[Cranky000]

Hey guys, im building a pc its not finished yet i still have the GPU to get the rest of it can be seen in my sig...
I was quite confident of getting the MSI lightning GTX580 XE
But now im not too sure i was reading this review

http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-geforce-gtx-580-lightning-xtreme-edition-review/10
And as you can see from page 10 onwards the FPS on the games is very minimal difference between the XE and the regular edition....

I only plan to do DX11 gaming and some small designing tasks (nothing both of them cant handle)....
Mainly gaming tho and im thinking do i really need the 3gb memory etc...

P.S I am intending to go 3-screen surround early next year and obviously will need to take this into account.... price difference is only £100 in england

Thanks in advance guys

 

[vitality]

If you are going into 3 screen surround then get the XE. If staying at 1080p stick with the 1.5gb

 

[uncholowapo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vitality;15306987
If you are going into 3 screen surround then get the XE. If staying at 1080p stick with the 1.5gb

Pretty much this.

 

[Cranky000]

so even 2 of the regular wouldnt be great for surround ???

Thnx guys

 

[c0ld]

If you're going with surround get the XE. Although I am at 1080p but since games are considerably using more VRAM, I stretched and got the XE.

 

[Cranky000]

The review doesnt seem to show much difference between the two...
but obviously the users know best...>

The XE edition is only 100 pound more which seems reasonable for double mem
But like i say i dont know all the ins and outs of what VRAM etc does?

 

[juano]

Even if you weren't going surround but were planning SLI, then the 3Gb is the better choice. Two 580s have way more precessing power than they could utilize well with only 1.5Gb of VRAM. Because you are going surround though, the 3Gb is a no-brainer.

VRAM is the space where all the nice pretty textures you are trying to load on the screen is stored while the GPU core is working on crunching them. When you don't have enough VRAM for your settings your FPS will take a huge crash into nothingness. You can always turn down things like the AA or use lwoer resolution textures but as I mentioned above when your GPU cores have so much processing power available to them it's better off to give them the VRAM they need to use that power in more situations.

This is a good picture to get an idea of two 1.5Gb 580s in SLI.

 

[Cranky000]

Aright guys i think that settles it. You all seem like reputable guys

So i will take your word save another week and buy the XE appreciate it all =]
Cheers

 

[Cranky000]

Quote:

Originally Posted by juano;15307165
even if you weren't going surround but were planning sli, then the 3gb is the better choice. Two 580s have way more precessing power than they could utilize well with only 1.5gb of vram. Because you are going surround though, the 3gb is a no-brainer.

Vram is the space where all the nice pretty textures you are trying to load on the screen is stored while the gpu core is working on crunching them. When you don't have enough vram for your settings your fps will take a huge crash into nothingness. You can always turn down things like the aa or use lwoer resolution textures but as i mentioned above when your gpu cores have so much processing power available to them it's better off to give them the vram they need to use that power in more situations.

This is a good picture to get an idea of two 1.5gb 580s in sli.

epic lol!

 

[juano]

LOL, here's another good way to picture it.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfTfXLLJlzM[/ame]

I'm good at this. Anybody else got a Disney movie reference to describe not enough VRAM for the processing power?

 

[kulbida]

Quote:

Originally Posted by c0ld;15307029
If you're going with surround get the XE. Although I am at 1080p but since games are considerably using more VRAM, I stretched and got the XE.

I did the same as this guy. I tend to like to "future-proof" everything I buy for my PC as much as possible. Obviously nothing in a computer is truly future-proof, but having overhead on VRAM is never a bad thing.

When spending this much on a GPU, the cost difference between the 2 cards is worth it IMO.

This is the exact reason I went with the Corsair AX1200 PSU as well. Better to have more than you need rather than not enough!

Sent from my GT-I9100M using Tapatalk

 

[c0ld]

Quote:

Originally Posted by juano;15307165
This is a good picture to get an idea of two 1.5Gb 580s in SLI.

HAHAHA that truly made me lol. Perfect example!
Quote:

Originally Posted by kulbida;15307733
I did the same as this guy. I tend to like to "future-proof" everything I buy for my PC as much as possible. Obviously nothing in a computer is truly future-proof, but having overhead on VRAM is never a bad thing.

When spending this much on a GPU, the cost difference between the 2 cards is worth it IMO.

This is the exact reason I went with the Corsair AX1200 PSU as well. Better to have more than you need rather than not enough!

Sent from my GT-I9100M using Tapatalk

Yep although my 850W should serve me well if I ever get an extra lighning XE

Too OP made that mistake when I got the 320mb 8800GTS regreated soo much not going a little bit further fro the 640mb.