Graphic card advice

[Travesty]

So I'm looking at these two, the Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB GDDR5 With Boost and the Sapphire R9 4GB GDDR5 With Boost & OC (would love to post the links but copy paste is broken on  the forums when using IE11...). Would the extra two gigs of ram be something that I don't want to miss out on or should I go with the cheaper of the two that has a faster clocked core and ram?

[The Evil Overlord]

From what I remember, the extra ram doesn't really make much difference, someone posted that it was mostly a gimmick, (I'm going by my own memory and don't fully remember the details of what was said, or in which thread)

I'll vote for the more powerful gpu unit, unless cost is not an issue of course :)

[djdanster]

Depends... If you plan on using a multi-monitor setup and/or high res screens then the 4GB would definitely benefit you more. If you're on a budget then I think the cheaper one is the obvious winner.

[astropheed Veteran]

The Sapphire Toxic 2GB will be the better purchase. For the vast majority of games you won't see a need for the extra memory.

[Som]

So I'm looking at these two, the Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB GDDR5 With Boost and the Sapphire R9 4GB GDDR5 With Boost & OC (would love to post the links but copy paste is broken on  the forums when using IE11...). Would the extra two gigs of ram be something that I don't want to miss out on or should I go with the cheaper of the two that has a faster clocked core and ram?

 

According to the following site, the R9 4gb is ranked at no.5 and the r9 2g is No. 31

http://www.overclock.net/t/502403/graphics-card-ranking-5th-time-and-last-updated-daily

 

you didn't give the full model of the 4gb one so I may be incorrect...

 

that said my own is ranked at 87 and I can run every game i've tried maxed out :)

[Phouchg]

For gaming currently with 2 GB VRAM you can safely do 1440p (single) with all bells and whistles to maximum, including post-AA (BF4, FC3 and Metro being the today's benchmarks). Future games may (will, in fact) change it, but then - with 270X it will not matter because it won't be powerful enough as it is. For multiple monitors (assuming 1080p), once again, 270X will not be powerful enough to handle the drawing itself (lest you sacrifice other settings), so I'd wager it isn't worth it.

 

Also, usually these doubled VRAM models have lower clocks - take special note on specs - otherwise what you'd gain long term (and that's a big if), you'll lose all the while before you get there.

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

You are asking us to speculate on which card would be a better without the actual specs. We don't know the clock-rates/memory rates/etc. of the cards and such so it's really impossible to see which would be better in practice. Personally, I think the only reliable indicator would be look up benchmarks for the cards but I don't feel comfortable guessing which card you are looking at and such without more information.

[Andre S. Veteran]

So I'm looking at these two, the Sapphire Toxic R9 270X 2GB GDDR5 With Boost and the Sapphire R9 4GB GDDR5 With Boost & OC (would love to post the links but copy paste is broken on  the forums when using IE11...). Would the extra two gigs of ram be something that I don't want to miss out on or should I go with the cheaper of the two that has a faster clocked core and ram?

Assuming both are 270X, the 4GB is a gimmick. The 270X doesn't have the power to drive the resolutions where 4GB would be beneficial: AMD specced it at 2GB because that's what it needs.

[Travesty]

I'll try to get you guys specs here later, like I said I wanted to do direct links but IE11 and our forums aren't to friendly with each other and I'm not getting the beat reception on my phone right now.

[Ironman273]

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Sapphire-Radeon-R9-290X-vs-Sapphire-Radeon-R9-270X

[Travesty]

So on the R9 270X 4GB GDDR5 With Boost & OC the GPU is at 1020 MHz and the memory 5600 Mhz. On the Toxic R9 270X 2GB GDDR5 With Boost the GPU is 1100 MHz with the memory at 6000 MHz. Those and the Toxic model having three fans instead of two are the only differences.

[riahc3]

Hello,

would love to post the links but copy paste is broken on  the forums when using IE11

Switch to text only mode (which is way better anyways) then you can copy/paste.

[Bi4me]

From what I remember, the extra ram doesn't really make much difference, someone posted that it was mostly a gimmick, (I'm going by my own memory and don't fully remember the details of what was said, or in which thread)

I'll vote for the more powerful gpu unit, unless cost is not an issue of course :)

I can confirm that. I have a junk GPU and it's 1.5GB VRAM don't help a bit. For instance I have had an older model with more powerful GPU, only 320MB VRAM and it performed way better :)

 

And by the way 2GB of VRAM are just fine, 4GB is wasted money imo... Unless you wanna play Battlefield 4 maxed out on triple monitors.

[Yusuf M. Veteran]

There's absolutely no need to buy the 4GB version over the 2GB one. You won't get any extra performance, even at higher multi-monitor resolutions. Go for the 2GB version and as someone who owns an ASUS R9 270X DirectCU II TOP, I can say that it performs very nicely.

[Travesty]

So I have this guy coming :) http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2036&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

[snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member]

So I have this guy coming :) http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?cid=1&gid=3&sgid=1227&pid=2036&psn=&lid=1&leg=0

Yup, you made the right choice given that they were both 270X. Definitely, the higher clock was better in this case -- not the additional RAM. Had it been a choice of different cards, it wouldn't have been so clear cut

[Travesty]

Good to know I made the right choice. Thanks guys for all your help.

Yup, you made the right choice given that they were both 270X. Definitely, the higher clock was better in this case -- not the additional RAM. Had it been a choice of different cards, it wouldn't have been so clear cut