460 1gb and 768mb

pumaz · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:06

I just bought a 1GB 460 last week for my HTPC and if i had known there was only 4fps difference i would have saved £50....

But what do I know I just game not benchmark!

jtz79 · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:15

i've been thinking about the 460 myself - so if I game only in 1680x1050 then 768mb should do fine, right?

arknor · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:19

sure if you dont mind games using more than 768mb of memory and potential not smooth framrates even if they are only 4fps different acording to a benchmark.

dont worry the cache , rops etc extra arent needed nvidia added them for ***** and giggles

Rroff · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:31

4fps average difference can quite easily hide those moments in the game where you get slowdowns due to lack of VRAM, depending on scenario.

arc@css · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:34

I can only speak from my experience (and preferences, game dependent / settings etc), but I was using a 512mb card a couple of years back and when playing under 1680x1050 it just couldn't quite manage a decent enough frame rate. I appreciate that I am referring to 512 and not 768 but even so. Cards with 1gb seems to be the standard now.

I think it all depends on what one expects. I have a friend that is happy as long as he can run games above low to low end of mid settings, so AA and full shadows etc won't be as important to him than it would be for someone like myself.

The good thing for these cards is that they overclock well. So, if you are a someone that doesn't have too many specific requirements I think this card should, in most titles, provide a pretty good gaming experience.

Rroff · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:42

I think its madness buying a 768MB card now... sure it will do... but with games already knocking at that VRAM door its a far wiser decision to buy the extra VRAM if you intend to use the card for awhile IMO.

arknor · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:48

Rroff said:
I think its madness buying a 768MB card now... sure it will do... but with games already knocking at that VRAM door its a far wiser decision to buy the extra VRAM if you intend to use the card for awhile IMO.

yea i like how people go on about 1gb card is future proofing only , oh we dont need it now do we wayne?

raikesi · 9 Oct 2010 at 21:58

didn't I say that i was using two in sli?

arknor · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:07

2x 768? its still 768 memory not 768+768

raikesi · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:10

what! so it would only use 768mb of memory even tho there r 2 of them in sli? surely having 2*768mb (1536mb) would be ok for current games?

arc@css · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:16

It works like this, my 4870x2 has 2gb of graphics memory but it can only use 1gb at any one time, so it's 1gb effective. The processors and shaders / rops and any other architectural goodies are doubled (which provide the extra frames) but the memory is not.

raikesi · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:18

arghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats really annoying!!!!!!!!!

arknor · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:19

raikesi said:
arghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thats really annoying!!!!!!!!!

maybe see if bigwayne offers a stutter back garuntee

raikesi · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:24

arknor said:
maybe see if bigwayne offers a stutter back garuntee

teh lulz

Rroff · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:27

Each card needs a mirror copy of the data in memory and accessing memory from the other card over the PCI-e bus has too much latency for decent performance.

95thrifles · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:44

arknor said:
are you dense?

how hard is it to understand game benchmarks tell us 2-3 things MINIMUM , AVERAGE , MAXIMUM.
which tells us 3 simple things , it does not tell you how the game actually ran, it doesnt tell you if its actually smooth framerates.

buy your 768mb card for all i care , you know games already exist that use more than that , dont come crying on the forums if your games judder along at what should be a nice smooth fps

Firstly this is an attack and not constructive, neither to the OP nor the discussion
Secondly youre wrong, Waynes point is that minimum frame rates tell you very well how the game has run, yes average and particuarly maximum can be misleading but minimum frame rates are a very good indicator

Rroff · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:48

TBH min avg and max fps mean absolutely nothing.

It might have hit a min fps for a very very short time right at the start, a card can get good average fps (typical with multi GPU) but actually sucks in the intensive scenes but the average is pulled up by silly high fps in less demanding scenes...

The only thing that can really give you a good comparative idea of how good or bad a GPU is compared to another GPU is a graph showing the framerate over time such as this:

arknor · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:50

95thrifles said:
Firstly this is an attack and not constructive, neither to the OP nor the discussion
Secondly youre wrong, Waynes point is that minimum frame rates tell you very well how the game has run, yes average and particuarly maximum can be misleading but minimum frame rates are a very good indicator

no they are not becauze minimum frame rates dont tell you if its smooth ,suffers from stutters or juddering.

it only tells you what the lowest point the frame rate dropped to , you could be getting micro stutters at 100fps , min , max tell us nothing of use.

it comes across as someone repeating the same thing 3x not as an attack

95thrifles · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:50

I agree the above gives best information but the minimum frame rate also gives a good guide, assuming its not 2 or anything daft, lol

arknor · 9 Oct 2010 at 22:53

95thrifles said:
I agree the above gives best information but the minimum frame rate also gives a good guide, assuming its not 2 or anything daft, lol

not really because 30min , 30max is going to be smoother than 30min 60 max if the framerate is jumping up and down like a yoyo everytime you turn the camera etc, how consitent the fps is more importaint than how high it goes and you can only see that with a graph or video footage showing both a 768 and a 1gb card side by side