295X2 Questions
- Thread starter ShaunB-91
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Dawelio
Active member
You have a nice avatar so we'll let you off!
Hehe, kinda had a feeling someone would approve it
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falkonIndian
New member
I can get this card for 600 euros ~ 450ish pounds? not sure how much its in dollars with the way Euro is crashing now.
is this card recommended for that amount? I'm thinking of combining that with the Asus Mg279q freesync monitor 1440p. plunge now or wait for the 390x?
is this card recommended for that amount? I'm thinking of combining that with the Asus Mg279q freesync monitor 1440p. plunge now or wait for the 390x?
AlienALX
Well-known member
Absolutely not.
In two month's time the 390x will be bestowed upon us and then Nvidia are going to have to drop the Titan moniker and offer the full fat Maxwell, with 6gb of VRAM, for around or slightly more than the 390x.
I would say at launch the 390x will be around £500, so you can expect to pretty much get a fully fledged 6gb Titan X for around £550 (given the Nvidia premium and all).
Both cards will most likely be very close in performance to the 295x2 yet won't require a bulky AIO and won't be dependent on drivers.
Seriously, don't do it, man. Now is not a good time. If it were £300 I would say do it.
4gb just isn't enough now. I am seeing people use every bit of it at 1080p on GTAV. God only knows how much of the 6gb I have on offer it will guzzle down, given I'll be running it 4k.
falkonIndian
New member
Thanks.. I'll wait for the 390x. The only thing that's worrying is if they launch the card at 800 plus euros. Then the green guys will stick to their prices as well. Also, I do wish that Amd doesn't further delay their card after June. They'll get massacred for market share then and we'll all lose.
It's crazy how the vram requirement shot up from 2gb is plenty to 6gb isn't all that great.. I mean, the games look great and all but still.
Dawelio
Active member
So wait guys, a question a bit of out subject here, but since you've started talking about VRam and such, I thought I could flick in....
So my 980 has 4GB RAM and for 4K I know that's testing the limits pretty hard, but then I don't play that many games, mostly Battlefield 3 & 4, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, CS:GO etc... in my eyes, not the most demanding games.
So for 1440p, on High (as I don't see a major difference between High and Ultra), will it cope or will it not?... would I need to change it out for something a bit more horses in it?...
Hope you guys don't mind this post, if not, I'll post in a new thread.
So my 980 has 4GB RAM and for 4K I know that's testing the limits pretty hard, but then I don't play that many games, mostly Battlefield 3 & 4, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, CS:GO etc... in my eyes, not the most demanding games.
So for 1440p, on High (as I don't see a major difference between High and Ultra), will it cope or will it not?... would I need to change it out for something a bit more horses in it?...
Hope you guys don't mind this post, if not, I'll post in a new thread.
falkonIndian
New member
As far as I have tried, a gtx 980 with its 4gb is great for 1440p. My friend says he's only seen one game tax that number at 1440p and that is modded skyrim. By modded I mean that this guy pimped the life out of the game. But then he's loading so many texture packs that perhaps if he had 6gb, he'd have filled up that as well.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
4GB is fine for now. It's just a few games that take up a crap ton. BF games take as much as your card has. Shadow of Mordor is probably the biggest exception with ultra textures
3GB is enough for most games Ultra at 1440p so 4GB should be comfortable.
It's all about getting the right balance between vram, graphical power and resolution to deliver the best experience. For a single card 3-4 is enough in my personal opinion because they won't have the grunt to fill a bigger frame buffer. Consequently Titan's or 8GB 290X's don't make any sense until you have two or three. Because in that scenario you only stack the graphical power and not the available memory. Having four 780Ti cores and only 3GB to play with would be a bit pointless, similarly 12GB with a single Titan X is pretty daft.
Ignore the specific examples Chrazey, i'm just trying to make a general point! More and more vram if your only running one card isn't helpful at all. For the power that a 980 and 290X have 4GB is the right amount in my opinion.
Of course resolution comes into play too, I have SLI 780's and their 3GB of vram is fine for 1440p. While they or 3x 780's may have the power for 4k they don't have the vram to back it up but for high 60+FPS 1440p they make a great balance. Remember though resolution isn't THE ONLY factor in vram usage and it actually only amounts to a small proportion, AA and texture quality make a big difference too. So perhaps if you were running a small 4k panel with high pixel density you wouldn't need much AA and you could get away with 4GB vram. I've actually seen 3GB cards handle it pretty well too.
JR
(damn I went full text wall, never go full text wall, not with chrazey around! (i'm not going to answer your questions chrazey, not in a hurry, i'm too busy playing GTA V at 1440p with my 780's))
It's all about getting the right balance between vram, graphical power and resolution to deliver the best experience. For a single card 3-4 is enough in my personal opinion because they won't have the grunt to fill a bigger frame buffer. Consequently Titan's or 8GB 290X's don't make any sense until you have two or three. Because in that scenario you only stack the graphical power and not the available memory. Having four 780Ti cores and only 3GB to play with would be a bit pointless, similarly 12GB with a single Titan X is pretty daft.
Ignore the specific examples Chrazey, i'm just trying to make a general point! More and more vram if your only running one card isn't helpful at all. For the power that a 980 and 290X have 4GB is the right amount in my opinion.
Of course resolution comes into play too, I have SLI 780's and their 3GB of vram is fine for 1440p. While they or 3x 780's may have the power for 4k they don't have the vram to back it up but for high 60+FPS 1440p they make a great balance. Remember though resolution isn't THE ONLY factor in vram usage and it actually only amounts to a small proportion, AA and texture quality make a big difference too. So perhaps if you were running a small 4k panel with high pixel density you wouldn't need much AA and you could get away with 4GB vram. I've actually seen 3GB cards handle it pretty well too.
JR
(damn I went full text wall, never go full text wall, not with chrazey around! (i'm not going to answer your questions chrazey, not in a hurry, i'm too busy playing GTA V at 1440p with my 780's))
AlienALX
Well-known member
The problem is that it's not enough for all games on ultra.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/04/14/nvidia_geforce_gtx_titan_x_video_card_review#.VS5NrfnF98F
You will see that there were only two games that exceeded 4GB of VRAM utilization at 1440p. Watch Dogs and Dying Light both exceeded 4GB of VRAM. Dying Light doesn't use MSAA, it uses a shader based AA method, yet that game is demanding a lot of VRAM at 1440p. This means any 4GB video card is going to be bottlenecked in these games at these settings. The TITAN X has more than enough VRAM to keep these games running smooth.
IMO at £500 the 295x2 just isn't good enough to justify the price, given that there are already games out there that can exceed the VRAM it has.
I had a choice recently of a 980 for my micro PC or a Titan Black for £390. I took the Titan Black and I'm bloody glad I did.
Dawelio
Active member
God damn... so basically, paying £500 for a graphics card and the memory isn't enough for a game such as Watch Dogs at 1440p on High?... nor any modern game really, they start to eat the memory up.
That's just so hilarious -.-' ... why not just go all out and get a Titan X instead lol?...
Haha yeah, that was kinda like reading a messed up PM from Chrazey lol... damn that was back and forth with numbers etc...
Not sure about the slashed text though... so will just not comment on that one 
... other than you suck dude!, gimme some money for more graphics card :lol:
That's just so hilarious -.-' ... why not just go all out and get a Titan X instead lol?...
Haha yeah, that was kinda like reading a messed up PM from Chrazey lol... damn that was back and forth with numbers etc
...Not sure about the slashed text though
... so will just not comment on that one ... other than you suck dude!, gimme some money for more graphics card :lol:
AlienALX
Well-known member
Modern consoles have 8gb of GDDR5 IIRC. 2gb of that is reserved for the system underneath (and a core or two of the 8 available on the CPU side) and the rest is fair game, so 6gb.
And that's for 1080p. And you can absolutely bet your house that it will all be used at some point because developers all play the piss up the wall the highest game and want their games to look better than anyone else's.
And then there is MSAA, a luxury reserved strictly for PCs and always has been really. Consoles just don't have the grunt to run it. Problem is as soon as you start adding it VRAM consumption just goes through the roof.
I'm not saying that the Titan X is justified in having 12gb. That is still as stupid as heck. But, I would say that the only way to be truly safe is 8gb. That's the 6gb from the consoles and 2gb extra for higher resolutions and MSAA.
Nvidia are known for being really stingy with VRAM. They give you just about enough for the current climate when releasing. Sadly within a year 4gb is already not enough for 1440p.
I've had a few Nvidia cards now that were still more than good enough but lacked VRAM. And it's as important as hell, more important than people realise.
When BF3 launched I had a GTX 470 that was more than good enough to run anything. On ultra BF3 used up to 1.5gb of VRAM, more than the 1.2 I had on tap. So what happens is the drivers divert to the paging file on your hard drive (Nvidia call it texture streaming) and then all of a sudden you get the worst input lag ever.
If you've played BF3 you will remember the part in the shopping center/mall where you have the injured terrorist and you have to use your sniper rifle with night vision? well the input lag there was so bad that I would pull the trigger, then a split second later move to the next target but the gun would fire between them completely missing them.
It was so bad that even with reduced settings I was still getting it so I upgraded to a 6970 Lightning with 2gb VRAM, problem be gone. I aced that level in a matter of minutes.
AMD are usually far more generous than Nvidia. When Nvidia were doing 512mb 9800GT and 796mb 280s AMD were doing 1gb 4870 and 4890s. And it's pretty much continued. So why, knowing what they know, they only put 4gb on the 295x2 is a mystery to me !
They knew the consoles were coming and they made the sodding things so you would think they would put that knowledge into their GPUs.
Instead within 6 months you are going to have a £999 paper weight. Because once you run short of VRAM there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, no matter how much grunt the core has.
Madness.
And that's for 1080p. And you can absolutely bet your house that it will all be used at some point because developers all play the piss up the wall the highest game and want their games to look better than anyone else's.
And then there is MSAA, a luxury reserved strictly for PCs and always has been really. Consoles just don't have the grunt to run it. Problem is as soon as you start adding it VRAM consumption just goes through the roof.
I'm not saying that the Titan X is justified in having 12gb. That is still as stupid as heck. But, I would say that the only way to be truly safe is 8gb. That's the 6gb from the consoles and 2gb extra for higher resolutions and MSAA.
Nvidia are known for being really stingy with VRAM. They give you just about enough for the current climate when releasing. Sadly within a year 4gb is already not enough for 1440p.
I've had a few Nvidia cards now that were still more than good enough but lacked VRAM. And it's as important as hell, more important than people realise.
When BF3 launched I had a GTX 470 that was more than good enough to run anything. On ultra BF3 used up to 1.5gb of VRAM, more than the 1.2 I had on tap. So what happens is the drivers divert to the paging file on your hard drive (Nvidia call it texture streaming) and then all of a sudden you get the worst input lag ever.
If you've played BF3 you will remember the part in the shopping center/mall where you have the injured terrorist and you have to use your sniper rifle with night vision? well the input lag there was so bad that I would pull the trigger, then a split second later move to the next target but the gun would fire between them completely missing them.
It was so bad that even with reduced settings I was still getting it so I upgraded to a 6970 Lightning with 2gb VRAM, problem be gone. I aced that level in a matter of minutes.
AMD are usually far more generous than Nvidia. When Nvidia were doing 512mb 9800GT and 796mb 280s AMD were doing 1gb 4870 and 4890s. And it's pretty much continued. So why, knowing what they know, they only put 4gb on the 295x2 is a mystery to me !
They knew the consoles were coming and they made the sodding things so you would think they would put that knowledge into their GPUs.
Instead within 6 months you are going to have a £999 paper weight. Because once you run short of VRAM there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, no matter how much grunt the core has.
Madness.
Id be faffing amazed if the 980 Ti doesnt come with 6gb - AMAZED because it will be a total f-up. Plus its half of the TX so it makes sense......
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AlienALX
Well-known member
Yup and that's exactly why Nvidia did it. Treat em mean, charge premium prices but keep em coming back.
The only way to escape it is to bend over and buy a Titan, Titan Black or Titan X.
Note - there were no 6gb 780tis. The very few 6gb 780s that existed were all after market.
This is because Nvidia ordered AIBPs not to release stock 6gb cards. It's why I ended up on Titan Blacks.
Thing is my logic is pretty sound. Don't buy these mid range cards, save your money and buy the Titan. That way you get everything, not just a part of what that technology can do.
I knew the 970 and 980 were coming when I bought my Blacks. My Blacks cost me £695 each which works out about £100 more than a premium 980. Thing is? the 980 is already starting to creak, where as my Titans are still LOLing.
If you want everything all rolled into one then Nvidia make sure the only way is to fork out upward of £700. I'm quite shocked the Titan X costs over £900 given they removed DP, but AMD have no reply so they can do whatever they like.
The 980ti is the card I want. Well, I want two of them.
As much as I really want off of Nvidia for the 970 scandal drivers keep me coming back. So I will likely wait to see what AMD do, wait for the Nvidia response then wait for the price war. I'm thinking £450-£500 a go for my next GPUs.
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I highly doubt it. I'd be more worried about a lack of power than vram.
What do you actually have and what do you want to change?
JR
AlienALX
Well-known member
Thing is you can SLI and tri SLI 980s. As such they become great 4k candidates, yet 4gb makes absolutely no sense at those resolutions.
falkonIndian
New member
no no hear me out on one rumour/(fact?) that everyone isnt mentioning.
Directx 12 is supposed to stack up vram for sli/crossfire cards. So if Dx12 comes out like the rumours suggest, then sli 980s will grant you 8 gb of vram as opposed to the 4 today.
so this along with many others is expected but not confirmed about directx but i like to think that there's no smoke without a fire.
is it in Nvidia's or Amd's interests to stack up vram? no - since that would giive users less reason to put down 1100 euros on a Titanx or on that amd monster of equivalent price. So its likely that this wont see the light of day, but till its confirmed, your 980s are perfectly fine. i wouldnt think of upgrading them at all.
