Buy a pre overclocked or stock card?

[Michaeljcox24]

Had some money come back from a PPI claim this week (approx 2k) and would like to invest a bit of it in upgrading parts of my rig. I was considering going for a GTX-580 with 3GB vram. The native resolution of my monitor is 1920 x 1080

My questions are:

1) Am I right in thinking the extra vram would improve fps when AA is cranked up?

2) Are there any stock cards out with 3GB vram?

3) Would it be better to buy stock and fit an aftermarket cooler or go for one of the MSI Lightning cards. Are these better than stock cards when both are clocked to the same core speed?, I don't want to be paying a premium for overclocking a card when I can quite easily do it myself

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

Firstly, well done on the PPI claim! Must be satisfying!

My friend runs a pair of GTX 480 1.5gb cards for his 2650x1600 Dell and he's not noticed any lack of VRam issues.

My rig runs at 1920x1200 with a single Palit GTX 570 1.25gb. This was the cheapest available 570 at launch (I got it for £250!) and ran at stock timings with stock cooling. On the day I got it I discovered that I could bump the core clock from 732 to 800 without issue, and it's been at that since. I use a slightly more agressive fan profile than stock and I never see above about mid-60's during benching or gaming (Crysis 2).

So, even on the CHEAPEST card with stock cooling I run at a higher clock than many of these pre-overclocked cards out of the box. Doubtless they might have a little more headroom than mine to go higher - mine tops out at 925mhz Core and I'd need to unlock the voltage limit (1.1v on my card) to go any higher. Apparently it should be "safe" up to 1.15v but I'll stick with NV's limit here

So, in summary, at your res I think a 1.5gb 580 would be more than fine - based on my friend running 2560x1600 with that much vRam and me running 1920x1200 with LESS. Also, I'd go for a stock clocked and stock cooling, push it a little more via an overclock and be happy with my bargain

Just my opinion of course.

Note: at 1920x1200 with just 1.25gb of VRam I have applied insane 32Q AA with 8x Supersampling on some titles. Makes bugger all difference to the visual quality over normal 4x AA. In fact 4x AA is usually as far as I go as it's diminishing returns after than point.

Best of luck with whatever you purchase.

Scoob.

 

[KaraMurat]

1)extra vram mainly helps for higher resolutions, the more memory bandwidth you have the higher you can crank the resolution without having to worry about stuttering (low fps). So if you were to have dual/triple monitors with a resolution of let's say 2560x2048 you would need a high amount of vram, whereas if you are going to run the game at lower resolutions 1920x1080 / 1280x720 for e.g. you wouldn't need a very high amount of vram.

2)Not sure

3)Hmm, most higher end cards nowadays are mostly available with some kind of cooler designed by the company anyway, so buying a card with a stock nvidia or amd cooler is pretty rare. However I think it's better getting a card that's already overclocked and tested by one of these companies as to tend to cherry pick the best cards and test them to make sure they won't have or at leasn't shouldn't have any faults, whereas you wouldn't have any warranty or know if the card you buy with overclock as high as the pre-overclocked cards. So it's kind of a trade off between sacrificing money or taking a punt to save money.

Edit: oh and also typical vram nowadays is between 1 to 1.5 GB, premium vram is around 2-3GB and don't worry about needing 3GB on a 1920x1080 resolution, 1.2GB should be plenty if not 1.5GB should be golden.

 

[Michaeljcox24]

ok yeah.......

cheers lads, wasn't sure if I was going to need 3GB, won't be upgrading monitor in the distant future so I'll go for a 1.5GB phantom I think.

And as for the PPI, well yeah, I recommend anyone to at least have a go. Phone the company who dealt with the account first, and then ask tem if PPI was on it.

I used a middle man, far too much paperwork for myself to deal with alone. Even then, I got 2k, if I had the nouse to do it myself, would have been 3

 

[ruthless_villain]

or you could buy 2x gtx 480s from aria for £170 each ?

 

[Scoob]

Hi,

The extra vRam can be useful if you like to run lots of AA etc. that can eat vRam. Resolution (without AA) not so much. I remember using my (then new) BFG 8800GT OC2 512mb to run Crysis on my friends 30" Dell at 2560x1600 and it played the game really rather well, surprisingly so. Adding 2xAA though made it unplayable, not that Crysis really needed AA mind.

The BFG 8800GT OC2 was the LAST pre-overlclocked card I bought.

I think lots of cards in the 5** range stuck with NV stock cooling solution, it works quite well without being too loud yet can manage to keep things cool at higher clock with a bit more noise. I'd say NV did a good job at stock cooling. I could have paid near £100 more for a 570 with non-stock cooling but I think that would have been money wasted for me.

One thing I've noticed regards vRam usage is that, like windows, games appear to cache stuff in vRam and purge as needed. This is why you'll often see cards using a high level of vRam all the time.

As an example, several games I play allow you to save at any point. I can be playing, see vRam usage at 1.2gb (near my max) save, re-load at the exact same scene and vRam usage is halfed. I give the game a moment to settle, but it's now rendering the same scene as before I saved, but using less vRam. In the case of an FPS I can do a quick 360 so everything I can see in the current scene is loaded, yet vRam usage is still less than when I saved. Must be some form of caching right?

I think sometimes people worry that because they are nearing their cards max vRam they haven't got enough. I don't think that's always true, though it will vary from game to game. I often see my vRam usage at max during gaming, yet I'm still experiencing great FPS without any stuttering. IF I were to run out of vRam and the game was swapping I'd likely see a rather marked FPS drop or lots of judder...

My friend was worried he'd struggle at 2560x1600 with his twin 1.5gb 480's after running a pair of 4870x2's (4gb. so 2gb per GPU) yet his performance was better in everything he tried. He, like me, will often see his vRam usage reported at near-max after an extended gaming session.

It all depends on how much you want to pay out, considering the wind-fall the OP has just had maybe he wants to have a proper no-compromise splurge - I'd not blame him! In that case a 3gb 580 would be a lovely card and give the option of upgrading to a higher-res monitor and/or run obcene amounts of AA if he so chose

Cheers,

Scoob.

 

[Scoob]

or you could buy 2x gtx 480s from aria for £170 each ?

True. These are NOT new cards though, yet they have a years warranty. Also, they are OEM, so none of the usual boxed extras. Overclockers appear to have bought a batch of these too, for the same price.

Scoob.

 

[ruthless_villain]

overclockers are crap though

 

[Scoob]

overclockers are crap though

Bad experience eh? Never used them myself though I do browse their forums every now and again.

Scoob.

 

[Michaeljcox24]

I'm also on overclockers forums, they have some very good deals, and free postage, but like TTL said at the Gadget Show, thier forums are VERY clicky.

 

[Scoob]

I'm also on overclockers forums, they have some very good deals, and free postage, but like TTL said at the Gadget Show, thier forums are VERY clicky.

I just browse, I never join in...though you're right re: them being clicky. There appear to be a number of accepted view-points and if you disagree, well, you'll be flamed. Still, an entertaining read as an outsider though

Scoob.

 

[Lollipop]

If you buy a TFIII cooler it is silent up to 50% my NH-D14 is "much" louder

 

[ruthless_villain]

Bad experiences eh? Never used them myself though I do browse their forums every now and again.

Scoob.

fixed

 

[Scoob]

fixed

Ah, that bad eh? I tend to stick with Scan, eBuyer or sometimes Aria myself. Dabs have been ok too, but not used them in a while. All generally faultless other than one issue with Aria a few months back - all got sorted though.

Scoob.

 

[ruthless_villain]

i tend to go with CCL their just down the road for me anyways ...ebuyer are brilliant never had a problem, dabs are pretty good too, aria... because their staff are pretty decent people i wont comment. but specialtech are the best they are flipping awesome

 

[Scoob]

i tend to go with CCL their just down the road for me anyways ...ebuyer are brilliant never had a problem, dabs are pretty good too, aria... because their staff are pretty decent people i wont comment. but specialtech are the best they are flipping awesome

Not used SpecialTech myself yet but I know Tom rates them highly - good enough endorsment for me. I'll be using them for my water kit when the time comes almost certainly.

Scoob.