GTX 690 question

[Recon-UK]

tbf though with the 7870s memory bus the options are 1gb, 2gb or 4gb. 1gb is not enough for it.

Unless they were to do nvidia gtx660-style jiggery pokery with the memory.. but 2gb vram will sell more cards than 1.5gb at the end of the day.

That is true, at the end of the day, this is why 560Ti 2GB versions still sell... although you gain nothing from the 2GB.

 

[peterleo]

Found this benchmark illustrating differences at 5760x1080 between 680 4gb vs 680 2gb.
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/43109-evga-geforce-gtx-680-classified-4gb/
Differences seem to be minimum

 

[Master&Puppet]

Can someone show linkage to the study that defines having less then 2g in your graphics arsenal is going to muchly impact your tripple screen gaming pleasure at mucho resolution ?

.. and I don't mean a "thread post" that says it's so, or it's someone's opinion/experience. I mean genuine testies.

The million dollar question which still hasn't been answered even with that huge thread your started all that time ago

Truth is I've yet to see something that definitively proves it either way. My feeling is that 2gb will be enough for a good while yet. Do textures load slower when cards run out of vRAM i.e. "texture pop-in". Maybe.

The truth is though that you can be sensible with your vRAM. I just ran Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark on full settings comparing a AAx8 to AA off bench run and noted the vRAM usage (my cards are 7950s with 3GB vRAM):

AA x8 = 2.1gb vRAM
AA off = 1.1GB vRAM

If you showed me a video and asked me which one was which, could I tell? Hell no. That does differ in certain games but AA is renowned for crushing your hardware for little apparent extra beauty and usually 2 or 4xMSAA is enough which will still drastically reduce the vRAM usage I'd bet.

Also, my cards used 2.1GB, does that mean that a 2gb gtx 680 is going to make hard work out of it and have texture pop ins everywhere? I seriously doubt it...

 

[Recon-UK]

1.5GB is fine for NV surround in 80% of chances, and in other games, just turn down AA....

People stress over Vram too much.

 

[Rastalovich]

The million dollar question which still hasn't been answered even with that huge thread your started all that time ago

Truth is I've yet to see something that definitively proves it either way. My feeling is that 2gb will be enough for a good while yet. Do textures load slower when cards run out of vRAM i.e. "texture pop-in". Maybe.

The truth is though that you can be sensible with your vRAM. I just ran Unigine Heaven 3.0 benchmark on full settings comparing a AAx8 to AA off bench run and noted the vRAM usage (my cards are 7950s with 3GB vRAM):

AA x8 = 2.1gb vRAM
AA off = 1.1GB vRAM

If you showed me a video and asked me which one was which, could I tell? Hell no. That does differ in certain games but AA is renowned for crushing your hardware for little apparent extra beauty and usually 2 or 4xMSAA is enough which will still drastically reduce the vRAM usage I'd bet.

Also, my cards used 2.1GB, does that mean that a 2gb gtx 680 is going to make hard work out of it and have texture pop ins everywhere? I seriously doubt it...

That's the thing.

If someone were to step forward and have visible evidence of vram giving you... 30 fps - AND it makes the game actually playable versus not (so not 100 fps versus 130 fps, cos that doesn't mean anything to anyone, cos you don't notice, can't notice that without Superman in the room and his Krypto-vision).

If Tom were to put a test together.... 3 screens ... 2x 3 or 4G cards in SLI or xfire. And repeat test with 2x 1.5 or 2G cards - I'd accept that as definitive. And a game that is that-demanding.

I still point back to the fact that even i7 rigs boasting the 1600+++ mhz memory, these days, a system having to fall back on using it isn't going to suffer anything more than minor fps. Back in the DDR2... 800mhz days ~possibly~ but I still thing the hit wouldn't be massive. DDR... then yes you have a point.

 

[NRG!]

still point back to the fact that even i7 rigs boasting the 1600+++ mhz memory, these days, a system having to fall back on using it isn't going to suffer anything more than minor fps. Back in the DDR2... 800mhz days ~possibly~ but I still thing the hit wouldn't be massive. DDR... then yes you have a point.

Sounds like you've never saturated your vram before. The game will either crash, chug along at 1fps, or the driver will simply crash.

example: I just ran far cry 3 @ 6040x1080 at full ultra settings, HBAO and 2x msaa. No vram issues, max usage 1.8gb with windows aero still enabled. Framerate is crap though at 25 (stock 680ltg clocks).

The I go into video menu and set the msaa to 8x. vram showed on AB at reaching 2048mb, game was completely unresponsive and gpus dropped to idle clocks. had to open task manager and kill it.

Now I might need to find the ini/settings file for far cry 3 to set it back to 2 lol.. :x

edit: I suppose a better example would be a less core-intense one such as a uber modded skyrim but I cba.

 

[Master&Puppet]

example: I just ran far cry 3 @ 6040x1080 at full ultra settings, HBAO and 2x msaa. No vram issues, max usage 1.8gb with windows aero still enabled. Framerate is crap though at 25 (stock 680ltg clocks).

The I go into video menu and set the msaa to 8x. vram showed on AB at reaching 2048mb, game was completely unresponsive and gpus dropped to idle clocks. had to open task manager and kill it.

Now I might need to find the ini/settings file for far cry 3 to set it back to 2 lol.. :x

That's exactly what we need though! Get on with it and write a thread proving your experiments! I would but I only have a single 1080p screen and I'm using 3gb 7950s...

 

[Destro521]

@recon
One thing i have noticed alot of my friends doing is that when it comes time to upgrade their graphics cards all they look at is the VRAM, one of them bought a gtx 670 direct cu ii 4gb for a single 1080p monitor, and over here in australia that sets us back a good 550-600$ which could have bought a 7950 or 7970 with hundreds to spare

 

[Recon-UK]

Here is my single GTX 480 running Crysis at a crazy 3180x2160 4K

Only uses 1370MB of 1536MB Vram.

The GPU it's self can play at this res with 25-30+fps without recording, but recording makes it stutter in a few parts...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrrrHQ1YAxg

 

[Assume]

I am able to play BF3 on the default high settings at 5760x1080 with two 7870's in CFX without running out of VRAM.

 

[NRG!]

That's exactly what we need though! Get on with it and write a thread proving your experiments! I would but I only have a single 1080p screen and I'm using 3gb 7950s...

There are users on OcUK that have produced these kinds of graphs, as well as comparing dual 7950s to dual 680s at 5760x1080 (7950s spank 680s).

Tbh I get tired of butting my nose in every other thread on here and linus' forum where someone asks about vram and another person, usually running 1080p, will regurgitate 'mooooooaaar vram!' while never having run a triple monitor setup.

 

[Master&Puppet]

There are users on OcUK that have produced these kinds of graphs, as well as comparing dual 7950s to dual 680s at 5760x1080 (7950s spank 680s).

Tbh I get tired of butting my nose in every other thread on here and linus' forum where someone asks about vram and another person, usually running 1080p, will regurgitate 'mooooooaaar vram!' while never having run a triple monitor setup.

You mean this?
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18455827

That thread shows hugely impressive differences between the 7950s and 680s. Why then did anandtech get such little benefit when they tested the 4gb 680?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6096/evga-geforce-gtx-680-classified-review/6

There's not enough evidence out there for me to make a concrete decision which is why I asked. I would do it myself but I don't want another 2 monitors. I guess I'll do the best I can though. I'll borrow my mate's 570 and see what results I can get.

 

[NRG!]

^It's the effect of the wider memory bus on the 7950 at such a high res, not the vram, hence why 4gb 680 is still going to feel the strain at high res because of it's 256bit wide bus.

 

[Master&Puppet]

True that - I'd forgotten about the bus width. Just checked the bus width on the EVGA 4gb 680 and it is reference. I would have hoped that they would have made improvements to it though rather than just chucking in extra memory modules.