** 2GB GFX RAM VS 1GB GFX RAM IN BF3 (560Ti 1GB VS 560Ti 2GB) TESTING RESULTS!

bhavv · 24 Nov 2011 at 13:48

That graph is a very poor way of indicating performance. It doesnt even mention the rest of the PC specs, which looks like it only had 4 Gb ram, so not enough for shared memory.

I would rather see a thorough 1 Gb vs 2 Gb GTX 560 ti review, I dont see why anyone cant make one yet, though hopefully I think hardware canuks are doing so.

Also a GT 560 ti with 2 Gb vram - While it performs better in the graph, it still isnt playable. The GPU is not powerful to render 2 Gb vram worth of data.

Next gen GPUs will be.

kissenger · 24 Nov 2011 at 13:53

bhavv said:
I think hardware canuks are doing so.

I'll look forward to reading that. My guess: negligible differences at playable frame rates in all games, just like with the 580 1.5Gb and 3Gb cards.

bhavv · 24 Nov 2011 at 13:54

The biggest hypocrisy on this issue is that people using a 1 Gb Vram GPU along with 4 Gb sysem ram, and in some cases even an AMD phenom CPU complain about or notice lag spikes / unacceptable FPS and blame this on their 1 Gb Vram .... But they never stop to think that their CPU or 4 Gb system ram might be to blame.

These 1 Gb Vram issues / slowdowns are non existent for people with 8 Gb system ram and I5 2500k's clocked to 4.5 Ghz+.

Gibbo · 24 Nov 2011 at 14:15

kissenger said:
No, sorry that's not true. 'Holding' and 'average' are two very different things. Holding is to do with the baseline performance, i.e. the troughs on the graph. It's hitting around the 25fps mark every 5-10 seconds if you look at the graph. So that means that even if the average is 35fps you will be dealing with 25fps every 5-10 seconds, and would you be happy with that? I wouldn't.

Would be great if Gibbo could scale back settings until he's getting 60fps on the 2Gb 560Ti and then check to see what the 560Ti gets on the same settings. That would settle this debate...

Hi there

No time to do such testing, but as with all things, scaling back settings, a less busy server will result in greater performance on any card.

kissenger · 24 Nov 2011 at 14:19

Gibbo said:
Hi there

No time to do such testing, but as with all things, scaling back settings, a less busy server will result in greater performance on any card.

Fair enough. I just doubt that the 2Gb card can make playable any game that isn't playable on the 1Gb card.

OCPete · 24 Nov 2011 at 14:32

kissenger said:

Thats pretty telling TBH.

Even at MASSIVE multi screen res at max settings moving to 3GB has no impact. Ie 1.5GB is enough. Imagine the same test @ 1080. More or less difference?

I'm still waiting for some proof over the claim a 560ti 2GB could be faster / smoother than a 580 1.5GB. :confused:

kissenger · 24 Nov 2011 at 14:39

OCPete said:
I'm still waiting for some proof over the claim a 560ti 2GB could be faster / smoother than a 580 1.5GB.

I would be very surprised if anyone can produce proof of that!

Then again, maybe if they did this test again with a 570 at 1080p in HD on a 64 man server with everything on ultra and 4xMSAA it might show the 2Gb 560Ti beating it.

For some reason it seems as though in extreme cases, when a GPU is pushed to it's absolute limits and is unable to maintain acceptable frame rates per second, cards with more vram give slightly less unplayable (but still unplayable) performance.

bhavv · 24 Nov 2011 at 14:56

Games that eat up loads of Vram need something like tri 3 Gb GTX 580s to play them smoothly at highest settings.

Of course if youre playing at 2560x1600 / eyefinity / 120 hz / 3D vision, you need all the GPU power and Vram you can afford.

If youre gaming at 1920x1200 on a 60 hz monitor ... is a 2 Gb GTX 560 ti really going to make a noticable differene over a 1 Gb one? Even if it doubles the frame rates like in the graph, the game is still unplayable, and you need to SLI them anyway for maximum settings.

Marine-RX179 · 24 Nov 2011 at 15:05

arknor said:
fxaa is horrible and blurs out all the details.... i like to see the edges of things

You sure you ain't talking about AMD's MLAA? In case you don't realise, AMD themselves instructed the users to NOT use MSAA, but to use FXAA instead for BF3. This is probably due to losing too much frame rate with 4xMSAA applied, and 6970 2GB's frame rate drop to WAY lower than a GTX570 1.25GB (on FXAA however, the 6970 2GB is on par/ahead of the GTX570 1.25GB).

starkill3r · 24 Nov 2011 at 16:15

Its quite self explanatory that a 2GB VRAM graphics card is a requirement for Battlefield 3 if your playing at resolutions of 1920x1080 or higher, especially with high detail settings.

I play at 1920x1080 in ultra with 2xmsaa and it never drops below 60 fps with my 560 Ti's in SLI 1GB versions, Ok I have two of them and the memory is maxed, but I get perfect results and obviously don't need 2GB VRAM.

I see hardly any difference between 2x 4x msaa @ 1080p anyway.

OCPete · 24 Nov 2011 at 16:28

starkill3r said:
I play at 1920x1080 in ultra with 2xmsaa and it never drops below 60 fps with my 560 Ti's in SLI 1GB versions, Ok I have two of them and the memory is maxed, but I get perfect results and obviously don't need 2GB VRAM.

I see hardly any difference between 2x 4x msaa @ 1080p anyway.

VERY Interesting.

You get 60 FPS min with 2*560ti 1GB
OcUK state ~15 FPS average with 1*560ti 1GB

Something is wrong here.

System memory caching due to your 8GB?

starkill3r · 24 Nov 2011 at 16:31

OCPete said:
VERY Interesting.

You get 60 FPS min with 2*560ti 1GB
OcUK state ~15 FPS average with 1*560ti 1GB

Something is wrong here.

System memory caching due to your 8GB?

Yes something is wrong indeed, the facts they have said are obviously wrong, I've removed 4GB and the game played the same, still not dropping below 60fps.

Also

spooks · 24 Nov 2011 at 16:51

I have just bought a 1GB 560Ti and all I have to say about this subject is that I can quite happily play Battlefield 3 on my 24" Dell U2410 @ 1920 * 1200 on high settings. I get between 45-60FPS. It never drops below 40.

If I try and play on ultra then the frame rates are between 30-40fps but after a few minutes of playing the FPS drops to about 14FPS for around 30 seconds (I assume this is to do with VRAM). I only got the card as a stop gap until kepler came along because my ageing 280GTX was annoying me.

There is literally no difference between high and ultra on bf3 and I don't think you do actually need 2GB of VRAM to be honest. I'll repeat what I have said. High settings @ 1920 & 1200 - 45 - 60FPS on 64 player servers. Rock solid. What's the issue? Not sure there is one.

I wouldn't expect a mid range card to be able to max out a brand new title.

elrasho · 24 Nov 2011 at 16:56

spooks said:
There is literally no difference between high and ultra on bf3 and I don't think you do actually need 2GB of VRAM to be honest.

Yes there is a difference between High and Ultra. If you stand back and look at the overall picture the difference is quite clear. Ultra looks amazing!

spooks · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:00

elrasho said:
Yes there is a difference between High and Ultra. If you stand back and look at the overall picture the difference is quite clear. Ultra looks amazing!

Well, I can't tell - certainly not when I'm running around shooting stuff. Obviously there is a difference but it's not night and day...

You honestly believe it is a night and day difference?

elrasho · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:02

spooks said:
Well, I can't tell - certainly not when I'm running around shooting stuff. Obviously there is a difference but it's not night and day...

You honestly believe it is a night and day difference?

Yep I'm playing at just 1080P. The big game changers are textures, mesh and HBAO.

spooks · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:04

elrasho said:
Yep I'm playing at just 1080P. The big game changers are textures, mesh and HBAO.

If you want to believe there is a massive difference then go ahead.... In my opinion there isn't. Just my opinion though.

Just on topic though, 560GTX 1GB is more than enough for High Quality. Not for Ultra though.

elrasho · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:06

Im playing everything on Ultra with textures and mesh on High and I get +60fps. I've got 1GB 5850s running in crossfire. Having 8GB of ram helps a lot.

starkill3r · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:10

spooks said:
If you want to believe there is a massive difference then go ahead.... In my opinion there isn't. Just my opinion though.

Just on topic though, 560GTX 1GB is more than enough for High Quality. Not for Ultra though.

Chuck another one in there and do SLI like me and you can enjoy it everything in ultra and 1080p and above 60fps constantly

Final8y · 24 Nov 2011 at 17:12

OCPete said:
VERY Interesting.

You get 60 FPS min with 2*560ti 1GB
OcUK state ~15 FPS average with 1*560ti 1GB

Something is wrong here.

System memory caching due to your 8GB?

when i get home at 10 i will tell you why and is ocuk using x2 or x4.