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Is 1Gig enough

Games uses more than 1GB not = crippling frame rate

It really depends on what price point card you are getting. Cards like 5850 1GB at just around £100 is still a very good card. Even for the known insanely demanding games such as Metro2033 (which is well know for using lots of VRAM and is above 1GB) at 1920 res, cards like 6950 2GB is only like 3-4fps higher than the 6950 1GB, and for most games the frame rate are identifcal.

Yes it's better to have a 2GB over a 1GB if the price difference isn't much, but right now, 1GB card is not exactly getting alarmly huge drop in frame rate for games that use more than 1GB neither.

And try to remember, if the card/GPU itself lack the grunt/power, 2GB ain't exactly gonna make the frame rate better than the 1GB cards.
 
It's enough for most games but not all. How long do you plan to keep the card? If it's a while I would say get something with more RAM
 
To the OP: 1GB is sufficient for single GPU setup for now, at your resolution. If you plan to add another card for SLI/CrossfireX in the future, then 1GB may not be sufficient.

Marine-RX179 said:
Games uses more than 1GB not = crippling frame rate

It really depends on what price point card you are getting. Cards like 5850 1GB at just around £100 is still a very good card. Even for the known insanely demanding games such as Metro2033 (which is well know for using lots of VRAM and is above 1GB) at 1920 res, cards like 6950 2GB is only like 3-4fps higher than the 6950 1GB, and for most games the frame rate are identifcal.

Yes it's better to have a 2GB over a 1GB if the price difference isn't much, but right now, 1GB card is not exactly getting alarmly huge drop in frame rate for games that use more than 1GB neither.

And try to remember, if the card/GPU itself lack the grunt/power, 2GB ain't exactly gonna make the frame rate better than the 1GB cards.
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I agree that 5850 is still a very nice card. However you still don't understand that the actual gaming experience (specifically the number of lag spikes you get) cannot simply be implied from review articles. 99% fps numbers are based on average over each 1-second time interval on the time axis.
 
Thanks for the replies guys...much appreciated.

I have GTX 470 1280mb clocked to 700 core(reduced from 800) and not really keen on eye candy in games. I just want the games i play to look good and to run as fast as they can with the equipment that i can afford.

I am looking into a g/card upgrade very soon hence the origional question. Hope i can find something. For my requirements would more core be better than more vram.

Thanks again.

Steve.
 
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If you have a 470, i'd hold off for now. It's still a good card.

Go buy a nice keyboard or ssd or something instead if you want to spend cash.
 
Dont mean to hijack this thread. My 470 is 1.2gb. In games which i have texture packs AA and mods it is pretty much hitting the mark. Is 1.5gb of ram a nice steph up for games such as fallout 3 with all the mods? I was thinking about buying a 480.

Also i have overclocked my memory clock to 2000. If you overclock your memory does it increased memory size? my card is 1.2gb. Does overclocking the memory increased that size?
 
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drifting said:
I agree that 5850 is still a very nice card. However you still don't understand that the actual gaming experience (specifically the number of lag spikes you get) cannot simply be implied from review articles. 99% fps numbers are based on average over each 1-second time interval on the time axis.
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I'm not having this discussion with you again. People pay for for they get, and I stand by my opinion that by the time when games using over 1GB of VRAM at 1920 res has "signifificant enough" impact on performance/frame rate, cards like 6950 would already be considered as old tech/dated/lack of grunt, and 2GB VRAM card ain't gonna make it anymore comparable to the new gen cards than the 1GB VRAM card.
 
dmxdex2020 said:
Also i have overclocked my memory clock to 2000. If you overclock your memory does it increased memory size? my card is 1.2gb. Does overclocking the memory increased that size?
Click to expand...


Afaik it will increases the speed, but won't affect the 'size'.
 
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Marine-RX179 said:
I'm not having this discussion with you again. People pay for for they get, and I stand by my opinion that by the time when games using over 1GB of VRAM at 1920 res has "signifificant enough" impact on performance/frame rate, cards like 6950 would already be considered as old tech/dated/lack of grunt, and 2GB VRAM card ain't gonna make it anymore comparable to the new gen cards than the 1GB VRAM card.
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+1
 
As your not really keen on eye candy your 1.2GB 470 will be perfectly fine @ 1080p! Below max settings you will be able to run everything at that res without slow down.:)

IMO keep your card and have another think about an upgrade in 6 months.;)

The top cards are only really needed for the eye candy @ 1080p!;)
 
I'm running a GTX260 896MB at 1920x1200, and it seems sufficient! I'm on a budget but wanted a nice screen, and all the games I play are playable (sure not at max settings or AA)
 
OCPete said:
As your not really keen on eye candy your 1.2GB 470 will be perfectly fine @ 1080p! Below max settings you will be able to run everything at that res without slow down.:)

IMO keep your card and have another think about an upgrade in 6 months.;)

The top cards are only really needed for the eye candy @ 1080p!;)
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Thanks for the advice. I'll hold on for a while and save a little more for something nice later.

Cheers all.

P.S Just curious.....What is best to have? more core or vram(concidering the res i'm running)

Steve.
 
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stevie_vee said:
Thanks for the advice. I'll hold on for a while and save a little more for something nice later.

Cheers all.

P.S Just curious.....What is best to have? more core or vram(concidering the res i'm running)

Steve.
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Both are important. Graphics card is like a mini-computer, GPU power = similar as CPU power, vram = similar as ram. When you have enough GPU raw power (e.g. SLI/CF) to render 1920x1200 4AA and above for DX11 games, 1GB is likely to run out. (But there are only 18 DX11 games so far, so you may be safe.) When you only have a relatively weak GPU then no matter how much vram you have you wouldn't get playable fps anyway. You wouldn't want any of these to be a bottleneck. It would be not wise to choose GTX 550 2GB, or HD 6950 1GB. GTX 560 Ti 1GB SLI is even a worse choice for high res.
 
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It's best not to get obsessed with the amount of vRAM or the clock speed. There are so many things that affect the performance of a graphics card that it's impossible to tell how good it will be just by looking at the specs.

Edit: Why are SLI 560's stupid? I have 1GB 460's and they perform fantastically at 1920*1080.
 
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Blue160 said:
It's best not to get obsessed with the amount of vRAM or the clock speed. There are so many things that affect the performance of a graphics card that it's impossible to tell how good it will be just by looking at the specs.

Edit: Why are SLI 560's stupid? I have 1GB 460's and they perform fantastically at 1920*1080.
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Dual mid range 1GB cards aren't stupid. Its can be a VERY good value option. But it is somewhat limited. You have the processing power to do high res (over 1080p, or multi-screen), but if you like to max out settings the vRAM will become limiting. However testing would seem to show that if you scale back AA / AF you will be fine or at worst the frame rate drop is often low.

At 1920*1080 1GB is fine!
 
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