580 1.5 or 3gb best for me?

KHAN · 18 Oct 2011 at 11:42

Building a new rig, was planning on a 3gb but my monitor is running at 1920x1800 which is fine for me. I could prob. save some cash by buying 2x580 1.5gig's instead of 3gb but I want the best performance.

Just want to make sure it's not going to be money wasted, as long as I get a few extra fps with the 3gigs i'll be happy.

There's a £200 difference between 2x580 1.5gigs and 2x580 3gigs...

harmony · 18 Oct 2011 at 11:46

You won't get a few extra fps with the 3gigs in 99% games as of today. However I still recommend you get the 3gigs if you can, because you will get less lag spikes / stuttering, and you'll not regret later.

I made a pilot test there: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1273264

After I've made more tests I'll try to make the analysis more robust, i.e. with more statistical data.

nickrose · 18 Oct 2011 at 11:46

If your going to be playing the latest games (Crysis 2 & Battlefield 3) go for the 3Gb version.
These are video ram hungry games.
If not playing the latest games go for the 1.5Gb Vram models.

KHAN · 18 Oct 2011 at 11:51

Thanks guys just what I needed to hear. Will go with the 3gig's. Am building a rig for BF3 etc. so yeah...

kalyyy · 18 Oct 2011 at 21:04

no difference in fps between 3gb and 1.5gb see this benchmark...

http://www.hardware.fr/focus/50/test-geforce-gtx-580-3go-vs-1-5go-sli-surround.html

same for bf3 it's just marketing a part if u play surround

Cleeecooo · 18 Oct 2011 at 22:01

harmony said:
You won't get a few extra fps with the 3gigs in 99% games as of today.
YAY!!!!

However I still recommend you get the 3gigs if you can, because you will get less lag spikes / stuttering, and you'll not regret later.
*headdesk*

I made a pilot test there: http://www.evga.com/forums/tm.aspx?m=1273264

After I've made more tests I'll try to make the analysis more robust, i.e. with more statistical data.

you'll be fine with 1.5 gb

GoRedwings19 · 19 Oct 2011 at 03:47

KHAN said:
Building a new rig, was planning on a 3gb but my monitor is running at 1920x1800 which is fine for me. I could prob. save some cash by buying 2x580 1.5gig's instead of 3gb but I want the best performance.

Just want to make sure it's not going to be money wasted, as long as I get a few extra fps with the 3gigs i'll be happy.

There's a £200 difference between 2x580 1.5gigs and 2x580 3gigs...

Your going to spend the best part of 800-900 pounds for one game playing at 1920x1080 which will need a beefier power supply going by your sig and you want to make sure it not going to be money wasted?

3gb 580 does not run faster than a 1.5gb 580 in fact it runs ever so slightly slower due to the latency of the ram used in 3gb 580. Clock for clock there is a difference of give or take a frame or so.

Maybe you need a rethink.

Purgatory · 19 Oct 2011 at 06:19

GoRedwings19 said:
Your going to spend the best part of 800-900 pounds for one game playing at 1920x1080 which will need a beefier power supply going by your sig and you want to make sure it not going to be money wasted?

3gb 580 does not run faster than a 1.5gb 580 in fact it runs ever so slightly slower due to the latency of the ram used in 3gb 580. Clock for clock there is a difference of give or take a frame or so.

Maybe you need a rethink.

+1

The logic of the OP is well... :rolleyes:

One GTX 580 1.5GB is more then enough... Stop reading all the blaa blaa on these forums about GPU memory.. Are you running more then one screen ? NO..., are you running extreme resolutions like 2500 x 1600 and wanting to max out AA ? NO.. So now you have the answer... 1 x GTX 580 1.5GB... even on a 2500 x 1600 res without silly amounts of AA it will be fine.

Save your money and buy a 2500 x 1600 monitor and then think about a 2nd GTX 580.

I just read your sig "Intel Q9550 | ASUS Commando MBoard | 4GB DDRII 800MHZ|Corsair 550w PSU" seriously you will blow £900 on GPUS but not update the computer ? Update your pc to an i5 2500k (if you game only) or an i7 2600k (if you video encode and use multi threading apps) and get one GTX 580 and a new power supply 750 watt minimum... that is money spent right then.. any money left over put it towards a new monitor with higher resolution and larger faster hard drives.

Q9550 will bottleneck 2 x GTX 580.. so you won't even see the difference from 1 x GTX 580.

Avathar77 · 19 Oct 2011 at 07:26

if I can remember correctly he is NOT using the same PC in his sig!
He is building one epic rig

Sgt Tackleberry · 19 Oct 2011 at 07:43

i went from the 1.5gb 580 to the 3gb 580, I got a few extra fps in return but the only reason i went form the 3gb as i am upgrading my res to
5760x1080 as i am getting another 2 more monitors but at the mo i am using just one monitor and it is an overkill 1.5gb would still do me.
For an extra £50-70 more you can get 3gb and i would go for that as that would be future proof your computer a little bit long...

Surveyor · 19 Oct 2011 at 08:11

Sgt Tackleberry said:
i went from the 1.5gb 580 to the 3gb 580, I got a few extra fps in return but the only reason i went form the 3gb as i am upgrading my res to
5760x1080 as i am getting another 2 more monitors but at the mo i am using just one monitor and it is an overkill 1.5gb would still do me.
For an extra £50-70 more you can get 3gb and i would go for that as that would be future proof your computer a little bit long...

If you plan on gaming over 3 monitors then you'll need another GTX 580 for SLI to run them.

A single GTX 580 only supports 2 monitors.

Sgt Tackleberry · 19 Oct 2011 at 11:13

Surveyor said:
If you plan on gaming over 3 monitors then you'll need another GTX 580 for SLI to run them.

A single GTX 580 only supports 2 monitors.

Yes I do know

Surveyor · 19 Oct 2011 at 11:32

Sgt Tackleberry said:
Yes I do know

Just checking

Sgt Tackleberry · 19 Oct 2011 at 11:44

Surveyor said:
Just checking

Lol, I did do my homework about this

...

KHAN · 19 Oct 2011 at 11:49

Purgatory said:
Save your money and buy a 2500 x 1600 monitor and then think about a 2nd GTX 580. I just read your sig, upgrade your pc to an i5 2500k or an i7 2600k and get one GTX 580 and a new power supply 750 watt minimum... that is money spent right then.. any money left over put it towards a new monitor with higher resolution and larger faster hard drives.
Q9550 will bottleneck 2 x GTX 580.. so you won't even see the difference from 1 x GTX 580.

Yeah that's exactly why I brought it up, hours and hours of checking benchmarks and opinions of people who bought both seem to be contradictory of each other. I thought 2x580 1.5's for 1920x1080/1200 (not going to be upgrading monitor soon it's new 120mhz) But people report using up they're vram and some have swapped they're 1.5's for 3gig to stop stuttering...

and yeah new build here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18330274

GoRedwings19 said:
Your going to spend the best part of 800-900 pounds for one game playing at 1920x1080 which will need a beefier power supply going by your sig and you want to make sure it not going to be money wasted?

3gb 580 does not run faster than a 1.5gb 580 in fact it runs ever so slightly slower due to the latency of the ram used in 3gb 580. Clock for clock there is a difference of give or take a frame or so.

Maybe you need a rethink.

It's a rig in planning redders i've only spent a few days researching this issue and it's going to be another 2 weeks before I order. Want to see the BF3 release benchmarks too.

But have a look at my planned build m8, I only upgrade every 4 years or so and dont plan to upgrade for another 4 lol I hear more games are coming out the next year or 2 which will use much more vram and I dont want to feel like I have a couple of lemons at that point. Plus the difference between 1.5 and 3gigs is what £60? When your spending 3k...

Purgatory · 19 Oct 2011 at 12:05

KHAN said:
Yeah that's exactly why I brought it up, hours and hours of checking benchmarks and opinions of people who bought both seem to be contradictory of each other. I thought 2x580 1.5's for 1920x1080/1200 (not going to be upgrading monitor soon it's new 120mhz) But people report using up they're vram and some have swapped they're 1.5's for 3gig to stop stuttering...

and yeah new build here: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18330274

Okay if you plan to use nvidia 3D on that monitor .. if it does 3D get one 3GB GTX 580, if the monitor is only a 120hz monitor and not 3D ready forget the 3GB and get the 1.5GB GTX 580. The extra memory will help you with 3D if the monitor is capable and you want that.. But don't go for 2 until you try one GTX 580 and see how you find it. I'm more then sure you will be over the moon with it's performance even in 3D with one GTX 580.

Nice setup you are planning on the other thread but you are going for parts that are too expensive and not really going to make a world of difference, eg the sniper motherboard.. there is just as good boards for £100 less, eg the asrock in my sig or the asrock 7. Also forget 2 SSDs get one large one for the OS and get a large fast hard disk to store your games and programs that you install on like the Western Digital Black range and buy another slower large hard disk for backups. Also while memory is cheap get 16GB of RAM. Don't go crazy more you spend does not mean you are going to get a faster system always. Spend wisely and remember the resale value of stuff you buy today may only get you back 25%-30% of the original cost in the future. I sold my Q9650 setup the other day on here and the parts were only 2 years old bought from new and they cost me £850 for a motherboard, memory, cpu and graphics card, I sold them for £380 and the postage to send these items to the buyers cost me over £52, so the parts were really sold for £328.. See the loss in 2 years ? So spend wisely and that way you can again in the future recover some of the money for these items to build your new future setup.

Pictures of my new setup here, for you to see what an air cooled case like the Fractal Design Define XL looks like after 1 x GTX 580 with a 3 slot cooler on it.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20343245&postcount=5594

KHAN · 19 Oct 2011 at 12:08

Purgatory said:
Okay if you plan to use nvidia 3D on that monitor .. if it does 3D get one 3GB GTX 580, if the monitor is only a 120hz monitor and not 3D ready forget the 3GB and get the 1.5GB GTX 580. The extra memory will help you with 3D if the monitor is capable and you want that.. But don't go for 2 until you try one GTX 580 and see how you find it. I'm more then sure you will be over the moon with it's performance even in 3D with one GTX 580.

Yeah it's 3D, that's what I was thinking, instead of 2x580 1.5's get one 580 3gig and see how it handles things and i'll have the option of adding another then.

kitch9 · 19 Oct 2011 at 14:48

Strange, I'm using 3d and I can't say its added much to my Vram usage?

MSAA is going the way of the dodo anyway, and FXAA and MLAA are soon going to be our only options...... The framebuffers of the future will be a fair bit smaller due to this.

KHAN · 19 Oct 2011 at 20:22

They are all pricey parts I know, but I've done a lot of comparing but in the end I found I could save upto 400quid by getting cheaper parts but I would be left regretting down the line. 3k is not even 3months wages and I havnt upgraded for 48months and won't upgrade for anoth 48. When you work 10hrs a day all ur free time is valuable. An hour a day waiting for a dvd to convert is worth that extra cash.