VRAM - AMD/Nvidia, why does it differ?

[Ian Evey]

Have you read any of the older posts regarding the 670 pros/cons 7950 pros / cons, as you are basically commenting over two cards that are nearly 2 years old that have had this debate already, the only thing that matters is that the 670 or 680 does not run out of vram. Many said it would back then, and occasionally it gets brought up again, but here we are still not running out of vram.

Gregsters 6970 2gb does not run out of vram, and thats even older.

At the time of said £80 to £100 price difference i wager the 680 had the edge over the 7970 and the 670 had the edge over the 7950.


I like panasonic tv's, my friends say no get an LG , there awsome, I buy a panasonic because i want one even though it cost more. Why?

 

[humbug]

After playing BF4 at 1440P on a 6970 with 2GB to see if it ran out, it didn't and usage was at ~1900MB iirc (didn't bother writing it down), so if VRAM is running out for others at 1080P, they have something else amiss.

Turn the Resolution Scale to 150%, i doubt a 6970 has the power to run the game at that but try it.

 

[Marine-RX179]

At the time of said £80 to £100 price difference i wager the 680 had the edge over the 7970 and the 670 had the edge over the 7950.

I like panasonic tv's, my friends say no get an LG , there awsome, I buy a panasonic because i want one even though it cost more. Why?

Spending more for something for yourself because of your own preference/personal choice is one thing, advising other peoples' purchase base on your own preference rather than analysing their circumstance is another.

For example, I may have bought a pre-flashed 290 and fitted a 3rd party cooler myself, but I always recommend most people who are not comfortable with the idea of fitting the cooler themselves to get a GTX780 instead of the 290s.

 

[tommybhoy]

Spending more for something for yourself because of your own preference/personal choice is one thing, advising other peoples' purchase base on your own preference rather than analysing their circumstance is another.

^
This.

For the goalpost movers, the 7 series price drop from AMD came on August 2012:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18434457

From then on, why I usually stated the 79's were better value while lasting longer than the 67/80's especially in dual card or more setups.

1600p 2Gb=busted, 1440p=busted(try running 2Gb SLI on HM AB@8xMSAA), try putting 2Gb SLI/CrossFire under resolution scaling on BF4 and see what happens.

Higher IQ is higher IQ and is selectable on vanilla BF4 settings.

 

[humbug]

1600p 2Gb=busted, 1440p=busted(try running 2Gb SLI on HM AB@8xMSAA), try putting 2Gb SLI/CrossFire under resolution scaling on BF4 and see what happens.

Yup, i did and this is what happened. http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25518151&postcount=30

 

[Darujhistan]

.....How can you use Skyrim, if that's the case then 3GB isn't enough, 4GB...etc etc. Just keep adding mods...

You've been going on about 2GB isn't enough for yonks, yet you're still rocking the 7850 2GB version, woulda thought you'd have got the 4GB version

Actually what I have been going on about for yonks, is that NV is ripping people off with low VRAM.

The entire thrust of my argument has always been that whether it is required or not 2GB of VRAM on a £400-500 card is a ripoff. That this patently true is shown in the tactic used to rebut this truth, namely to obscure the argument with guff about whether more than 2GB is required.

It's never been about requirement, it's always been about VALUE FOR MONEY. In this instance NV hasn't been giving it, only recently have they moved up to 3GB on top-end cards (top end to me is not Titan or 7990, they're extreme IMO).

 

[Final8y]

Spending more for something for yourself because of your own preference/personal choice is one thing, advising other peoples' purchase base on your own preference rather than analyzing their circumstance is another.

Indeed.

 

[Gregster]

I have lost what this thread is about it seems and I am not arguing over price of the 670/7950, when there has been pricey cards and cheap cards from both.

The debate is why do AMD have more VRAM and that I don't know

 

[Marine-RX179]

The debate is why do AMD have more VRAM and that I don't know

Except you are asking the wrong question? You should be asking why Nvidia has less vram?

Granted we could argue that more than 2GB of vram may not be needed for older gen cards such as GTX670/GTX680, but what's the excuse for the GTX770 (which was STILL a £300+ card on launch) to have only 2GB of vram when its direct competitor the 7970 has extra 1GB of vram despite it was launched more than 1 year before it? Also not to mention the fact that the GTX770 was launched in May THIS YEAR, when we already know that new gen consoles were to be launched in Nov this year. The only reason why Nvidia decide to only provide 2GB instead of 4GB as default for the GTX770 is to:
a) cut cost
b) hoping the people who would only buy Nvidia not AMD to have shorter longevity on the GTX770 so they would need to upgrade their graphic card sooner rather than holding onto it for longer

It is exactly because there's a market which people would only consider buying Nvidia and nothing else that cause Nvidia to have the power to milking them by charging more giving less, and anything extra (i.e. features) cost extra, similar to how Apple operate.

 

[Rusty0611]

Spending more for something for yourself because of your own preference/personal choice is one thing, advising other peoples' purchase base on your own preference rather than analysing their circumstance is another.

For example, I may have bought a pre-flashed 290 and fitted a 3rd party cooler myself, but I always recommend most people who are not comfortable with the idea of fitting the cooler themselves to get a GTX780 instead of the 290s.

Well for 99% of people (i.e. those that don't mod Skyrim to the **** or go multi GPU) they're fine.

So in the real world where people play games and don't drool over memory bandwidth figures that recommendation looks fine. What you are not considering is that a lot of people don't buy on price/performance ratio alone: they may want 3D vision, PhysX, TXAA, nVidia drivers etc. They're willing to pay the same or more for a slightly worse specced card

If people did play Skyrim then I'd hope that they were recommended 3GB cards but you can quite easily exceed 3GB in there as well. It's not an absolute certainty that you exceed 2GB at 1080 anyway. People see "Skyrim" and "mods" and panic about the memory requirements. Indeed if you're semi-serious about it you're more than likely going to require greater than 2GB but it isn't definite. That's also not considering that a large number of people were willing to buy 256 bit bus 4GB cards purely to avoid AMD who were plagued with issues in this game at the beginning (Radeon Pro fixed).

So the overall point is that it's all relative. If somebody is buying their circumstances are different each time. People with 2GB cards were not recommended badly unless they came in and said "I want the best bang for my buck" where AMD win this argument 99 times out of 100. Skyrim's VRAM limitations have been well known for a long time so it's not as if just now that 2GB is becoming limiting. Even in BF4 (where AMD recommend 3GB), 2GB cards are holding up fine even in SLI set up's meaning that the overall relationship between your cards ability to push acceptable frames remains (bar a couple of exceptions) tied to the amount of memory.

Edit: when I say "tied" I don't mean literally but in trend terms...

 

[Marine-RX179]

Long text

Points remain that a supposingly high-end card GTX770 which was launch in May this year at £330-£350 should not have as little as 2GB as default. We are in the 2013 not 2012 anymore, and the launch of new gen consoles was just months away...there's no justification for still have just 2GB of vram.

When GTX770 launched, I questioned/expressed my concern on Nvidia's decision on only providing 2GB of vram instead of 4GB as default for the GTX770, yet I saw the usual people making the usual comment of "2GB is plenty blah blah blah"...and they were telling that to people making purchase decision! Many people who were seeking for purchase advise don't not belonged to the "upgrading very single bloody year group" and were hoping to get something like at least 2-3 years use out of their newly purchased card...many of them have already unwillingly upped their budget from around £250 to £330.

Seriously, it is like some people were brainwashed or something, that they are actually perfectly happy that the GTX770 came with only 2GB of vram, when Nvidia should have offered 4GB of vram as default. Also not to mention the fact that the GTX770 was only providing similar performance which its direct rival the 7970 GHz was able to offer since their launch all the way back in Jun 2012- nearly an entire year before it, and still have 1GB more vram as well!

To everyone else:
Regarding the comments of "Skyrim with mods it don't matter whether or not you have 2GB or 3GB cause both won't be enough for mods and run out all the same etc" that I seen popped up a few times...would you rather take the 2GB card or 3GB card for situation like this? Having 3GB vram would mean at least there will be extra 1GB of vram, which people could have to option to use mods that doesn't go beyond 3GB, whereas for 2GB card, there wouldn't even be that option at all.

Also people are like saying "I have need 8GB system memory for what I do, but I can only afford £xx and the 2GB and 4GB memory are both the same price. Considering neither 2GB nor 4GB is enough, I guess it doesn't matter to have 2GB or 4GB of system memory?"

Seriously, the logic of people makes me scratch my head sometimes.

 

[Ian Evey]

This question was raised many times, Whats faster in "certain" games? for under £300

My answer was 670.

Another question was whats future proof for games at under £300 or for higher resolutions, or value for money ( most of the time with free games )

My answer was 7950.

That's all i have to say.

 

[Gregster]

@ Marine, I am not sure what your point is or even if anything you are saying is valid. I asked twice to show me where 2GB isn't enough and you just keep on about how wrong we are to recommend a 2GB card.

You told someone they needed SLI 780Ti's for 3D Vision, which I proved is clearly not the case but at least if I recommend a card, it is geared to what current prices are and what they are wanting out of a GPU.

I say again, show me a vanilla game that 2GB isn't enough for 1080P or give it a rest.

 

[Rusty0611]

Points remain that a supposingly high-end card GTX770 which was launch in May this year at £330-£350 should not have as little as 2GB as default. We are in the 2013 not 2012 anymore, and the launch of new gen consoles was just months away...there's no justification for still have just 2GB of vram.

I completely agree with this point that it wasn't great value for money but the point remains that unless you're playing Skyrim (or the other couple of exceptions) or going to SLI them at high res, the memory amount is unlikely to make a difference in real world performance terms.

When GTX770 launched, I questioned/expressed my concern on Nvidia's decision on only providing 2GB of vram instead of 4GB as default for the GTX770, yet I saw the usual people making the usual comment of "2GB is plenty blah blah blah"...and they were telling that to people making purchase decision! Many people who were seeking for purchase advise don't not belonged to the "upgrading very single bloody year group" and were hoping to get something like at least 2-3 years use out of their newly purchased card...many of them have already unwillingly upped their budget from around £250 to £330.

The only valid point there is, again, the value for money part compared to the AMD 7900 series which you raised in your first paragraph which I agree with. Outside of the mentioned exclusions, I don't believe that 2GB is really proving an issue in today's game with the raw 'grunt' the 256 bit bus GK104 has to push acceptable frame rates.

Seriously, it is like some people were brainwashed or something, that they are actually perfectly happy that the GTX770 came with only 2GB of vram, when Nvidia should have offered 4GB of vram as default. Also not to mention the fact that the GTX770 was only providing similar performance which its direct rival the 7970 GHz was able to offer since their launch all the way back in Jun 2012- nearly an entire year before it, and still have 1GB more vram as well!

They're happy because their games ran fine, still do and were perhaps more interested in the unique things nVidia bring as opposed to a memory bandwidth figure and the potential for 2GB to become limiting. So no, not brainwashed, just happy with their purchase. At the end of the day it's up to people individually to weigh up the pro's and con's of the competing cards and make a decision. Nobody is forcing them to buy the mentioned card, but they still did, they just have different opinions on what matters to you.

To everyone else:
Regarding the comments of "Skyrim with mods it don't matter whether or not you have 2GB or 3GB cause both won't be enough for mods and run out all the same etc" that I seen popped up a few times...would you rather take the 2GB card or 3GB card for situation like this? Having 3GB vram would mean at least there will be extra 1GB of vram, which people could have to option to use mods that doesn't go beyond 3GB, whereas for 2GB card, there wouldn't even be that option at all.

Also people are like saying "I have need 8GB system memory for what I do, but I can only afford £xx and the 2GB and 4GB memory are both the same price. Considering neither 2GB nor 4GB is enough, I guess it doesn't matter to have 2GB or 4GB of system memory?"

Seriously, the logic of people makes me scratch my head sometimes.

I don't think anybody seriously said that 2GB won't limit you in Skyrim if you're into modding the game. At least anything above the level of casual modding anyway.

 

[Marine-RX179]

You told someone they needed SLI 780Ti's for 3D Vision, which I proved is clearly not the case but at least if I recommend a card, it is geared to what current prices are and what they are wanting out of a GPU.

I don't know what has that got anything to do with here other than pointless attempt to drag something unrelated here to say "Marine, you don't know jacks about what you talking about"?

Also that discussion was regarding Metro LL with 3D vision...you said it's running sweet on the 780Ti despite it has only like what...minimum frame rate of 29fps and a max frame rate of 40fps ish if I remember correctly? What's "wrong" about stating my opinion of people should ideally have two GTX780Ti instead of one for that (Metro LL with 3D vision)?

I think most people (myself include) can't get their head around how having less than 30fps on minimum frame rate is "running sweet".

To me 25 FPS mins aren't playable (assuming averages around the 40 mark) but each to their own. I'm not saying there isn't a game where the trend isn't bucked but if we're talking one game out of hundreds then the advice given back then looks sound to me.

 

[spankingtexan]

@ Marine, I am not sure what your point is or even if anything you are saying is valid. I asked twice to show me where 2GB isn't enough and you just keep on about how wrong we are to recommend a 2GB card.

You told someone they needed SLI 780Ti's for 3D Vision, which I proved is clearly not the case but at least if I recommend a card, it is geared to what current prices are and what they are wanting out of a GPU.

I say again, show me a vanilla game that 2GB isn't enough for 1080P or give it a rest.

+1
I really don't think 2GB @1080p is a problem at the moment, telling someone they'll need sli 780ti's for 3D is just plain nonsense, why do people make these statements when they clearly have no or little experience with such things. I was 3D gaming with a GTX 580 and while I concede a 580 wouldn't be enough for todays games in 3D it coped very well in it's day with games of the time. A single modern GPU such as the 680 upwards will play a good few games in 3D without any issues. Must say though I wasn't happy with the 3D performance in metro LL but it isn't unplayable either and it's only fair to mention I've only played it with two 780's.

 

[Sin_Chase]

...there's no justification for still have just 2GB of vram.

There is, and it has been covered so many times. Except apparently fingers in ears "LA LA LA" is easier.

The card could either have had 2GB or 4GB. 4GB would have bumped the price further for a MID to High RANGE part where pricing differences and margins are diminished. It also would have been totally unnecessary for 99% of the target audience.

More cost for no gain - THAT'S unjustified.
Appropriate amount of VRAM for market position and power of card - Justified.

 

[Marine-RX179]

The only valid point there is, again, the value for money part compared to the AMD 7900 series which you raised in your first paragraph which I agree with. Outside of the mentioned exclusions, I don't believe that 2GB is really proving an issue in today's game with the raw 'grunt' the 256 bit bus GK104 has to push acceptable frame rates.

You are forgetting it limits the benefit of going SLI and also it becomes a "resistance force" to people when considering the possiblity of upgrading their res to 2560.

There is, and it has been covered so many times. Except apparently fingers in ears "LA LA LA" is easier.

The card could either have had 2GB or 4GB. 4GB would have bumped the price further for a MID to High RANGE part where pricing differences and margins are diminished. It also would have been totally unnecessary for 99% of the target audience.

More cost for no gain - THAT'S unjustified.
Appropriate amount of VRAM for market position and power of card - Justified.

May be it is YOU who should considering removing your fingers from the ears How would the price of the GTX770 be "bumped further", if it was launch with 4GB as default at the same price?

We all know Nvidia is making huge margins on the GK104 parts, what I said was Nvidia should have make the GTX770 comes with 4GB on default at £330 on launch. Your arguement on cost is invalid in this, as it is Nvidia themselves setting the price high on their cards. The decision of only providing 2GB as opposed to 4GB is solely down to wanting more profit to themselves, rather than games in the near future don't require more than 2GB.

 

[Sin_Chase]

You are forgetting it limits the benefit of going SLI

VERY niche market

and also it becomes a "resistance force" to people when considering the possiblity of upgrading their res to 2560.

VERY niche market

Stop being selfish. GPUs for the masses are not designed with the niche user in mind.

 

[Rusty0611]

I think most people (myself include) can't get their head around how having less than 30fps on minimum frame rate is "running sweet".

To be fair mate, low FPS is much more tolerable in 3D Vision than not. I can't find my quote but I said that to me, minimums of under 80 FPS I can notice (in BF4) but in 3D Vision the minimums only bother me below 30.

EDIT: Found it:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=25469417&postcount=24

You are forgetting it limits the benefit of going SLI and also it becomes a "resistance force" to people when considering the possiblity of upgrading their res to 2560.

I'm not forgetting it because I quite clearly said it (in the same post from the one you quoted ):

....that unless you're playing Skyrim (or the other couple of exceptions) or going to SLI them at high res, the memory amount is unlikely to make a difference in real world performance terms.