VRAM: Do I need more then 1gb on these cards? (650 vs 650ti)

straydog

New member
To break it down I was looking to get a gtx 650. I found two cards for sale with the same price tag, one with 2gb vram the other with 1gb. So naturally I would go with the 2gb one.

However just today a gtx 650ti with 1gb vram went on sale for...the same price.


The "ti" is the better card but will I regret only having the 1gb on a card like this?
 
1GB is a bit low for games these days, then again I a 650Ti isn't able to run games that maxed out so the Vram usage will be lower due to playing on lower settings, so you should be ok.

Personally, i'd go for a 2GB, but as long as you keep the settings down in games 1GB should be enough
 
1gb is not enough any more, we are reaching the limit of 2gb now.

I appreciate that, I know some games have used 1.5-1.8gb on very high settings but the question is can the 650ti utilize this or will more vram just be dead weight.

My main goal with this card was to be able to play eve online at 1080p with pretty good settings. It is hard to know on such specifics but i'm pretty sure it's not as heavy on graphics as some of the most demanding games today.
 
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I appreciate that, I know some games have used 1.5-1.8gb on very high settings but the question is can the 650ti utilize this or will more vram just be dead weight.

My main goal with this card was to be able to play eve online at 1080p with pretty good settings. It is hard to know on such specifics but i'm pretty sure it's not as heavy on graphics as some of the most demanding games today.

Unfortunately you will only have 1gb of usable VRAM in SLI.
 
Please consider that the GTX650 (Ti) has a memory bus of only 128 Bit so the card would barely be able to make use of more than 1GB VRam. I don't know if there are other factors which could negate this disadvantage with more than 1GB. Nvidia said something like that but I never heard anything specific so it could just be marketing talk.

Edit: I just read a little bit more on the topic and from what I understand the ability of a graphics card to utilize a certain amount of memory is dependent on the size of the memory bus and the memory bandwidth.
A common metaphore for the memory bus are the number of lanes on a highway. 128Bit would be 2 lanes, 192Bit 3 lanes and so on.
The memory bandwidth on the other hand would be the speed limit on the highway.

And I also found these specifications by Nvidia which should be more helpful for you:
http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/articles/introducing-the-geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost
According to that the normal GTX 650 Ti is only specified by Nvidia for 1GB Ram which makes sence because it only has a memory bandwidth of 86.4GB/s and a 128Bit memory bus.
The GTX 650 Ti Boost on the other hand is rated for up to 2GB RAM and while it only has a memory bus of 128Bit as well, this card has a memory bandwidth of 144GB/s which should be enough to utilize the larger memory size.

So if you consider a 2GB model of the GTX 650 Ti, then make sure that it is a real NVidia Ti Boost and not a normal Ti with more memory slapped on it.

With that in mind, yes, 2GB VRam would make sence if you buy a gaming card now but only if the card is actually build to deal with this amount of memory and the normal GTX 650 is not to my knowledge. I hope this helps.

Edit: I made a mistake - the GTX 650 Ti boost actually has a memory bus of 192Bit!
 
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Thanks a lot for detailed response shiny.

Yeah it was the normal "ti" I was talking about. Just ordered the 1gb version.
 
The difference you're looking at is Ultra textures vs High textures (2gb vs 1gb) and a 8-10fps boost (650 ti). Personally, I'd get the TI and just experiment with which textures can fit onto the VRAM in all your game choices, some might run Ultra, other not... and whatever happens you'll still have that FPS boost.
 
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