Best vga to play at max res 1680x1050 - 670 2Gb or 4GB?

[Xotana]

Well guys, thank you very much for your input. I appreciate every single advice/comment.

 

I will go with the 2GB version. As to ATI, I also appreciate the suggestions but I love all those extra effects that NVidia offers. Otherwise, I would not hesitate to get an ATI.

 

Already clocked my i7 @2,6 Mhz stock clock to 4 Mhz, all of this with proper care and settings. My max temps playing BF3 don't go over 62 degrees (CoolerMaster cooler on air and a HAF 932

 

case that also helps a lot regarding cooling), which is nice, but maybe I will have to downclock it if temps get too high in summer....XD

 

I would never get al the benefits from a 670 with my CPU stock clock.

 

 

Once again, thank you all.

Edited December 4, 2012 by Xotana

[FMod]

Other than Physx that only works in a few games I'm not quite sure what effects you mean - I never noticed there to be any - but not that it's a bad card.

[Dan3345]

It doesn't really matter in any case though. It might matter for a 680 - but a 2GB 680 costs about the same as a 4GB 670 and will be faster in games 100% of the time.

The only marginal use I see for these (4GB 680's) is in SLI driving multiple displays - as a single card you'll be bottlenecked by the chip - but even so, in practice, 2GB rarely gets touched. Skyrim torture modes get bottlenecked by the CPU, not GPU or VRAM anyway.

 

Adding more VRAM does not create a bottleneck. Unless the frequency of the bus speed increases past what the processor can handle. And since almost all processors bus speeds are handled externally and are fixed across most sockets the CPU is already bottle-necked by its own bus speed/width.

 

Anyways you are right, 4gb's is largely reserved for multi-monitor configurations. However it is also useful when you are running lots of graphical mods at a high resolution and don't want to worry about your VRAM capping out. Also, in most cases the 4gb version of the 680 costs an additional $30, and I mean if you are spending $500 on a video card, what is another $30?

 

Good choice on the 670 2gb OP. Its overclocking potential is higher than that of the 680 and even out of the box its a hell of a GPU.

[FMod]

By bottlenecking I simply mean that, if you force VRAM usage up, the chip will limit your framerate so low that it won't matter how much spare VRAM is available. And 100% VRAM usage doesn't mean a sudden slideshow, the card just starts cleaning up its memory.

 

Price-wise, looking at newegg, a normal 680 starts at $420, while 680/4GB at $520. That's a 24% price bump for something that might never even give a 1% performance bump.

And for $540 you can get 2x660Ti, which will blow 680/4GB out of the water. Even triple display configurations testing, which does fill out the memory, shows that multiple GPUs are always better than more VRAM.

[Dan3345]

I hadn't checked newegg prices, should have known they would be better than my local Fry's which has a normal 2gb 680 priced at around the 4gb versions.

[kalikka]

Update about my vram usage:

 

If you stay away from Sharpshooter ENB + Realistic Lighting, you should be okay even with 2gb vram.

Upgraded my ENB/lighting mods to RCRN, vram usage dropped by 600-700mb. Now its a little over 2gb with 3 followers.

[Xotana]

Well, I have UR lighting and 48 mods including W.A.T.E.R., everything set to ultra, distances etc....everything maxed out, AA, VSync etc. With the 2GB version my Skyrim runs 1680x1050 at a

 

smooth 60 plus FPS and uses between 1350-1670 out of the 2GB with 2 followers. I wonder if I should have bought the 4Gb version and the 680 model....I wonder...if 2Gb will be enough for the next 3-4 years....MaxPayne 3 also uses around 1500-1600 out of 2Gb....but with my resolution I'm probably set for the next 3-4 years..I hope XD

 

BTW, I'm going to give that RCRN a try, it looks damn great, maybe better than UltraRealisticLighting....

Edited December 6, 2012 by Xotana

[FMod]

If you stay away from Sharpshooter ENB + Realistic Lighting, you should be okay even with 2gb vram.

Not sure why put it like "even 2GB".

I run very heavy mods inc the latter (I don't like the look of ENB, it feels less realistic than without it) and it's still not memory bound, but CPU bound, even at 4.9 GHz.

 

Just because VRAM usage peaks at X MB doesn't mean there will be a lout screech and a crash if you happen to have X-1 MB. It simply means the game can make use of that much. If VRAM use is at 700 MB (which is about the average today), it means the game has nothing at all to put in the rest of VRAM.

 

Very consistently, when tested, more GPU power keeps beating more VRAM for any single-display configuration.

e.g. take a look here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_7750_IceQ_X/22.html

 

1280 MB GTX 570 beats 2048 MB GTX 660 up until 1920x1200. Only in 2560x1600 does the 2GB card pull ahead, but by how much - just 1 fps, 43 vs 42. And the 1536 MB GTX 580 is still faster than 2048 MB 660 and 660Ti. The second fastest card happens to be 590; despite also only having 1536 MB of non-duplicated VRAM, it manages to beat 7970 GHz.

 

Even multiple displays at 5760x1080 fail to defeat the Power>>Memory rule:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_670/22.html

590 with its 1536 MB remains faster than 2GB and 3GB 680 and 7970.

[Xotana]

Yep guys, thanks a lot. Anyway, I think that for a 256-bit memory interface I see no point in using 4GB.....

 

I'm more than pleased with my purchase (GTX 670 OC). Excellent gameplay, all eye-candy there is maxed out and running capped at 60FPs (bc of V-Sync), BF3 full-candy 70-100 FPS and regarding Borderlands2, damn,

 

didn't even know the game had some effects that my oldie 275 never allowed me to see, I can now actually SEE some textures and effects that are really amazing.

 

Once again ppl, I thank you all for your input. This is way I love The Nexus Forums, one will always find ppl willing to help and give unbiased opinion, regardless of preferences and other crap you see in most places.

 

http://positivepsychologynews.com/ppnd_wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/thank-you.jpg

Edited December 6, 2012 by Xotana