Thinking about a new PCFollow

Way to much emphasis is placed on video memory still, vram doesnt stack, if you have 2 3gb 780s you have 3gb vram.
yes video memory is important but usually a video card will have as much memory equiped that it needs to do its job without video ram becoming the bottleneck, in 90% of cases you will run out of video card grunt (from not having enough core clock speed, memory speed, memory bus etc) before you run out of vram. vram has become a bit more important of late likely as a result of the new consoles unified ram design, (watchdogs gobles upwards of 3gb at 1080p for instance on high settings, however no doubt some of it is buffered, just because a game is using more vram doesnt mean it will run any slower with a bit less available) if you have a 2gb card and the same card equiped with 4gb, it usually doesnt make any difference because as said vram is rarely the bottleneck, just the card clocks speeds, memory bus etc are too slow/small to make any difference having more vram on the same card. eg a 760 with 4gb mostly wont be any faster than one with 2gb, and certainly the 4gb 760 wont be faster than a 780ti with 3gb, the only exception would be running games at higher resolutions than 1080p, then vram becomes more of an issue. eg playing at 4k resolution id likely consider 2 6gb 780s over 2 3gb 780tis as vram matters more at higher resolution and the 780 isn't much slower it terms of gpu "grunt" than the 780ti, i still wouldnt consider 2 4gb 760s at 4k though as it probably wouldnt have the "grunt" needed for 4k.

bottom line is never go for a considerably slower card with more vram over a faster card with less vram, sometimes it may be beneficial to go for the same card with more vram as it does help at higher resolution and more future proof especially if going for dual card eg, 2 gtx 580s in sli might be feeling there age a bit these days if you only opted for 1.5 gb models but the 3gb models would now allow for higher settings, eg watchdogs needs 3gb for ultra textures.



Edited, Jul 31st 2014 7:53am by jamiehavok

Edited, Jul 31st 2014 8:29am by jamiehavok