4GB GPU vs 2GB GPU Any Real Benefit?

A little thought occurred to me today while continuing my search for computer parts. Comparing two GTX 770s, lets take the EVGA 04G-P4-3774-KR and the EVGA 02G-P4-2774-KR for example. Identical cards except for the amount of memory. Am I going to see a performance increase at all in BeamNG.Drive specifically? Max resolution I will be playing at ever is 5760x1080. I also figured a 4GB model would help a bit more with the larger height/texture maps we are having on terrains. I know we have a couple 8192[SUP]2[/SUP]'s out there and it wouldn't surprise me to see if someone tried for a 16,384[SUP]2 [/SUP]eventually. Just for a test I whipped up an identical colored noise file for each. The 8192[SUP]2[/SUP] was 177 MB and the 16384[SUP]2[/SUP] was 886 MB.

Does anyone with REAL technical expertise have an educated answer for me?

 

Depending on what you'll be doing and if you're willing to spend damn near 1000 dollars for a 4GB card then yeah, go for it! 2 GB should be sufficient for games even like GTA IV [1GB I think would be fine for it too] with a better processor of course (Quad Core >2.6 GHz or so or a Six Core). Think of gaming consoles, their games look great, have specs (currently) of Tri core and Quad core systems; and games are developed (mostly) based on a console's capibilities. If you get a 4GB GPU then I'd say you're over spec-ing your PC b/c in the end, things won't look vastly better but idk, the FPS boost will be there on full settings w/ a 4GB card AND a 2GB card (Processor dependent).

Technical Expertise? Self Taught

 

I'll start from the top.

The heightmap would not reside in GPU memory. Current gen games (including beamNG) on a single monitor rarely if every utilise a full 2gb of GPU mem and 4gb of system memory (the latter is the more common to be breached, people fitting 16gb ram kits for gaming, not needed, 4gb kit is a bit small with game + OS running but 8 is actually too large). Games in future may begin to breach 2gb of video ram but aren't really at the moment. Triple monitor setups however may require more than 2gb, I was going to come onto some maths towards the end so we'll have a looksie.

3d modelling work however in programs like 3ds max, maya, autodesk etc. They can make use of large ram amounts. Some professional grade 3d models can max out more than 10gb of system ram or even 4gb of video ram for render jobs.



If you want some maths. There can either 3 or 4 bytes per pixel dependant on RGB or RGBA colour, lets go with RGBA. 5760*1080 pixels = 6220800 pixels. 6220800 * 4 = 24883200 bytes. 0.18gb ignoring overheads. Overheads are the killer actually and sadly not calculable easily without some more knowledge on the render code, the OpenGL or directX pipeline etc etc. Benchmarking would be more suitable for obtaining that data sadly and thats not something I happen to have right here.


I personally find it hard to believe that it would require greater than a 2gb GPU, but without solid figures I can't say either way as graphics programming also is not my expertise (more interested in software and systems engineering). I do have 5 years of programming experience, a full UK A-Level in computing and am at uni for a computing degree.

 

I've got a 4gb gpu(680m) and i've never seen it use more than 1.5gb of it and that was in Arma 2(DayZ). Note, this is at 1920*1080p so higher res's like 1440p will use more vram.

 

I had a pretty big improvement upgrading from a 6750 (1gb) to a 7750 (2gb) so I think anything above 2GB is perfectly fine. (Now have GTX 650TI SC)

 

Well, the higher the resolution you wish to play at the more Vram you will need. I have a 1gb card powering a 1680x1050 screen. It is enough for me (power wise, would love a higher res). But 1GB is only enough for 1 screen up to 1080p as far as i know. I believe on 3 screens there is an fps improvement on a 3GB card over say a 2GB card (of the same architecture and power). For 3 1080p screens i would probably go with 4gb if you can afford it.

 

Og you are planning to play games like BF4, 2gb will be to little for max settings.

 

Like the others have stated 4GB of memory will better made use of in high resolution displays, but to futureproof you may want to get a 4GB card as games are starting to take advantage of large amounts of memory.

 

That answered all my questions, even the ones I didn't ask.

Thanks for all the replies guys, I'll probably stick with the 2gb version and possibly SLI later down the road, say around tax return times.

 

SLI is a nice scalable method at least.

 

Yeah, it's twice as much memory..

Edit: However, the clock speeds may vary.

 

To make it short: Once a game exists that utilizes 4GB of GPU-RAM your GPU will already be too slow to handle it anyways.

But there are games like Skyrim that will break that 2GB barrier easily once you mod it with 2048s textures.
If you're doing Multimonitoring and/or Multi-GPU, then i would prefer 4GB over 2GB.

Last but not least when 4GB are standard for gpus there'll be 8GB configurations that will have the same issue...

 

That card has a very narrow bus width and won't have any benefit from the 4GB of VRAM.

 

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18284509

 

SLI != 2x as much vram. If you have 2 2gb cards in SLI you only have 2gb of usable vram.

 

I played two maps in Battlefield 3, everything maxed out, 64 players on screen, highest reading was 1596mb, and average around 1450mb

 

and in Battlefield 4, it will go over 2 Gb....

 

We'll see soon, the open beta is released next week on friday.

Anyway it's best to have as much as you can. With time games have bigger maps, with more textures, etc, so having more than you actually need is better than not having enough.

 

I'll have to take a look at some gaming reviews of Battlefield 4 when it comes out and other things. By the time Thanksgiving rolls around and I have 2 things sold I will see how big of a graphics card I can fit into my budget. I originally though about doing the 780 if I could afford it, but then I looked at price/performance reviews.

 

what? NO, not correct, sli does NOT, mean 2x as much vram, you still have the same amount :/, wait what? your post is confusing