896 megs, 1 Gigabyte, 2 gigabyte? Something some might find interesting.

[ChrisRay]

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_(GTX_275)

I'll be the first to admit that some of these results even surprised me. Most notably the differences between the GTX 275 896 and 1798 card. For the most part at the super high resolutions theres very little differences, Sometimes the 275 pulls ahead with memory. But some of the time the higher density memory loses out due to latency.

I'm actually trying to find out if there might be a reasoning for this. Though I speculate 896 megs of memory just isn't terribly limiting right now. And my own testing seems to show this. ((exception being Crysis @ 2560x1600 @ 8xMS)).

Not trying to discourage or persuade anyone from making a choice here. But I this is the first time I have seen tests like this. I am sure with SLI the extra memory will be put it above the 295 setup. But how much is the question.

[bacon12]

Chris that link is broken or wrong.

There is currently no text in this page, you can search for this page title in other pages or edit this page.

[ChrisRay]

Seems to be working fine for me ?

[bacon12]

Now it is before it was just an empty page?

[bob saget]

I went for the 1798 card simply to give myself as much time before having to upgrade as possible. Right now I game on 1680x1050 but very soon i am going to grab a 24inch.

[Bearclaw]

I went for the 1798 card simply to give myself as much time before having to upgrade as possible. Right now I game on 1680x1050 but very soon i am going to grab a 24inch.

Isn't that a dual GPU card? Don't they have similair issues to SLI when it first came out and even currently?

I am a big fan of single GPU.

[bob saget]

I dont think so. Generally i think its same as normal 275 but more memory.

[Bearclaw]

Ya, I'll have to do some research on that. It always confused me a bit.

[bob saget]

http://www.guru3d.com/article/evga-geforce-gtx-275-1792mb-review/

[betterdan]

I went with the 896 card beause I'm a cheap ass and also it should be plenty.

[Thunderbolt56]

The 1GB card should be the sweet spot right now as I'm flying a new sim called Rise of Flight (WWI combat sim) and you can't run it in highest detail unless you have at least 1GB of frame buffer on your GPU. I run it at 1920x1200 and with my previous card (8800GTS 512) it ran pretty well, but at these resolutions, and with the eye-candy options available now, you may wany as much VRAM as you can get over the next 12 months.

Just saying.

[gstanford]

It doesn't really suprise me that 2gb of memory on current cards isn't really showing a benefit this generation, that is why I'm currently holding onto my GTX280's and waiting for next gen rather than getting a couple of GTX285 2gb cards.

In my case it wouldn't just be for plain old highres support, I'd like to be able to use some of the combined AA modes at highres and still keep good performance.

Also if you have benchmarked crysis at 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 you can see by the numbers that (using AA + best rendering mode) at times the game wants to use upwards of 1.7gb of video memory at times. Little wonder performance has yet to be maxxed out for this game this generation

I also wonder how much the drivers have to do with the situation (especially for things like AA etc), it could well be the driver just isn't well optimized for exploiting the extra memory very well since it is non standard.

[Blacklash]

I haven't found the 896 ram on my 260s limiting @ 1920x1200. Then again I don't run massive amounts of AA. Would two 285s be faster than my overclocked 216s? Sure, and right now I don't feel it merits the investment.

Personally, I'd rather something like 1GB of fast vram vs 2Gb of slower ram. Often cards with a lot of ram have reduced clocks.

There probably will be more games in the future where higher amounts of vram are meaningful and by that time most of us will likely have new cards.

[ChrisRay]

It doesn't really suprise me that 2gb of memory on current cards isn't really showing a benefit this generation, that is why I'm currently holding onto my GTX280's and waiting for next gen rather than getting a couple of GTX285 2gb cards.

In my case it wouldn't just be for plain old highres support, I'd like to be able to use some of the combined AA modes at highres and still keep good performance.

Also if you have benchmarked crysis at 1920x1200 or 2560x1600 you can see by the numbers that (using AA + best rendering mode) at times the game wants to use upwards of 1.7gb of video memory at times. Little wonder performance has yet to be maxxed out for this game this generation

I also wonder how much the drivers have to do with the situation (especially for things like AA etc), it could well be the driver just isn't well optimized for exploiting the extra memory very well since it is non standard.

There could be other reasons for this. That past a certain resolution. The GPU Rops arent optimal.

[ChrisRay]

http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/wiki/index.php/WS_and_WTH_Benchmarking_(GTX_275_SLI)

They added a 275 SLI preview. The results arent that surprising as a 275 core is faster than a 295 core.

[gstanford]

There could be other reasons for this. That past a certain resolution. The GPU Rops arent optimal.

I definitely agree there, hence my comment about not bothering with this generation of GPU's.

[ChrisRay]

I definitely agree there, hence my comment about not bothering with this generation of GPU's.

I pretty much agree that 896/1 gig is where its at. I do have a sneaking suspicion that the GPU ROPS just werent built with resolutions beyond so many pixels in mind. Much like the Geforce 6, I havent gotten a specific answer regarding this. It may not be one of the things Nvidia is quick to reveal.

But judging from the performance drop offs despite the memory. It just seems suspiciously true to me.

[gstanford]

I can't really remember with my 6800, but, 7900's sort of fell off a performance cliff around 1920x1xxx or just before IIRC.

I guess that the designers will target the most common high resolution out there, which would be 1920x1080/1920x1200 nowadays both in hardware and drivers and you can't blame them for that.

I've always been greedy for ram performance and size though - I like high res texture sets and exotic AA.

[ChrisRay]

After talking with Nvidia some on this issue. It does appear that 2560x1600 is one of the more optimal rendering resolutions for their cards, The triple head and high widescreen market has definately not been an internal focus. if I find out more I'll let you know. They are definately curious what the market is for this kind of thing.

I do see it come up a few times at SLIZONE. Just not very often.

[gstanford]

I'd say the market is reasonable, but mostly limited to true enthusiast at present. Most others tend to do the big LCD/Plasma television as a monitor thing at the moment, which is really giving 1920x1080 a shot in the arm. The expense of a 30" monitor is also keeping interest down at present.

Plenty of framebuffer is definitely important to me though, as I said above and I hope 2gb cards are a solid option for the next-gen GPU's coming out (with 1gb cards also for those who don't see the point). With resolutions and texture size/quality on the rise, plus AA, plus potentially PhysX and maybe even CUDA/DX Compute all demanding their share in future games I can't see myself purchasing a new card with less than 2gb on it.

[NarcissistZero]

I know I won't get a monitor above 1920x1200, despite kind of wanting one, because I don't want to pay for the GPU I would need to run games at max at a super high res.

[gstanford]

Both my 8800 GTX's and GTX280's (in SLI) have done quite well at supporting my monitor, better than I expected they would to be honest.

However, I firmly believe it is well past time we saw serious (not just chuck extra useless memory on the card) 2gb cards becoming available at the high end. Realistically they have been needed for a while.