gtx 760 2GB or 4GB?

[GRAFiZ]

Benchmarks don't show ANY difference between 760 cards with 2gb and those with 4gb. Most people on forums will tell you "OF COURSE GET THE MOST VRAM!!! IT MAKES CRYSIS RUN TWICE MUCH FASTER!!1!11" even when that's not the case at all.

Games can and will use more than 2gb of VRAM if there's more than 2gb's to use... but that does not mean they "need" that memory allocation to run correctly, they just take advantage of it being available.

Bottom line: The 4gb cards are about $50 more. If you can afford that without concern, spend the extra money just in case it helps down the line. If you can't afford that, then don't sweat it and just get the 2gb version.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I would rather use the premium on a GTX770, also in terms of "future proofing". The processing power of the GTX770 is 40% higher.

 

[DaveSimmons]

PS4 / X1 have 4.5 - 5.5 total of shared (system + VRAM), while a PC with 8 GB system RAM + 2 GB VRAM has 10 GB. PS4 / X1 also have slow CPUs and low-to-mid GPUs that would probably bottleneck trying to use more than 2 GB of the shared memory for VRAM. So ignore the PS4 / X1 argument.

My crystal ball says that by the time having 4 GB might help, the 760 would be too slow to use it. Save the $50 and get 2 GB. In 4 years buy a new card or set the resolution or a quality setting one notch lower so less VRAM is needed.

 

[Gloomy]

My personal opinion is that higher detail textures will become much more common now that consoles have the memory. Texture detail never really has a performance hit for me, but it does take up a lot of VRAM. I would personally get the higher VRAM model, if the price is right.

But, I wouldn't buy a 760. I'd get at least a 770 (for 3 years use, I think most will spare that much)

 

[f1sherman]

The problem is... 2GB vs 4GB will continue to eat your piece of mind.
Even if 2GB is enough.
And despite all evidence saying 2GB is enough for 1080p.

But we all know that more is better.
So yes, you do want more than 2GB.
But 4GB will be an overkill for single 760 @1080p, and you are coming to a price range of more powerful cards.

There is no easy way out of this.
Going AMD is a solution to above dilemma, but that's also a compromise; by definition.

 

[SimianR]

I think the most important question is to ask is whether or not you plan to get another 760 down the line for SLI. If that is something you would consider, then the 4GB card would be the better option. Otherwise I think if you are getting a single 760 a 2GB card would be fine.

 

[3DVagabond]

Benchmarks don't show ANY difference between 760 cards with 2gb and those with 4gb. Most people on forums will tell you "OF COURSE GET THE MOST VRAM!!! IT MAKES CRYSIS RUN TWICE MUCH FASTER!!1!11" even when that's not the case at all.

Games can and will use more than 2gb of VRAM if there's more than 2gb's to use... but that does not mean they "need" that memory allocation to run correctly, they just take advantage of it being available.

Bottom line: The 4gb cards are about $50 more. If you can afford that without concern, spend the extra money just in case it helps down the line. If you can't afford that, then don't sweat it and just get the 2gb version.

Nobody has said anything like this. OP is going to hang onto this card for as long as possible, hopefully 3-4 years. What do you think the odds are that most games won't need more than 2 gig by then? I think it's a pretty safe assumption that they will. That's not the same as you are trying to portray it, which is people recommending the 4gig are stupid.

 

[Headfoot]

No benchmarks show more than a few percent improvement from going 770 2GB -> 770 4GB. No way 4GB is necessary on a 760. By the time you need 4GB of RAM it will be too slow to utilize it all anyways. That includes 5760x1080

The exception is if you do a lot of texture modding in games (like Skyrim for example) where the VRAM usage can go through the roof for it. Then I'd get 4GB, but otherwise its wasted money

 

[Golgatha]

GTX 760, go for the 2GB model. If you get into a place where you've ran out of 2GB of video RAM at 1080p, your GTX 760 will be a slideshow regardless of how much RAM you have. Minimum GTX 770 in SLI before I would consider 4GB really.

 

[GRAFiZ]

Nobody has said anything like this. OP is going to hang onto this card for as long as possible, hopefully 3-4 years. What do you think the odds are that most games won't need more than 2 gig by then? I think it's a pretty safe assumption that they will. That's not the same as you are trying to portray it, which is people recommending the 4gig are stupid.

Ah... which is why I say "Most", not "All". And, if you read through the thread... and threads like this, quite often you get from others that 4gb makes sense. But, that forces you to deny all available benchmarks which show little to no performance improvement... making the suggestion a waste of money (as I said, unless you just have the money to spare without impact to your financial situation).

The idea that the 760, even with 4gb is going to have the horsepower to utilize 4gb of textures in future games is misleading as more than likely a game with such lofty requirements will require, or should I say, need for performance sake a much more powerful (ie newer) video card anyways.

Also, I never said people who say get the 4gb card are stupid, because if again, you read my thread you'll see I also told him to buy the 4gb model should he have all the necessary funding to do so. Which would mean, I am calling myself stupid.

PS: I was in Christchurch earlier this year, first trip to NZ for me, LOVE the country. I've yet to travel to a place with more friendly people and kinder hospitality. I hope in time all that was lost from the quakes can be recovered and rebuilt.

 

[3DVagabond]

Ah... which is why I say "Most", not "All". And, if you read through the thread... and threads like this, quite often you get from others that 4gb makes sense. But, that forces you to deny all available benchmarks which show little to no performance improvement... making the suggestion a waste of money (as I said, unless you just have the money to spare without impact to your financial situation).

The idea that the 760, even with 4gb is going to have the horsepower to utilize 4gb of textures in future games is misleading as more than likely a game with such lofty requirements will require, or should I say, need for performance sake a much more powerful (ie newer) video card anyways.

Also, I never said people who say get the 4gb card are stupid, because if again, you read my thread you'll see I also told him to buy the 4gb model should he have all the necessary funding to do so. Which would mean, I am calling myself stupid.

PS: I was in Christchurch earlier this year, first trip to NZ for me, LOVE the country. I've yet to travel to a place with more friendly people and kinder hospitality. I hope in time all that was lost from the quakes can be recovered and rebuilt.

Show me the benchmarks from games 12 months from now. using current benchmarks doesn't help. It's a guess on what you think you will need. If someone was to say, I want to buy a 760 and I play @ 1080. I plan on keeping it until 20nm comes out. I'd say 2gig is fine. 3-4 years though...? I would hedge towards needing more than 2gig of vram.

Thanks for the well wishes. I'm afraid that Christchurch will likely never return to what it was before the earthquakes. The resources simply aren't there. Some areas will be better off though with new construction. The quakes mostly devastating the older parts of the city is a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand you get new construction replacing some of the run down areas. On the other you will never get back some of the older historical locations. Again, thanks for your thoughts.

 

[SolMiester]

Do not waste your money on 4GB version, the 256bus is not wide enough to take advantage of the extra vram, hell, not even the 770 is fast enough with same bus to use the extra memory.

 

[GRAFiZ]

Show me the benchmarks from games 12 months from now. using current benchmarks doesn't help. It's a guess on what you think you will need. If someone was to say, I want to buy a 760 and I play @ 1080. I plan on keeping it until 20nm comes out. I'd say 2gig is fine. 3-4 years though...? I would hedge towards needing more than 2gig of vram.

Thanks for the well wishes. I'm afraid that Christchurch will likely never return to what it was before the earthquakes. The resources simply aren't there. Some areas will be better off though with new construction. The quakes mostly devastating the older parts of the city is a bit of a double edged sword. On one hand you get new construction replacing some of the run down areas. On the other you will never get back some of the older historical locations. Again, thanks for your thoughts.

Well, okay, you make a good point... it's true I can't look into the future and know with certainty that 12 months from now it won't make an impact, I could very well be wrong. I've just been following computer and gaming technology for so long I still feel pretty confident with my opinion. BUT, it is dangerous of me to suggest that a technology is unecessary later just because it is now.

I do wonder though, if a game calls for that amount of vram, will the 760 as it is be able to provide the number crunching power required to even provide a playable experience to the user? Again, I guess there's no way to predict that at this point.

Me personally, I would just buy the 2gb and not worry... but, as I said in my original post, if OP has the money in his budget, why not just jump up to the 4gb and pay the difference to reduce the risk.

Yeah, I recognize it's OT and apologize, but I was surprised by the amount of damage left standing in Christchurch. I was actually in San Fransisco during the 1989 quake and remember very well how quickly the cleanup took place. Within months we were right back to before. Entering downtown Christchurch, seeing just how many buildings were still standing, with so much damage being displayed really set me back. I understand the impact of a corrupt local government and lack of funding available seems to have played quite a part in the lethargic recovery. In time I hope to return and see a thriving downtown once again!

 

[Hdgamer]

By the time the games come out that would need more than 2 gigs of vram, you would have to turn down the settings regardless of how much vram you use because your card wouldn't be able to handle it.

 

[Morbus]

By the time you find a game that asks for more than 2GB VRAM at 1080p, your 2GB VGA will be so slow you'll want a new one either way.

The best future proofing in graphics is buying midrange and saving the money for another midrange in two years. That has worked for me for the past 10 years, and I've always gone for the lower part of the midrange.

I had a FX5600 when the 6800GT were top of the line.
Had a 6600GT when the 7850 were top of the line.
Had a X1950XT when the 8800GT were top of the line.
Had a HD4890 (brute of a machine!) when the 5950 were top of the line.
And now I have a 760GTX 2GB when the 780Ti are top of the line. It was the most I've spent on a VGA and I'm very happy for sure. I always buy cards with custom PCB/Cooling though. I find that helps.

There's also another thing: the 760's bus is 256bit, and I don't think it's wide enough to really use the 4GB. My opinion is that the 4GB won't make the least bit of difference in games, even if they do ask for more VRAM. Your GPU will bottleneck way before the VRAM runs out at 2GB.

 

[wand3r3r]

What some of you may have missed is that he's keeping it until ~2018!

That's a totally different scenario than upgrading every generation in a year or two.

 

[blackened23]

If he's keeping something until 2018 get a PS4.

Otherwise 4GB for 1080p is an utter waste, especially if he plans to stay at 1080p. If he has plans to upgrade to a better resolution down the road? Sure...maybe more VRAM would be nice. But 1080p? Nah. Most GPU cycles are 1-2 years, keeping a GPU for 5 years is unreasonable if you expect to game 5 years from now. And if 5 years from now you need more than 2GB guess what....the GPU will be so slow that it won't matter one bit. And in this hypothetical scenario 5 years from now in which your GPU will be far too slow to use that 4GB of VRAM, you can simply lower the detail and AA setting (which you'd have to do anyway) as to use less VRAM.

TL'DR: get a 2GB 760. Also, I feel like the smart play with this type of budget is to buy a mid range card and upgrade every 1.5-2 years. Upgrading in 5 year intervals doesn't work out so well with GPUs, even if you buy the extreme high end - I can't see GTX 280 users being too pleased with their current PC game performance (assuming they're playing modern AAA games @ 1080p) despite it being a super high end card in 2008. The 280 was insanely good in 2008, but now gets crushed in modern titles. So as I mentioned, 5 year upgrade intervals just don't really work out so well IMO.

 

[Morbus]

5 years, you'll be lucky if the cooler lasts 3/4 years if you game regularly. I haven't had a cooler that hasn't gone wrong after 2 years...

 

[FalseChristian]

Save your money and get the 2GB version unless you're gaming at 2560x1600 with everything maxed out. By the time you need 4GB for a game NVidia's Maxwell refresh (GTX 960 4GB mid-range) will be out for the same price as the 4GB GTX 760.

 

[krnmastersgt]

As others have said, not worth going for the 4GB model. My biggest reason for saying that is not that games can't/won't utilize that but more the fact that by the time you're pushing that much vram the memory bus and the gpu itself will be holding you back so much it won't make a difference if you had 20gb of vram.