Which GPU £280 budget

[fs123]

Maybe in a Cross-Fire config. The way VRAM works is that your cpu fills your VRAM up with textures, lightening etc. then your GPU has to process all of those in VRAM almost instantaneously, then it's rinse and repeat. A 390 or a 970 couldn't process 8GB of this information, my card probably couldn't hence it is 6GB.

The PS4 for example has beautiful graphics for a console yet it will use no more than 3GB of VRAM, and that VRAM is shared system memory, so no where near as fast as the fastest VRAM in this price range, which is the 970 @ around 7000mhz.

EDIT: Correction: The PS4 has DDR 5 system RAM lol that's faster than we get! Still shared graphics cards, or modules are not as effective as dedicated ones.

Move along mate..The OP has bought the better card.

 

[DrBombcrater]

Maybe in a Cross-Fire config. The way VRAM works is that your cpu fills your VRAM up with textures, lightening etc. then your GPU has to process all of those in VRAM almost instantaneously, then it's rinse and repeat

Not quite. Most of the major graphics engines can use VRam as a cache, they will pre-load as many textures as they can so that as little data as possible has to be fetched over the slow PCIe bus while scenes are being rendered. That's why games with large texture sets tend to be smoother, with less hitching and dropped frames, when running on a card that has a significantly more VRam than the game actually 'needs' to run. Not every game works like that, some don't have big enough texture sets to require it. But it's good to know the capability is there for games that can benefit.

We also don't really know what effect the new techniques and low-level control made possible by DX12 will have on VRam use. If use goes up people with GTX970s may end up wishing they'd got something with that little bit more memory on it.

 

[davewhite04]

Not quite. Most of the major graphics engines can use VRam as a cache, they will pre-load as many textures as they can so that as little data as possible has to be fetched over the slow PCIe bus while scenes are being rendered. That's why games with large texture sets tend to be smoother, with less hitching and dropped frames, when running on a card that has a significantly more VRam than the game actually 'needs' to run. Not every game works like that, some don't have big enough texture sets to require it. But it's good to know the capability is there for games that can benefit.

We also don't really know what effect the new techniques and low-level control made possible by DX12 will have on VRam use. If use goes up people with GTX970s may end up wishing they'd got something with that little bit more memory on it.

What graphics engines?

 

[davewhite04]

Not quite. Most of the major graphics engines can use VRam as a cache, they will pre-load as many textures as they can so that as little data as possible has to be fetched over the slow PCIe bus while scenes are being rendered. That's why games with large texture sets tend to be smoother, with less hitching and dropped frames, when running on a card that has a significantly more VRam than the game actually 'needs' to run. Not every game works like that, some don't have big enough texture sets to require it. But it's good to know the capability is there for games that can benefit.

We also don't really know what effect the new techniques and low-level control made possible by DX12 will have on VRam use. If use goes up people with GTX970s may end up wishing they'd got something with that little bit more memory on it.

You do realize that what you're saying doesn't make sense don't you? For example, let's say you're right, if my card loads up 4GB of textures into "cache" that it *might* use so it loads up some "mountain" terrain, but I decide to go to the beach, it's wasted time loading the cache and reduced performance at the same time... do you see how ridiculous that is?

 

[Surveyor]

The OP has made their choice and ordered a card so there's no need for any further "discussion".

madsin, if you need the thread re-opening for any reason please contact one of the moderators.