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4g or 2g Nvidia Cards?

F

Fr0nt1ine

Weaksauce
Joined
Dec 2, 2011
Messages
71
Currently I am only running one monitor at 1920x1200 and have no plans to add more monitors. I might upgrade my resolution down the line but definately not adding another monitor.

I have to ask, if I want to play games like the new Battlefield 4, Star Citizen, or basically any newer game such as Metro Last Light or Bioshock Infinite on max or near max, will the extra 2g on the cards make a difference? If it helps Im planning on getting two 2g or 4g 680s and I want them to last me 3-4 years of decent gaming.

Anyone have any input into this? By the way, I mean an actual in game, perceived difference that I might feel in game.

Thanks,
Front
 
for 3-4 years I would try to get into 4GB, but I think you are way better off to buy 1 now and then upgrade later.

Mostly because a lot of 4k monitors will come around in the next year so its very likely you will bump resolutions.
 
its silly to try and plan on a gpu lasting 3 nevermind 4 years. its cheaper in the long run to get what you need now and for immediate future and then upgrade when needed. 1000 bucks for the 680 4gb sli will look silly in just 2 years compared to what can be had for that money then.
 
well first of all for the price you should get a 770 4GB, should be close in price around $450 and dropping, unless you are buying used. You can look at reviews and see if the FPS are acceptable to you at your resolution maxed. Personally I don't know what just fine is? To me just fine is 120 FPS. And I don't think it will do that but to a lot of people 30 FPS is just fine.
 
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I currently have a 5850 and Im just now replacing it because I want to play Metro LL and Bioshock. Its lasted me 4 years of light gaming such as Civ, League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Mechwarrior, etc.

I dont think Im a power gamer, but there are certain titles I really enjoy on max and Metro, Bioshock, and BF are three titles I like. I dont expect to be maxing out games in 3 years, but I want to be able to game like I have (light-medium load of graphical intensity) with the ability to turn up the settings for games coming out, say, next year or so.
 
Fr0nt1ine said:
I currently have a 5850 and Im just now replacing it because I want to play Metro LL and Bioshock. Its lasted me 4 years of light gaming such as Civ, League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Mechwarrior, etc.

I dont think Im a power gamer, but there are certain titles I really enjoy on max and Metro, Bioshock, and BF are three titles I like. I dont expect to be maxing out games in 3 years, but I want to be able to game like I have (light-medium load of graphical intensity) with the ability to turn up the settings for games coming out, say, next year or so.
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So again its silly to dump 1000 bucks into a gpu setup. Just get a $250 gtx760 now and then in 2 years grab a gtx960. A gtx760 is fine for 1080p and is twice as fast as what you have now. or spend more money and get a faster single gpu.

just uses some common sense with the settings and dont turn everything up and wonder why it does not run great. just leaving SSAA or MSAA off in games will let you max all other settings and get at least 45-50 fps or more with just a modest gtx760.

also please list the rest of your specs.
 
I agree with the 760 sentiment, even a 7870 or 660Ti is quite powerful enough for most folks.
 
This is what Im want to build. The only thing I dont have is the GPUs

Mobo: ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77
CPU:Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2, CPU Cooler
Ram: G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133
GPU: TWO ASUS GTX680-DC2-4GD5 GeForce GTX 680 4GB
Storage: Western Digital Black 640g Hard Drive
(Possibly getting a 1T HD and a SSD later down the line to replace my 640g)

Im pretty sure I want 8g of Ram right?
 
8 gb minimum recommended IMHO, why 680 when there is the 700 series that are more then capable, and for that matter why 680s when even 670s are pretty damn close(with clocking) and less costly?
 
4G will likely make a difference a year or two from now in single screen games, heck early stuff from the BF4 alpha show the game using over 2GB of video memory at 1920.
 
Honestly after 2 years you should upgrade regardless of what everyone's opinion is...ironic isn't it ;) Yes to 4GB
 
Fr0nt1ine said:
This is what Im want to build. The only thing I dont have is the GPUs

Mobo: ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77
CPU:Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer 7 Pro Rev. 2, CPU Cooler
Ram: G.SKILL Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2133
GPU: TWO ASUS GTX680-DC2-4GD5 GeForce GTX 680 4GB
Storage: Western Digital Black 640g Hard Drive
(Possibly getting a 1T HD and a SSD later down the line to replace my 640g)

Im pretty sure I want 8g of Ram right?
Click to expand...
why are you not looking at newer stuff? 4770k over 3770k makes more sense. and of course a 770 makes more sense than a 680. and I would go with 16gb since you want to keep the pc for a while. 640gb or even 1tb is not all that large as some single games can use 25-30gb or more and that will only grow. I would buy 780 before I fooled with any sli setup.

I would go 4770k, 16gb 1600mhz 1.5 memory, 2 or 3tb hard drive and a single 770 at this point.
 
From what I have read, there isnt much difference between the Haswell and Ivy Bridge CPUs. I got the 3770 for 265 bucks new. 770s use the same architecture as the 680s I believe, they are simply overclocked 680s correct? At the rate, I might just get a 780 and upgrade later instead of getting two 770s or 680s.

I already have all of the parts except the GPUs. The only thing Im not sure about is the amount of Ram I want and the speed because I only have 8gigs of Ram. I dont know if it will be enough but 16 sounds like overkill.
 
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Fr0nt1ine said:
From what I have read, there isnt much difference between the Haswell and Ivy Bridge CPUs. I got the 3770 for 265 bucks new. 770s use the same architecture as the 680s I believe, they are simply overclocked 680s correct? At the rate, I might just get a 780 and upgrade later instead of getting two 770s or 680s.
Click to expand...
no not much difference but I misread that you already had 3770k. and I would get the EVGA ACX gtx780.
 
I can get two 680s in 4g for about 800. I think I can sit on those for a few years the way I play games.
 
Fr0nt1ine said:
Is one 780 about equal to two 680s or 770s?
Click to expand...
have you really not look at any reviews?

Fr0nt1ine said:
I can get two 680s in 4g for about 800. I think I can sit on those for a few years the way I play games.
Click to expand...
at 1080, I think that is silly but go ahead. I would much rather have a single gpu than to fool with sli especially just to run at that resolution. you better oc the crap out of that cpu too to get best use out of that setup and deal with additional overhead from running sli.
 
Kor said:
Not even close to that, it's a 680 + 20% (and more robust DP power).
Click to expand...

False a 780 is WAY more than 20% faster than a 680. At least 50%. I've owned both and 670 sli (I go threw a ton of cards) and I will definitely be sitting on my 780 for a while to come. It absolutely walks all over a 680 no question. Look at the few comparisons we did in this thread.
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1768219
Not to mention 780 and 770 is new line. Will hold resale value longer. Especially the 780.
Check this out
http://www.xbitlabs.com/picture/?src=/images/graphics/nvidia-geforce-gtx-780/14_78vs68_big.png
With as cranked at 1080p minimum is 28% faster than 680 and max is 56%.
This is without taking into account the hazing over clock scaling of the 780. An over clocked edition acx or dcu2 will net you another 10% gain on top of that.
 
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HOODedDutchman said:
False a 780 is WAY more than 20% faster than a 680. At least 50%. I've owned both and 670 sli (I go threw a ton of cards) and I will definitely be sitting on my 780 for a while to come. It absolutely walks all over a 680 no question.
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um NO. a stock 780 is no where near 50% faster than a stock 680 and anyone with the ability to read reviews knows that. overall a 780 is about 25% faster at 1920x1080. oc both the 680 and 780 and the gap will grow bigger though as the 780 scales better.
 
It's very bad time to buy gpu that should last for years now - we will be getting 20nm cards from Amd and nvidia in 2014 and those will show good performance boost as well as we will ko how much consoles affected new games.

So IMHO buy 7950 or 760 now and upgrade in 2014 when new series release.
 
OK it may not be 50% directly from card to card. But if you compare a 680 780 and 690(basically 2 680s) the 780 is right between a 680 and a 690. Sli doesn't scale the greatest. I went from 670 sli to 780 and would never go back. So much smoother and get same performance in every game. Don't care what benchmarks say in real world 780 will give you significantly better experience than 2 680s will. And your still undermining the gain at 25% the link I posted shows between 28% and 56% faster than single 680.
 
700 series is tweaked if you will, better scaling, higher clocks and so forth, so its is slightly more then a refresh, it is an optimization as well. Also whoever put that BF4 uses more then 2gb video memory, doesn't that mean most of us will just outright be unable to play the game without it going crash? One my my buds is playing alpha right now with a 7850 1080p medium and he says it runs very well and looks great, and using a Phenom 940 at stock to boot.

Dual 680 for 1080p is silly, like mentioned if you plan on going dual cards, find a nice single card, like 780 or 770 and be happy.

so you have the cpu-power-hard drive-motherboard but need to add ram and graphics if I understand this correctly?

Sorry cannon dale, but I disagree with what you are saying in that a 640 or even 1tb is not that large, it is tons of room if you do not stockpile things :p 120gb or better SSD(Samsung 840 or one of the new Corsairs) added to the 640 you already have and possible get a 1 or 2tb Caviar blue/black a 770 and 16gb of 1600 or whatever Gskill ram and you will be happy.
 
also Nvidia Just released the 700 series, so I highly doubt they will be launching a series anytime before summer or so of 2014, AMD should be launching their 9k before Christmas early into the year. GPU even CPU are launched usually once per year like clockwork,
 
dragonstongue said:
Also whoever put that BF4 uses more then 2gb video memory, doesn't that mean most of us will just outright be unable to play the game without it going crash? One my my buds is playing alpha right now with a 7850 1080p medium and he says it runs very well and looks great, and using a Phenom 940 at stock to boot.
Click to expand...

Think he's talking about this graph,

bf4%20vram.jpg


Not sure how much we can read into that since it's still in alpha, and I'm sure the engine will scale well with all levels of video cards, you might not be able to crank it to max though.
 
Same test shows 770 as faster then 7970 in BF4 at maxed settings so i don't know if it matters all that much.
 
The problem is that a single GTX 670/680 is generally not powerful enough to benefit from 4GB.
I recommend to go with a 2GB variant unless the OP is ready to go SLI.
 
The latest and most demanding games at max settings only require between 2GB and 2.6GB at 2560*1600 using a Titan SLI setup.
I do not see the need of having higher than 2GB at 1920x1200.
 
RadXge said:
The latest and most demanding games at max settings only require between 2GB and 2.6GB at 2560*1600 using a Titan SLI setup.
I do not see the need of having higher than 2GB at 1920x1200.
Click to expand...
there is an edit button so no need for another post just to add that.

yeah I agree for the foreseeable future, 2gb is enough for cards like the 770/680 and below. what could change that is higher res textures which can eat up vram but dont really need any more graphical power. we will just have to see what happens next year but developers know that 95% of even high cards have 2gb of vram so I doubt we should worry.
 
The only thing I do not have is the GPUs. I suppose I can return the Ram to Newegg and get 16gb of 1600.
I have this for my RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231519
Do you think that 8g of RAM is fine?
There seems to be 100,000 different opinions on what to do for the GPUs, I will probably just get a 780 and buy another when I need to down the line. Though I can get two 680s for the same price....So confused.
 
Fr0nt1ine said:
The only thing I do not have is the GPUs. I suppose I can return the Ram to Newegg and get 16gb of 1600.
I have this for my RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231519
Do you think that 8g of RAM is fine?
There seems to be 100,000 different opinions on what to do for the GPUs, I will probably just get a 780 and buy another when I need to down the line. Though I can get two 680s for the same price....So confused.
Click to expand...
8gb is fine but I personally love having 16gb. if you go 16gb then you will not even have to worry about getting more ram for 3 or 4 years.

by the time an oced gtx780 starts too feel slow at 1920, you will be wanting to get a new card to replace it not go sli.
 
So, I guess it really doesnt matter. I suppose the only real question is, will TWO 4g 680s be better than ONE 3g 780. Then down the line I can just buy another 780 when its cheaper. SLI seems to be a more cost effective way to extend your graphical viability.
 
rudy said:
for 3-4 years I would try to get into 4GB, but I think you are way better off to buy 1 now and then upgrade later.

Mostly because a lot of 4k monitors will come around in the next year so its very likely you will bump resolutions.
Click to expand...

and the cards likes wont be powerful enough to push the resolution in 2-3 years anyways, it is cheaper and better to upgrade than to try and hold out for years.

If you want SLI, get it now, the whole thing with buying one now and one later never works because later in 1-2 years a single card will be faster than 2 in SLI, faster, cooler, less power, and no "possible" issues with multiple cards.
 
MrGuvernment said:
and the cards likes wont be powerful enough to push the resolution in 2-3 years anyways, it is cheaper and better to upgrade than to try and hold out for years.

If you want SLI, get it now, the whole thing with buying one now and one later never works because later in 1-2 years a single card will be faster than 2 in SLI, faster, cooler, less power, and no "possible" issues with multiple cards.
Click to expand...

Then whats the point of SLI then? Why dont people just buy one card and replace it later with a top of the line card?
 
Fr0nt1ine said:
Then whats the point of SLI then? Why dont people just buy one card and replace it later with a top of the line card?
Click to expand...
99.99% of people get a single card then upgrade later to another single card and sell their old one. SLI is usually for people that cant get enough performance at the resolution they are running. you are at 1920 so a single oced 780 is plenty. in fact its bananas overkill for all but a few games. nearly everyone would be happy with a 770 at that res as just using common sense and reducing AA will get you 60 fps in those few demanding games.
 
cannondale06 said:
99.99% of people do. SLI is usually for people that cant get enough performance at the resolution they are running. you are at 1920 so a single oced 780 is plenty. in fact its bananas overkill for all but a few games.
Click to expand...

I would like to upgrade my Res down the line, Im trying to future proof a bit. Like say I will get another 780 and a higher res monitor down the line if I need it. Or can get two 680s and just upgrade my monitor later.
I plan on playing a game like Star Citizen and BF 4 near or at max. With that in mind would you still recommend just one 780?
 
Fr0nt1ine said:
I would like to upgrade my Res down the line, Im trying to future proof a bit. Like say I will get another 780 and a higher res monitor down the line if I need it. Or can get two 680s and just upgrade my monitor later.
I plan on playing a game like Star Citizen and BF 4 near or at max. With that in mind would you still recommend just one 780?
Click to expand...
still stick with the 780 and worry about it when you get a higher res screen. that could be years away.
 
HOODedDutchman said:
OK it may not be 50% directly from card to card. But if you compare a 680 780 and 690(basically 2 680s) the 780 is right between a 680 and a 690. Sli doesn't scale the greatest. I went from 670 sli to 780 and would never go back. So much smoother and get same performance in every game. Don't care what benchmarks say in real world 780 will give you significantly better experience than 2 680s will. And your still undermining the gain at 25% the link I posted shows between 28% and 56% faster than single 680.
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We'll just agree to disagree there. I have two PC's at home each with the exact same setup other then the video cards. One has a 780 oc'd and the other a dual 670 SLI oc'd setup and there's no perceptable difference in smoothness other than the dual 670 SLI setup is more powerful and can run higher frame rates than the 780.
 
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