Which graphics card for my system - 770 v 7970

bru · 19 Jul 2013 at 12:33

dmferrett said:
Also as previously mentioned, the Xbox one and PS4 have 8GB GDDR5 and DDR3 respectively this tells us that games will use a lot more hardware resource in the next year or so.

And just how does this relate to the 10/11 GB of ram available to the currant pc's (8GB ram + 2/3GB video ram)

I assume you did realise that the 8GB in the new consoles is total ram available and not just for the GPU to use.

bru · 19 Jul 2013 at 13:07

Just to put that above comment into perspective, the Xbox 360 launched with 512MB ram and 10MB of embedded Dram on the GPU, the PS3 with 256 MB ram and 256MB of XDR ram for the GPU.

Compared with the PC's of the time shipping with 512MB/1GB ram and 256MB GPU's

http://web.archive.org/web/20051124030928/http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/full_systems.html

dmferrett · 19 Jul 2013 at 13:11

bru said:
And just how does this relate to the 10/11 GB of ram available to the currant pc's (8GB ram + 2/3GB video ram)

I assume you did realise that the 8GB in the new consoles is total ram available and not just for the GPU to use.

Yes infact i did know consoles use a very efficient shared system ram/graphics configuration. (Does this reduce latency?) The consoles also do not have windows hogging up to 2gb+ of ram like PC's do.

In general terms most pc's only use approx 2.5Gb-3.0gb of system ram for games and non video encoding type workloads, so i dont know why many use up to 16gb of ram when their rigs are for gaming only. (Its cheap so I understand why you might buy it though)
I used to run 4Gb of system ram and 1Gb Gddr5 in a 5870 and only used 70-75% max. This worked ok for general system operation in Windows 7 pro, but the 1Gb Gddr5 killed me in games like bf3, crysis 3 and bioshock at ultra settings.

If you assume the operating system for the console requires 2Gb to run and boot thats a 6gb surplus!!! (The OP will never use 2gb to boot and run, because its not a hog like windows, exception might be Xbox One spying on people via kinect lol) You will probably have 6Gb or more of spare GFX capacity, see my point..

2Gb is not gonna be enough in the next 12-18months surely this is plain to see.

Why dont we see XDR in current Gpu's is it just too expensive?

jimfowler_82 · 19 Jul 2013 at 13:24

dmferrett said:
Yes its all well and good on one monitor, but if you buy another GTx770 (when the prices drop) which is an amazing card and sli it, and then think right im absolutely loving this 160fps in BF3 Mp i want to use 3 monitors and enjoy this in surround your gonna be pistright off....

Nvidia should give you guys the 3-4Gb!!! IMO

Honestly 2gb is enough for me i dont want more than one monitor to be honest, maybe i will want 1440p one day but not multi monitor.

bru · 19 Jul 2013 at 13:39

dmferrett said:
I used to run 4Gb of system ram and 1Gb Gddr5 in a 5870 and only used 70-75% max. This worked ok for general system operation in Windows 7 pro, but the 1Gb Gddr5 killed me in games like bf3, crysis 3 and bioshock at ultra settings.

Have a look here.

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2013/55_directx11_grafikkarten_im_test/index32.php?dummy=&advancedFilter=true&prod%5B%5D=AMD+Radeon+HD+5870+%5B1024+MByte+GDDR5%5D&prod%5B%5D=AMD+Radeon+HD+5870+%5B2048+MByte+GDDR5%5D&filter%5B0%5D%5B%5D=1920&filter%5B2%5D%5B%5D=2&filter%5B3%5D%5B%5D=16&aa=on

I really don't think it was the 1GB of video ram that was holding you back but the general lack of GPU grunt, which is what Kaapstad has been saying all along.

muriel · 19 Jul 2013 at 15:07

Kaapstad said:
Max payne 3 @1080p on my Titans

I have also ran this game at 1600p on a pair of GTX 690s maxed out and memory usage was under the 2gb the 690s come with.

On the Titans @1600p they use about 2.2gb of vram but some of that is being cached, this is easy to prove as the 690s using the same settings have no problems and don't run out of vram.

You ask for a single game that use more than 2Gb on your titan on a single screen ... I gave it to you So cheers up and again the more the Vram the Better is it

dmferrett · 19 Jul 2013 at 16:00

muriel said:
You ask for a single game that use more than 2Gb on your titan on a single screen ... I gave it to you So cheers up and again the more the Vram the Better is it

Add to that BF4 quite possibly as we have already spoken about, Crysis 3 on Ultra with high msa settings and Rome 2 will be a hog for Vram (still to be determined though).

Kaapstad · 19 Jul 2013 at 16:21

muriel said:
You ask for a single game that use more than 2Gb on your titan on a single screen ... I gave it to you So cheers up and again the more the Vram the Better is it

That game runs using the same settings faster on a GTX 690 than it does on a Titan and actually uses less that 2gb of vram as that is all you get with a 690. All that is going on with the Titan is it caches a bit more @1600p, 2gb of vram is enough to run Max Payne 3 at 1600p with out running out of vram.

Just for ref does anyone have average fps for an HD 7970 maxed out on this @1600p

Kaapstad · 19 Jul 2013 at 16:58

muriel said:
You ask for a single game that use more than 2Gb on your titan on a single screen ... I gave it to you So cheers up and again the more the Vram the Better is it

Remember I said playable fps too

These people were using settings a fair bit lower than I was

http://www.techspot.com/review/537-max-payne-3-performance/page5.html

Their settings

My settings

I am afraid Max payne 3 is in the same boat as Crysis 3 @1600p

LtMatt · 23 Jul 2013 at 10:08

LtMatt said:
Taken from the Battlefield 4 Alpha.

Couple of things to note. The game has a lot more to come in the way of optimization, so those vram usage requirements might come down. I also doubt there is much caching going on here as i find caching only occurs once a new level is loading, at least for me on 3gb at 1440p. However you have to remember that the alpha has a lot of textures missing so you could counter the optimization angle by saying those requirements will go up once the levels have full textures available rather than blank textures like in the picture below.

If that above chart is true, then it might well be brown pants time for our 2gb friends and they will have to start sacrificing image quality details. AMD will be hoping this is the case i bet.

Battlefield 4 minimum vram requirements increase. 1gb is now the minimum where as with Battlefield 3 the minimum was 512mb.

Source

BF4
OS: Vista SP2, Win7. Windows 8 not supported; 32-bit not supported.
Video card: DX10 or DX11 GPU with 1+GB of RAM, DX11 highly recommended

BF3
OS: Windows Vista or Windows 7
Processor: Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz or Althon X2 2.7 GHz
RAM: 2GB
Graphic card: DirectX 10 or 11 compatible Nvidia or AMD ATI card, ATI Radeon 3870 or higher, Nvidia GeForce 8800 GT or higher.
Graphics card memory: 512 MB

Remains to be seen on the final release if directx9 cards only will be supported along with lower than 1gb vram cards.

spoffle · 23 Jul 2013 at 10:14

Kaapstad said:
Remember I said playable fps too

These people were using settings a fair bit lower than I was

http://www.techspot.com/review/537-max-payne-3-performance/page5.html

Their settings

My settings

I am afraid Max payne 3 is in the same boat as Crysis 3 @1600p

You're completely overlooking the longevity aspect. It makes no sense getting a 2GB 256bit bus card now.

The 7970 offers similar performance, but will have greater longevity when 2GB on a 256bit bus aren't needed.

Currently, one of the main things that lets games down is poor texturing anyway, just an increase in the quality of textures used will be a massive increase in graphical quality in a load of games.

Larger textures do not tax the GPU either, only the memory footprint.

There really isn't an argument for why you should go for 2GB at 256bits over 3GB at 384bits.

Kaapstad · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:04

spoffle said:
You're completely overlooking the longevity aspect. It makes no sense getting a 2GB 256bit bus card now.

The 7970 offers similar performance, but will have greater longevity when 2GB on a 256bit bus aren't needed.

Currently, one of the main things that lets games down is poor texturing anyway, just an increase in the quality of textures used will be a massive increase in graphical quality in a load of games.

Larger textures do not tax the GPU either, only the memory footprint.

There really isn't an argument for why you should go for 2GB at 256bits over 3GB at 384bits.

Both the HD 7970 and GTX 770 will become obsolete at the same time as they will both run out of GPU grunt before vram becomes a factor.

It is a bit like using my ancient HD 5970s now, they tend to run out of GPU grunt before vram becomes a factor.

Final8y · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:18

Kaapstad said:
Both the HD 7970 and GTX 770 will become obsolete at the same time as they will both run out of GPU grunt before vram becomes a factor.

It is a bit like using my ancient HD 5970s now, they tend to run out of GPU grunt before vram becomes a factor.

I thought you had 1GB per GPU HD 5970s ?

I had managed to reach 1980MBs of Vram many times with no sign of my GPU grunt being an issue on my 2GB per GPU 5970's.

Kaapstad · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:19

Final8y said:
I thought you had 1GB per GPU HD 5970s ?

I do

I did not get the up market ones like you.

spoffle · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:22

Kaapstad said:
Both the HD 7970 and GTX 770 will become obsolete at the same time as they will both run out of GPU grunt before vram becomes a factor.

They won't, as it doesn't work like that.

Kaapstad · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:26

spoffle said:
They won't, as it doesn't work like that.

Unless you are going to multi monitor, multi card setups neither card has the GPU grunt to use more than 2gb

It is the same with my HD 5970s with their 1gb, if I use one card with reduced settings it is fine. If I use both of them in quadfire the GPU grunt outstrips the 1gb of vram.

Marine-RX179 · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:28

Kaapstad said:
Both the HD 7970 and GTX 770 will become obsolete at the same time as they will both run out of GPU grunt before vram becomes a factor.

Still doesn't make sense why people should pay the same money and choose the card with lower bus-size and less memory, when both card's GPU grunt are equal :confused:

It's like between 8GB 1600MHz memory and 12GB 1600MHz memory both with similar performance and available for the same price. Do we really need 12GB over 8GB? Probably not...but for the same money, I know which would make more sense to get.

spoffle · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:30

Kaapstad said:
Unless you are going to multi monitor, multi card setups neither card has the GPU grunt to use more than 2gb

It is the same with my HD 5970s with their 1gb, if I use one card with reduced settings it is fine. If I use both of them in quadfire the GPU grunt outstrips the 1gb of vram.

That's on the basis of a single card not being enough for playable FPS at max settings, not that GPU power and VRAM usage are intrinsically linked.

Kaapstad · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:34

Marine-RX179 said:
Still doesn't make sense why people should pay the same money and choose the card with lower bus-size and less memory, when both card's GPU grunt are equal

If you look at it that way, your arguement makes sense.

If I was buying a GPU I would be looking for the larger memory/wider bus for the simple reason that I would want to go SLI/Xfire at high resolution.

Kaapstad · 23 Jul 2013 at 11:37

spoffle said:
That's on the basis of a single card not being enough for playable FPS at max settings, not that GPU power and VRAM usage are intrinsically linked.

I think you want to read and have a good think about what you have just written and scale it up.