GTX 770 2GB or 4GB?

[Deathray2K]

I finally decided to upgrade from the Radeon 5850, and wanted to go NVidia since I (eventually) want to get a 3D vision setup. I got a good deal on the Gigabyte GTX 770 OC ($349.00 + it comes with Metro: Last Light), so I went ahead and bought it, but now I'm wondering if I should have waited for the 4GB cards to come out instead. I could sell this one and get a 4GB one when they come out, but on the other hand I don't want to bother with that unless the difference is significant.

So any thoughts on whether the 4GB would make much of a difference in my case?

 

[blackened23]

If you're using a single screen resolution, especially 1080p, 4GB is not beneficial.

 

[Carfax83]

Where the hell did you find a Gigabyte GTX 770 OC for 349?!?

Oh, and yeah I would get the 4GB edition. You may decide to upgrade your monitor later.. Just had a look on Amazon, and apparently there are already 4GB models for sale although they are out of stock.

 

[wand3r3r]

Not unless the price difference isn't huge. If you actually meant $350 and if the 4gb is $450 no way!

 

[toyota]

$349 is not what these cards sell for and they dont come with Metro LL either so maybe you should actually explain whats going on.

and you did not list your resolution which matters in general when asking about video card advice. and while you are at it I am curious to know the rest of your specs too.

 

[SithSolo1]

Are you sure it was a GTX 770 and not a GTX 670? The price and the game bundle is about right for the 670 atm.

 

[Deathray2K]

I got it from Memory Express. When the card first showed up yesterday they had it listed at $579.99, but they beat competitors' prices by 25% of the difference and BestDirect had it listed for $395.20, so with the price beat it came to $349. Of course now ME has changed their price to $459.99, and BD has changed theirs to $416; I basically just got really lucky.

The 4GB cards I'm seeing listed (But not for sale yet so it may change) are $440-$460, so it would probably be about $100 extra for 4GB.
My next monitor upgrade will be to a 3D vision monitor, and those are all (sadly) still 1080p. So if 3D vision isn't going to make a big dent in the memory I won't bother with 4GB. Just thought I should make sure before I spend another $400 on that stuff just to find the card can't handle it...

Edit: Since apparently no one can believe it, this is my order info: http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/3415/orderds.png

 

[blackened23]

No, you don't need 4GB for 1080p, 2GB is fine. You can save a bit of cash and be worry free using 3d vision.

 

[Attic]

I'd feel better with 4gb's because 2gb is not high end today and what does that mean 2 years out? At $400 I think the GTX770 will be the last card we see with "only" 2gb of VRAM.

But, 2gb's is more than likely plenty at 1080P for 2 years time.

 

[Deathray2K]

I don't upgrade very often, usually only when something roughly twice as fast is available for around $350 at most (Hence the 4 year old HD5850 I have now), so I'd like my video card to be relatively future-proof. With 4K monitors coming down in price over the next couple years though, I'm a bit torn... At least with 4GB I'd have the option of going 4K + SLI in the future, whereas SLI would just be a waste with 2GB. Plus there's the fact that games built for the new consoles are probably going to want a lot of VRAM, and it's a tough choice! I think for now I'll stick with 2GB and just see what's coming up monitor-wise at computex.

 

[toyota]

so can you please list all your current specs like I asked earlier including monitor?

 

[Deathray2K]

Sure...
BenQ G2220HD (1080p TN LCD)
Windows 8 Pro 64-bit
Intel Core i7 2600K (stock, at the moment)
ASRock Fatal1ty P67 Professional (B3)
24GB DDR3 1600 (2x4GB + 2x8GB, not ideal I know)
Mushkin Enhanced Chronos 480GB SSD (boot drive)
Crucial M4 256GB SSD
3x Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB HDD
Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB HDD
Hitachi Deskstar 2TB HDD
Seagate ST4000DM000 4TB HDD
Corsais HX850 PSU
Fractal Design Define XL
Logitech MK710
Auzen X-Fi Bravura 7.1 for my:
Sennheiser HD595 Headphones

Enough info? I did mention in the first post that I'm planning to use the card for 3D Vision, which is all 1080p 120Hz. That's down the line a little bit though, I keep hoping a better 3D monitor will come out, or prices will drop.

 

[Carfax83]

Sure you got enough storage there dude?

 

[Deathray2K]

Never! Hahah actually I'm hoping to replace at least one of the 1TB drives with another 4TB, and the rest of them as 4TBs get cheaper. They're getting pretty old now; I don't want them failing on me, and now that 4TB is less than $200, it doesn't make much sense to get anything less.

 

[fumanstan0]

Would 4 GB be more worth it at 2560x1440? I'm eyeing a 770, but not sure if its worth waiting for 4 GB cards as well.

 

[toyota]

Would 4 GB be more worth it at 2560x1440? I'm eyeing a 770, but not sure if its worth waiting for 4 GB cards as well.

not for single card usage at this time.

 

[Fastx]

Fwiw

WordElclusive-My games are much smoother with 3GB with AA enabled, than the 2GB cards I had before.
Crysis 3 easly uses 2.5GB with 4xSMAA or 4xMSAA @1440p.

I wouldn't buy anything under 3GB again.

What people are missing is that games scale to the amount of VRAM available.
With 2GB cards, my VRAM usage didn't pass 1.6GB in BF3, but with 3GB cards, my VRAM usage increased to 2.2GB using the same settings.
Saying 2GB is enough isn't entirely true if someone never used a 3GB card in person. They think everything is fine when they could be having a better experience if they got more VRAM.

BellaTheFeared
Outside modded skyrim?

Highest I've seen so far is Bioshock Infinite hitting 2293MB @ 1080p.

Hardcocp-It may seem like overkill right now, what with current video cards having 2 or 3GB of VRAM and game's overall not demanding so much. However, we are starting to see some game's that do demand more. Hitman is one game that is extremely sensitive to VRAM capacity. We are seeing 2GB be an absolute bottleneck for the game, and 3GB not being enough either. Once we get to 4GB or 6GB of VRAM the game behaves much better at high MSAA settings at high resolutions. Another game, which came out last year, that is also sensitive to VRAM is Max Payne 3. While it doesn't seem right now that Far Cry 3 is that sensitive to VRAM, we haven't had a video card combination fast enough right now to run it at the highest in-game settings to really test that. As we move forward, we will find out. We haven't had much time to test Crysis 3 and its sensitivity to VRAM, but we will get to that when we can.

We were happy and agreed with the decision when we were introduced to the AMD Radeon HD 7970 and 7950 back in 2011 to incorporate 3GB of RAM. At the time, this seemed like a lot of VRAM back in December of 2011. However, we are seeing today how the extra RAM on the HD 7970 and 7950 have benefited some of the latest games. In this same vein, down the road, this year, the next, we may even see how more VRAM impacts games to come.

 

[toyota]

hardocp was NOT testing a relatively modest 1080. there is not a single game that a 770 can run at playable settings that needs more than 2gb of vram. I have cranked settings in nearly every game out there and 1790 is the highest I have seen and that was Crysis 3. and that game will allocate more vram than it needs not to mention you would have tot turn down the AA for it to be playable anyway.

 

[Attic]

I don't upgrade very often, usually only when something roughly twice as fast is available for around $350 at most (Hence the 4 year old HD5850 I have now), so I'd like my video card to be relatively future-proof. With 4K monitors coming down in price over the next couple years though, I'm a bit torn... At least with 4GB I'd have the option of going 4K + SLI in the future, whereas SLI would just be a waste with 2GB. Plus there's the fact that games built for the new consoles are probably going to want a lot of VRAM, and it's a tough choice! I think for now I'll stick with 2GB and just see what's coming up monitor-wise at computex.

After reading this, I'd say 100% you will be better served with 4gb card. No doubt IMO. Granted there's no doubt that 2gb's is fine for today's games.

2gb's will be good for MAX 2 years at high settings IMO.

 

[Fastx]

Toyota I posted it for a fwiw and this was mostly directed to fumanstano question (@1440p) as a fwiw. But I also thought the Hardocp was a interesting read regarding the HD7950 & 7970 vram comments imo.

 

[FalseChristian]

It all depends at what resolution you're gaming at. For my 'low' 1680x1050 1GB is fine for every game, 2GB is fine for 1920x1080 and 3GB + for 1920x1200 and up.

 

[tential]

Never! Hahah actually I'm hoping to replace at least one of the 1TB drives with another 4TB, and the rest of them as 4TBs get cheaper. They're getting pretty old now; I don't want them failing on me, and now that 4TB is less than $200, it doesn't make much sense to get anything less.

Seagate Backup+ drives is what I use. You just remove the case. Much cheaper than internal drives. I'm only at 6TB though. I'm going to get to 16TB+ though within the next 2 years.

 

[toyota]

It all depends at what resolution you're gaming at. For my 'low' 1680x1050 1GB is fine for every game, 2GB is fine for 1920x1080 and 3GB + for 1920x1200 and up.

if its high res textures then the resolution will have little impact. nearly any game I have that needs or at least allocates lots of vram will use about the same whether its at 1280 or 1920.

 

[Deathray2K]

Seagate Backup+ drives is what I use. You just remove the case. Much cheaper than internal drives. I'm only at 6TB though. I'm going to get to 16TB+ though within the next 2 years.

Really? I'm only seeing them at ~$20 more than the comparable internal drives, plus they're mostly 5400 or 5900 RPM drives

I honestly haven't been feeling the limits of having a 1GB card until recently, so I'm hoping moving to 2GB will last as long, but I guess it's hard to say right now. I guess if I do move to a higher res monitor I'll just leave space in my budget to upgrade the card too. Seems a shame to lose the lovely discount I got by switching right away!

 

[Eureka]

The 770 will be overwhelmed by the time it maxes out its 2GB in most situations. Even if you got a 2GB version, you're already ahead and you will be able to resell it for what you bought for at least a few months, so just enjoy it.

Yes there are games that will utilize more than 2GB, but even then for a lot of them it's not a necessity. The code will cap itself at 2GB... and the problem is that not every game that utilizes more than 2GB actually needs it (the code sees more than 2GB, and will preload extra textures).

Until you actually find yourself in a situation where VRAM becomes the bottleneck, I wouldn't worry about it.