ti.

http://www.overclock.net/graphics-cards-general/1007081-560-ti-vs-6950-both-2gb.html

1. The OP is looking at a GTX 570 which trumps any unlocked 6950.

Unlocked slightly over clocked or unlockable heavily over clocked 6950 can't catch up to an over clocked 570 or an over clocked 6970 at the end of the day.

2. The unlocked slightly over clocked 6950 2GB or unlockable heavily over clocked 6950 compares quite evenly with the heavily over clocked 560Ti 2GB. They trade blows back and forth very closely where one wins vice versa.

 

[Wulfgar]

A game will store textures & stuff into video memory but it won't access it all at the same time. That's why BF3 can be played without major FPS drops on a GTX 560TI.

If it's optimized correctly it will use an efficient memory swapping algorithm to eliminate the need to access the actual system RAM which would slow the game to a crawl.

Plus GPU speed, stream processors and memory bandwith are important too. That's why you see 0 difference between the GTX 580 1.5GB and the 3GB version.
The card can only "draw" so much detail, it's pointless to provide it with 3, 6, 10 or 100GB of Vram unless you also bump the GPU speed, the number of stream processors and memory bandwidth.

Think about the GTS 450 2GB. Why isn't it faster than the 1GB 460 ?

Hope this clears some of these stupid issues coming up all the time.

The cards we have right now are not powerful enough to handle 2GB of constant texture streaming so even if a game required that much you wouldn't be able to max it.

 

[pioneerisloud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wulfgar;15155829
-snip-

The cards we have right now are not powerful enough to handle 2GB of constant texture streaming so even if a game required that much you wouldn't be able to max it.

Actually, that's incorrect. We are MORE than capable of utilizing 2-3GB of VRAM as it sits right now (6970's and 580's). Problem being, it requires 2, 3, or 4 of those cards, and an INSANELY high resolution (3x 1080p monitors or bigger).

For any single 1900x1200 display (or smaller), I agree. There's no reason to buy a card based off VRAM, especially when a 1GB card is sufficient like the 560Ti or the 460 1GB. You only need higher VRAM amounts when you use 1440p or 1600p, or multiple monitors (as of right now).

 

[BZ1891]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arizonian;15154337
Smaudioz the GTX 570 1.2GB can handle gaming very well on single monitor 1920x1200 resolution. In fact you can take on games that use up to 1.75GB of VRAM and won't struggle at all.

1. The OP is looking at a GTX 570 which trumps any unlocked 6950.

Unlocked slightly over clocked or unlockable heavily over clocked 6950 can't catch up to an over clocked 570 or an over clocked 6970 at the end of the day.

2. The unlocked slightly over clocked 6950 2GB or unlockable heavily over clocked 6950 compares quite evenly with the heavily over clocked 560Ti 2GB. They trade blows back and forth very closely where one wins vice versa.

1. Completely wrong, a hd 6950 will overclock just as much as a 6970 unless you are using ln2, check hwbot if in doubt as a very large number of Hd 6950's run at 1Ghz on the core 1500Mhz on the memory; a HD 6970 can't do much better.

2. It takes an overlocked gtc 560ti to even compete with a standard HD 6950 let alone overlocked. Check out the anadtech/hardocp/guru3d reviews if in doubt.

As for the original question, no you don't need 2gb but it's a nice touch if you like high levels of AA/ Hd textures and play the right games. I enjoy playing oblivion/fallout and regularly use around 1.7GB vram with all the extra texture mods and high AA while maintaining 50+ fps at 1920x1200.

 

[MinitroN]

At stock a 560 Ti is slightly slower than a HD 6950. When both are overclocked to their limits the performance gap is even smaller.

For 1920x1080 BF3 can definitely use more than 1GB of VRAM on Ultra. But if you turn down AA from 4x to 2x it'll probably settle somewhere right above 1GB; the 570 has 1280MB.

 

[179232]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pioneerisloud Actually, that's incorrect. We are MORE than capable of utilizing 2-3GB of VRAM as it sits right now (6970's and 580's). Problem being, it requires 2, 3, or 4 of those cards, and an INSANELY high resolution (3x 1080p monitors or bigger). For any single 1900x1200 display (or smaller), I agree. There's no reason to buy a card based off VRAM, especially when a 1GB card is sufficient like the 560Ti or the 460 1GB. You only need higher VRAM amounts when you use 1440p or 1600p, or multiple monitors (as of right now).

I disagree. I posted a video last week here on OCN proving that Metro 2033 maxed out Vram at 1080p on high settings with AA on, so I got frame rate drops. BF3 will be the same if you plan on playing with high levels of AA. As of right now I go over 900MB in Caspian Border on high settings with AA disabled. Imagine buying another card to CF in the future, you would be bottlenecked by Vram if you want to raise AA at all.

 

[Imglidinhere]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pioneerisloud;15152367
No, you don't need 1.5 or 2GB of VRAM, not with a single monitor at 1200p or less.

Get the 570 and be happy, its the superior card.

The 570 might be a superior card but even at the resolution he's at, DX11 games will choke if he doesn't have enoug Vram. My 460m uses upwards of 1.3GB in AvP @ 1680x945.

 

[Paradigm Shifter]

If you push settings far enough in selected games, you can make even 3GB GTX580s get within sweating distance of hitting a VRAM limitation (I'm thinking DX11 Crysis 2 with the high-res textures) on 1080p or so and it's easy as anything to run face-first into a VRAM limatation with triple-monitor gaming. Check the link in my sig for a 1GB SLI vs 2GB SLI comparison of some games.

Totally dependent on textures and engine, though. Deus Ex: Human Revolution won't break 800 or 900MB of VRAM even at 6064x1200 unless you start turning AA up a long, long way. Without AA, I rarely see usage exceeding 650MB. Oblivion with mods, Crysis and a host of others really eat VRAM though.

Edit: for most purposes on a single screen, a GTX570 will be more than sufficient.

 

[BZ1891]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MinitroN;15250147
At stock a 560 Ti is slightly slower than a HD 6950. When both are overclocked to their limits the performance gap is even smaller.

For 1920x1080 BF3 can definitely use more than 1GB of VRAM on Ultra. But if you turn down AA from 4x to 2x it'll probably settle somewhere right above 1GB; the 570 has 1280MB.

It takes a gtx 560ti (stock 822 MHz) overlocked to 900/950 to match a HD 6950 at stock 800Mhz, the gtx 560ti isn't going much higher than 1Ghz while the HD 6950 still has 200Mhz left before it reaches it's common limit of 1GHz, don't see a gtx 560ti at 1Ghz competing much with a HD 6950 at 1Ghz.

 

[Arizonian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paradigm Shifter If you push settings far enough in selected games, you can make even 3GB GTX580s get within sweating distance of hitting a VRAM limitation (I'm thinking DX11 Crysis 2 with the high-res textures) on 1080p or so and it's easy as anything to run face-first into a VRAM limatation with triple-monitor gaming. Check the link in my sig for a 1GB SLI vs 2GB SLI comparison of some games. Totally dependent on textures and engine, though. Deus Ex: Human Revolution won't break 800 or 900MB of VRAM even at 6064x1200 unless you start turning AA up a long, long way. Without AA, I rarely see usage exceeding 650MB. Oblivion with mods, Crysis and a host of others really eat VRAM though. Edit: for most purposes on a single screen, a GTX570 will be more than sufficient.

Exactly my point to those who claim 1GB VRAM isn't enough for a single monitor due to VRAM usage but all of a sudden 2GB across 3 monitors even though it's exceeding 2GB VRAM enough?

So people think that across 3 monitors going over 2GB VRAM dosent have any effect on FPS but going over VRAM on one monitor does?

Anyone else see the problem in this failed hipocracy?

On a single monitor the GTX 570 is going to be enough on a single monitor like Pioneer said in previous post and many others concur.

 

[BZ1891]

Going over 1GB is going to be a 'much' bigger issue than going over 2GB as the swapping to system ram will be much higher for a 1GB card.

Just for fun, a few games at 1680x1050 using over 1.5GB Vram.

Crysis 2 1680x1050





Rage 1680x1050



Fallout NV 1680x1050





Oblivion 1680x1050

 

[Jodiuh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wulfgar;15155829
A game will store textures & stuff into video memory but it won't access it all at the same time. That's why BF3 can be played without major FPS drops on a GTX 560TI.

Until someone offers an explanation of what happened here, I'm going to disagree. This is a shot of MSI Afterburner while running BF3 on Ultra settings w/ my 1 GB wonder. Game seemed to be ok at first...looked FANTASTIC and much better than High settings. Then after a couple minutes, I felt some stutter, then some 3.3 FPS action, lol!

 

[Arizonian]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jodiuh Until someone offers an explanation of what happened here, I'm going to disagree. This is a shot of MSI Afterburner while running BF3 on Ultra settings w/ my 1 GB wonder. Game seemed to be ok at first...looked FANTASTIC and much better than High settings. Then after a couple minutes, I felt some stutter, then some 3.3 FPS action, lol!

Disable 'enable hardware physx' settings in game. FPS drops like that when enabled if you don't have a deticated physx card.

 

[Jodiuh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arizonian Disable 'enable hardware physx' settings in game.

AFAIK, no PhysX in BF3. At least, I didn't see that option while playing.

FWIW, I could feel the stutter as it approached 1000+ VRAM via Afterburner.