does gpu ram matter much?

bamster97 · 14 Oct 2011 at 23:43

helloo everybodeeyy

so, im getting an upgrade, and some people say that gpu ram (is that vram?) doesnt really matter unless you playing at high resolutions and high games, but others are saying that youll need 2gb gpu ram for battle field 3 at any rez?
so does it matter what gpu ram you get? even at low rez? or for games nowadays you'll need as much ram as possible!

thankyou for your time

Blackwhite · 14 Oct 2011 at 23:49

No you don't need 2 GB RAM playing BF3 with low rez.
Of course always more means better, and for rez 2500x1440 you will need 2GB and more VRAM - not only for BF3 game.

KNiVES · 14 Oct 2011 at 23:57

I remember from your previous thread that you game at something like 1300x400, in which case you'll be fine with 1GB

Freddie1980 · 14 Oct 2011 at 23:59

People say you need 2Gb for BF3 because in Afterburner or some other resource measuring app it shows the game using 1.3Gb of vram at times but that doesn't mean having say a 1gb card will result in reduced performance as no proper testing has been done.

bamster97 · 15 Oct 2011 at 00:18

KNiVES said:
I remember from your previous thread that you game at something like 1300x400, in which case you'll be fine with 1GB

yeh, lol just curious, one of my freinds seems to think that you need a amazing gpu for eyeinfinity and next year 3gb gpu ram will be low and stuff

soo yeh, and im getting a 1gb gpu soon aswell

harmony · 15 Oct 2011 at 00:41

Freddie1980 said:
People say you need 2Gb for BF3 because in Afterburner or some other resource measuring app it shows the game using 1.3Gb of vram at times but that doesn't mean having say a 1gb card will result in reduced performance as no proper testing has been done.

I will do a "proper" test by comparing a GTX590 against GTX580 3GB 2-way SLI (clock lowered to match the GTX590), at 1920x1200 resolution, on the same machine. Though you could easily invalidate my tests by accusing me for manipulating the results, or more sophisticated troll comments such like "a single PCI-E 2.0 x16 slot shared by two GPUs is slower than a pair of PCI-E 2.0 x16 for two GPUs".

Antx777 · 15 Oct 2011 at 01:24

Are we talking VRAM per-card?, as I ran BF3 beta on 2 GTX 480's in sli (1.5Gig per card), At 2560x1440 res and ran smooth all maxed :confused:

if it is "per-card", then won't the GTX 590 be acting as 1.5 gig x 2 - as its a dual card yes?

Surveyor · 15 Oct 2011 at 01:29

Antx777 said:
Are we talking VRAM per-card?, as I ran BF3 beta on 2 GTX 480's in sli (1.5Gig per card), At 2560x1440 res and ran smooth all maxed

if it is "per-card", then won't the GTX 590 be acting as 1.5 gig x 2 - as its a dual card yes?

A GTX 590 with 1.5GB of VRAM per GPU has exactly the same amount of VRAM to work with as your GTX 480's.

Blackwhite · 15 Oct 2011 at 08:55

Surveyor said:
A GTX 590 with 1.5GB of VRAM per GPU has exactly the same amount of VRAM to work with as your GTX 480's.

No mate, it has 3GB VRAM as this is not two cards connected with SLI, it is one card with two GPUs

Surveyor · 15 Oct 2011 at 11:04

Blackwhite said:
No mate, it has 3GB VRAM as this is not two cards connected with SLI, it is one card with two GPUs

No mate, a GTX 590 is 2 GPU's on one card operating in SLI.

A GTX 590 has 1.5GB of VRAM per GPU.

SLI'd GTX 480's have 1.5GB of VRAM per GPU.

What I said was completely correct.

Unfortuntaly you've got it completely wrong

Blue160 · 15 Oct 2011 at 11:11

Doesn't matter if the two GPU's are on a single card or a pair. Both chips need their own copy of the game data.

OpenToSuggestions · 15 Oct 2011 at 11:14

Watch out for marketing ploys.

A remember 5-6 years ago really crap graphics cards coming in PC World (and the like) gaming computers, with 'WOW 512MB GRAHPIC MEMORY' palstered all over the advert, when the computer was really naff for gaming.

OpenToSuggestions · 15 Oct 2011 at 11:16

Watch out for marketing ploys.

A remember 5-6 years ago really crap graphics cards coming in PC World (and the like) gaming computers, with 'WOW 512MB GRAHPIC MEMORY' palstered all over the advert, when the computer was really naff for gaming.

iirc it was a geforce 5200 or 6200 that they did it with.

Generally, I would say for a new high-end gpu you do not want 1gb.

rolypolyman · 15 Oct 2011 at 16:05

Surveyor said:
No mate, a GTX 590 is 2 GPU's on one card operating in SLI.

A GTX 590 has 1.5GB of VRAM per GPU.

SLI'd GTX 480's have 1.5GB of VRAM per GPU.

What I said was completely correct.

Unfortuntaly you've got it completely wrong

Correct.

Blackwhite · 15 Oct 2011 at 18:46

so why in GTX590 spec state 3072 MB of VRAM? Are they wrong as well?

Surveyor · 15 Oct 2011 at 18:48

Blackwhite said:
so why in GTX590 spec state 3072 MB of VRAM? Are they wrong as well?

Physically it has 3GB of VRAM but that's split into 1.5GB per GPU.

It's no different than having 2 single GPU cards with 1.5GB each.

Blue160 · 15 Oct 2011 at 18:50

Blackwhite said:
so why in GTX590 spec state 3072 MB of VRAM? Are they wrong as well?

The card has 3GB of vRAM on it and two GPU's. Each GPU uses 1.5GB. Both GPU's need their own set of game data.

Effectively you can only have 1.5GB of data as it needs to be duplicated for the other chip.

SlugForAButt · 15 Oct 2011 at 20:45

Blackwhite said:
so why in GTX590 spec state 3072 MB of VRAM? Are they wrong as well?

Nope, just you.

Beware marketing ploys.

Blackwhite · 16 Oct 2011 at 10:12

Ok then, didn't know.