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7970 CF or 680 SLI?

I assume the dell is a 1600P?

If so, it could pay to get 7970/50CF if you don't mind a little bit of stutter. Lots say that microstutter isn't noticable though.

For me, I would get another 680 and SLI those bad boys :)

+1

I cant find another gainward model anywhere i was looking at the evga, but for abit more i could get 7970s aswell.

I use a dell u3011 as well, I use GTX 690s on it and don't normally have a vram problem. At 1600p 2 x GTX 680s or HD 7970s will run out of GPU muscle before they reach 2gb of vram usage.

I would just get another GTX 680.
 
+1



I use a dell u3011 as well, I use GTX 690s on it and don't normally have a vram problem. At 1600p 2 x GTX 680s or HD 7970s will run out of GPU muscle before they reach 2gb of vram usage.

I would just get another GTX 680.

GPU power and RAM usage aren't linked in the way people commonly portray around here though.
 
7970/7950 will be a good amount faster ~20-30% but then you've got to sell your old card as well. I would get a second 680, see what it's like and if it isn't up to scratch then DSR the card and go 7950/70. Or wait till next generation. :)

GPU power and RAM usage aren't linked in the way people commonly portray around here though.

They're linked in as much that if you can't enable AA due to low FPS anyway at say 1500MB then the VRAM limit doesn't come into it as you'll be well away from the VRAM limit with playable settings.
 
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@spoffle, wasn't me bud.:)

There's plenty places to go for frame times though, myself, never noticed it apart from the FC3 but that's a game issue with both of them tbph, been ok since. :)

Get 7950 CF and save an utter fortune-this is one of the best 50's imo but it will be up in price come Wednesday 9am:

2 x HIS HD 7950 IceQ BOOST 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H795QC3G2M) with Crysis 3 & Bioshock PC Games £239.99 (£479.98)
Total : £479.98



Sell your 680 for ~£300 and get faster performance for an extra ~£180?

Or pay through the nose for slower performance/dicing with vram plus PhysX. ;)






Just taken delivery of my second Ice-Q today, another low Asic ftw and I'm now eventually over the moon.

Now sitting with a TFIII going to get DSR'd and hand the DD over to it's new owner.
 
My 2gb vram cards work fine for me @1600p:)

I never suggested they didn't, it was the notion that you need a certain amount of GPU power to push or make the most use out of a certain amount of VRAM that I see commonly suggested around here that I was taking issue with.

Comments like "you'll run out of GPU power before you hit the RAM limit" implies that GPU power strongly influences the amount of VRAM used.
 
I never suggested they didn't, it was the notion that you need a certain amount of GPU power to push or make the most use out of a certain amount of VRAM that I see commonly suggested around here that I was taking issue with.

Comments like "you'll run out of GPU power before you hit the RAM limit" implies that GPU power strongly influences the amount of VRAM used.

No it doesn't. It means that to get playable FPS due to raw grunt lacking you'll need to lower settings which in turn removes you away from the VRAM limit.

You know this you're just being antagonistic.
 
No it doesn't. It means that to get playable FPS due to raw grunt lacking you'll need to lower settings which in turn removes you away from the VRAM limit.

Well no not really. Lesser settings don't necessarily mean less VRAM usage unless the settings chosen are ones that directly impact on VRAM usage.

Additionally, most of the settings that influence VRAM usage don't have a great impact on FPS unless the VRAM limit is being hit.

Which was my point in saying something in the first place.

You know this you're just being antagonistic.

No I'm not, just because you might not agree with it doesn't mean I'm being antagonistic. The more people say things like this, the more likely it'll be that people will start thinking it works like that.

That's how the good old "VRAM = speed" on graphics cards started in a similar fashion.

For example, highest resolution textures in games don't really have an impact on GPU performance, it's just how much RAM that they take up. If your VRAM is full then texture data will constantly need to be pulled in and out of VRAM, taxing memory bandwidth, reducing the performance of the GPU. Lowering the texture quality will reduce the RAM usage, thus meaning the GPU isn't being bottle necked.
 
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