Geforce 760...4GB for 20-30$ more than 2GB..worth it?


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EVGA Geforce 760 4GB @ 279.99: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130937

 

Gigabye Geforce 760 overclock 2GB @ 259.99$: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125466

 

 

There are of cource evga regular 2GB cards for 249.  I know the 760 architecture isn't a phenomenal upgrade, but I'm coming from a 560ti superclocked card, and while it's hard to find benchmarks comparing the 560 to a 760, the 660 vs 760 seem to show at least 10+ fps in most games.   

 

249, 259 and 279 are not that much, I'm looking more for a card that can keep up for 2-3 years, and that uses less power than my 560 ti does, which the 700 series already do.   Just wondering if for the performance of the card is the extra 2GB of ram worth it, or should I save the 20/30$?

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I'd say it's worth it. 2GB would be fine at 1080p but if you ever want a surround setup with your monitors or get a 2560x1440 monitor the extra memory would be nice to have. And at 20-30 dollars, unless you're on a tight budget already, I say why not? Plus, with EVGA you have the step up program to take advantage of so within 90 days, should you decide you need more horsepower you can pay the difference for a 770.

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What resolution you will run is where the more memory will matter, at 1920x1080, I think 2gb is fine.  Your talking just a couple of fps maybe...

 

Yeah I guess that's what it really all comes down to is what resolution you'd be gaming at. For me personally at 20 dollars more I'd just get the 4GB version but 30 is pushing it. 

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 2560 x 1440 is what I'm running now on 27" Dell monitor.

 

Then I'd definitely recommend the 4GB,

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The 4GB of vRAM will retain it's value better, so it's worth the extra $20.

Awesome. That's what i was thinking, just wasn't sure since the 760 is lower end than say the 770/780... didn't know if it was more of a waste.   I plan on getting back into skyrim which would use it, plus some of the newer games coming out like titanfall and watch dogs.

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With the enxt gen console coming yes probably.

wut

 

anyway, i'd go for the 4GB model. Some games can use it, esp. at high resolutions. Max Payne 3 comes to mind.

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Awesome. That's what i was thinking, just wasn't sure since the 760 is lower end than say the 770/780... didn't know if it was more of a waste.   I plan on getting back into skyrim which would use it, plus some of the newer games coming out like titanfall and watch dogs.

 

Yeah it's a pretty big price jump up to the 770, so I think you're making the right choice.

I don't think the 760 will be able to play Crisis 3 maxed out, but I don't think you'll be disappointed in it's performance either.

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The 4GB of vRAM will retain it's value better, so it's worth the extra $20.

It doesn't make any sense to get it if you're playing at 1920x1080 or lower. The OP has a 2560x1440 monitor so that's why he should get it.

 

Read this article about video card RAM: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-ram-4870,2428.html

 

Awesome. That's what i was thinking, just wasn't sure since the 760 is lower end than say the 770/780... didn't know if it was more of a waste.   I plan on getting back into skyrim which would use it, plus some of the newer games coming out like titanfall and watch dogs.

It's cheaper and in my eyes, a better value than the GeForce GTX 770.

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Not to be a narcissist but if anyone wants to weigh in on my gpu dilemma over in the thread I made, feel free ;)

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It doesn't make any sense to get it if you're playing at 1920x1080 or lower. The OP has a 2560x1440 monitor so that's why he should get it.

 

Read this article about video card RAM: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/graphics-ram-4870,2428.html

 

Err... I know how it works...  Perhaps you didn't understand what I said.

 

Higher vRAM cards will retain more value since more and more people will invest in higher res monitors since prices are falling, and games will continue to utilize the power that's available.  Hence there will be more demand for GPUs of this capacity as time goes on.  The extra $20 is a no-brainer.

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Thanks guys.  I was originally looking at a  770, but the 770 is so much more..almost double the price for maybe 20-30 fps on average more..  I don't normally play games maxed out, pretty high, but if i have to turn off one option or another its not a huge deal.   I spend most of my time either coding or in photoshop, more of an occasional gamer.

 

@the_evn_show:   The 20-40$ isn't a killer budget wise, I make enough that I could afford the 770 or even 780, but from a Performance/$ aspect, and the amount of time I spend playing games, the 760 is a better option, which is why I had gone with the 560ti originally back when the 500 series was out.  I'd never run sli, but with games coming out with large textures like skyrim and possibly BF4, if the extra ram will help maybe give 10% more performance, then 20$ may be worth it.    most of the 770 gtx's are around 399-419, almost 150$ more for 10-20 fps more...that's not that big of a value to me, since I am happy as long as i can get 30FPS+

 

 

Now if the 770 were ~ 330$, that'd be a different story, but for almost double the price, the value isn't there for the amount of gaming I do.

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Now if the 770 were ~ 330$, that'd be a different story, but for almost double the price, the value isn't there for the amount of gaming I do.

Well, if you aren't strictly an Nvidia user, the 7970 3GB is for sale on newegg for 329 right now with Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Tomb Raider, Crysis 3 and Bioshock: Infinite.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008

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Textures are only getting larger, and now with better consoles that'll be true for ports as well. Skyrim and the Witcher 2 consume vram for breakfast, especially with a few mods.

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Well, if you aren't strictly an Nvidia user, the 7970 3GB is for sale on newegg for 329 right now with Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Tomb Raider, Crysis 3 and Bioshock: Infinite.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008

I can go either way,  but AMD doesn't support Physx, so any title that specifically had support for that wouldn't use it.  IF it had support for both types then it might, but I think nvidia is more widely supported, no?

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Err... I know how it works...  Perhaps you didn't understand what I said.

 

Higher vRAM cards will retain more value since more and more people will invest in higher res monitors since prices are falling, and games will continue to utilize the power that's available.  Hence there will be more demand for GPUs of this capacity as time goes on.  The extra $20 is a no-brainer.

The kind of value the OP should care about is performance. And I understood you correctly earlier. I linked to that article because it compares the performance of 3 versions of the same video cards (512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB). More RAM doesn't mean more performance.

 

That article is nearly 5 years old. It could be that memory on video cards are following a pattern similar to desktop computers. How much does ram matter? If this is 2002 then upgrading from 512mb to 1gb makes a huge difference. 1gb to 2gb also a noticable gain. Today? 8gb to 16 or 32gb is almost no difference for anybody.

More recent articles indicate very little difference between GTX 680 2gb v 4gb on a single screen and on 3x1080p. One reason to prefer the higher memory cards is that they often ship with a factory overclock. In those cases the gains in performance can be attributed directly to the clock speed (when they're compared at the same speeds the differences melt away). For example here's an example showing how the 2gb and 4gb gtx 670 have nearly indistinquisable performance when they're at the same clock speed, but when overclocked the quickest card 'wins'.

You can see a similar thing in Titan vs 780 benchmarks: Titan has a 'crapload' of RAM but the performance gains over a GTX 780 are entirely attributable to the extra GPU performance (overclocking a 780 by ~10% completely erases the advantage that Titan has in terms of CPU resources. If memory played an important role it wouldn't be that simple). Here's Here's just one example.

IMO getting too hung up on video memory when you're not running at least 3x1440p doesn't make sense. Even then, the differences are tiny (1-3 FPS). Maybe that's worth the extra money, but when you're running those resolutions you're probably doing SLI/crossfire in order to maintain a playable framerate so the costs are multiplied. Further, if that extra $20-40 gets you closer to a faster card (ie: from a GTX 660 to 7970 ghz) then it makes sense to go ignore memory almost entirely. It's possible somebody has a very specific use case where more memory makes a lot of sense for them, but I don't think "more is better" is necessarily the best advice for somebody on a budget where $20-40 makes them take pause.

You're right. I don't think the OP should get the version with more RAM even at 2560x1440. As for the article, yes it's old... but it shows that more RAM doesn't add more performance. I think a lot of people are under the impression that it somehow improves game performance when it doesn't really matter, even at high resolutions. Video cards these days come with 1 GB of RAM minimum.

 

Thanks guys.  I was originally looking at a  770, but the 770 is so much more..almost double the price for maybe 20-30 fps on average more..  I don't normally play games maxed out, pretty high, but if i have to turn off one option or another its not a huge deal.   I spend most of my time either coding or in photoshop, more of an occasional gamer.

 

@the_evn_show:   The 20-40$ isn't a killer budget wise, I make enough that I could afford the 770 or even 780, but from a Performance/$ aspect, and the amount of time I spend playing games, the 760 is a better option, which is why I had gone with the 560ti originally back when the 500 series was out.  I'd never run sli, but with games coming out with large textures like skyrim and possibly BF4, if the extra ram will help maybe give 10% more performance, then 20$ may be worth it.    most of the 770 gtx's are around 399-419, almost 150$ more for 10-20 fps more...that's not that big of a value to me, since I am happy as long as i can get 30FPS+

 

 

Now if the 770 were ~ 330$, that'd be a different story, but for almost double the price, the value isn't there for the amount of gaming I do.

Look at it this way, the cheaper one has less RAM but it also has higher clocks ("105MHz higher than the reference" as it says in the description). You'll get better performance with that card so ask yourself if you want to pay more for less performance. The extra 2 GB of RAM isn't going to make a difference.

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The kind of value the OP should care about is performance. And I understood you correctly earlier. I linked to that article because it compares the performance of 3 versions of the same video cards (512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB). More RAM doesn't mean more performance.

 

He clearly does care about performance, and that's what are suggestions are helping him with.  Not sure why you think otherwise...

And that article doesn't make sense in this context.  Had it compared 2GB to 4GB at high resolutions, then it would make sense, but it doesn't.

Don't forget this is $20 we are talking about...

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Out of these two the Gigabyte 2GB OC is clearly the fastest and best card. The extra 2GB is completely useless on the EVGA, and its base clocks and cooler are inferior.

 

The best GTX 760 right now is the MSI Gaming model; it's dead silent and runs very cool. This stuff actually matters as opposed to having more VRAM.

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He clearly does care about performance, and that's what are suggestions are helping him with.  Not sure why you think otherwise...

And that article doesn't make sense in this context.  Had it compared 2GB to 4GB at high resolutions, then it would make sense, but it doesn't.

Don't forget this is $20 we are talking about...

Your suggestion isn't one that yields better performance. The cheaper 2 GB version is factory overclocked at 1085/1150 MHz (base/boost) vs. 980/1033 MHz. Why should the OP pay more for less performance?

 

The article is relevant because it shows that more RAM doesn't add more performance. Take a look at this for a more up-to-date example.

 

Here's an image from the link for your convenience:

 

Tanb6y1.png

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So let's say I'm doing Photoshop work with larger 5000 x 3000px digital paintings with a few layers.  Still working on a 1080p monitor though.  Would that extra 2GB be more worth it then? 

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