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Thinking of upgrading.

Qitarah said:
If it's a choice between the 4 gb 770 and a 780, then you choose the 780. Even if I have to spend a little bit extra. What resolution are u aiming to play at? Only situation u may even consider buying a 770 4gb over a 780 is at a huge resolution, and even then a single 770 won't be putting out enough grunt to give respectable frame rates.

If VRAM is of a concern, just get a AMD r9 290 for around £350-370. Msi gaming edition or sapphire tri-x, both are currently in stock (Make sure to Not get reference design but aftermarket coolers version). The 290 has 4GB of VRAM. The 290 is on equal ish footing as a 780 (depending on the game in question), and both the 780 and 290 will walk all over the 770.
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I am running at 1920x1080. In X-Plane 10 it actually shows you the amount of VRAM being used for the particular settings you have selected.
If I turn them all up to max it uses about 3.6gb and the frame rate slows down dramatically, I assume because I have only 3gb of VRAM.
 
whyscotty said:
Good advice on the 780 front

http://jetlinesystems.com/performance.php
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That's for Microsoft FSX, it's a 32bit Sim (can only use a max of 4Gb of ram total) is FSX and only works best on a fast single GPU, if you crossfire or SLI the performance will suck bad because it is not supported.


X-Plane 10 is a 64bit Sim and can make use of larger memory (can address 16.8 million terabytes of memory). Also X-plane can't use SLI or Crossfire, there is code messed about with that does make it use them but it is not really official code and not reliable. Read here :- http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/10/x-plane-sli-and-crossfire/

Main reason I have my "game rig" is for FSX and X-Plane and other flight sims.

Also OP you have to get a bit real on the settings on these sims or you basically kill performance for no visual gain. There really is no need to max out the video quality settings because you get to a point where it looks no different and only gives you a performance hit. Also remember add-ons you install will also add more high res textures and use more VRAM. Using a Flight Sim is a balancing act. The guys are right here saying get the 780 3Gb instead of the 770 4Gb because you will get much better performance on a 780 3Gb than the 770 even with it's 4Gb of VRAM. You just need to tweak your settings and if you really want to add huge textures, install fast RAM to your system and the graphics card will use the RAM on your system as VRAM too.


Guess what my next graphics card update is ? A 780 Ti with 3Gb and this is for my flight sims more than anything else. I currently have a 580 with 1.5Gb and it's been a champ with the flight sims and only reason i'm looking to update is the 780 Ti will hopefully double my performance as it basically is as fast as two 580's and has double the VRAM. Reality is I know it won't double my performance as most of these sims will be CPU limited too, FSX and X-Plane love faster and faster CPU's too not just faster GPU's with more VRAM.
 
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Purgatory said:
You just need to tweak your settings and if you really want to add huge textures, install fast RAM to your system and the graphics card will use the RAM on your system as VRAM too.
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This isn't right outside of hypermemory/turbocache, which you will only see on very low end graphics cards.
 
pandem0nium said:
This isn't right outside of hypermemory/turbocache, which you will only see on very low end graphics cards.
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You must be saying a 580 was a low end graphics card or a 780 Ti ? ... because they all can use the shared system memory. As you will see from this screenshot from my system, my graphics card is a 1.5Gb 580 and windows allocated 2.5Gb as shared system memory giving the GPU access to 4Gb and it will change if it requires more.



2bof1u.jpg



Same happens with AMD cards too, just look in the drivers for the system info.
 
Purgatory said:
You must be saying a 580 was a low end graphics card or a 780 Ti ? ... because they all can use the shared system memory. As you will see from this screenshot from my system, my graphics card is a 1.5Gb 580 and windows allocated 2.5Gb as shared system memory giving the GPU access to 4Gb and it will change if it requires more.



2bof1u.jpg



Same happens with AMD cards too, just look in the drivers for the system info.
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Yes and it only has ~20Gb/s bandwidth to transfer that data from 'shared' system memory to the GPU as apposed to 250Gb/s+ when it stores things in local VRAM.
 
almighty15 yup, but it can do it.. I wouldn't want it to do it in games but for none gaming situations it wouldn't matter too much if it required to use some of the RAM as VRAM. In games you will get horrible stutter but for other programs like graphics programs it would only be a delay.
 
OK everyone, thanks for the advice. I think I will get a GTX780. Are these easy to overclock? I assume this will make a difference too. The base clock speed on my 660 is 1043mhz and I see the 780's are somewhat lower so would overclocking to say 1100mhz be quite easy??

Thanks
 
Purgatory said:
You must be saying a 580 was a low end graphics card or a 780 Ti ? ... because they all can use the shared system memory. As you will see from this screenshot from my system, my graphics card is a 1.5Gb 580 and windows allocated 2.5Gb as shared system memory giving the GPU access to 4Gb and it will change if it requires more.
Click to expand...

I take it back! Just learned it's a function built into windows. But yeah, useless for gaming.
 
Some people are psychic, And some people make mistakes, But as as long as the op is happy with what he bought then good for him.


Makes no difference to him if he could have had a lot more performance from a 780 :eek:
 
I appreciate what you have all been saying but I am more than happy with the 770 and have never been a fan of AMD cards which is why I never even considered one.
 
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