4870 1gb vs 4870 2gb

[MrFoxx]

Does anyeone have any insight on this, i am stuck between the same card, but just the ram,

Both cards are from sapphire, but one is 1gb and the other is 2 gb. Ive heard some chatter that 2gb is overkill right now, but what about for later gaming, how long will 1gb be enough?

Can anyone shed some light on this for me, my current specs are:

Asus pb deluxe MB
E6600 @ 3ghz
3gb ram

and i mostly game at 1600x1200, though i might go up to larger resolution when i buy the card.

I also use dual monitors, with the left monitor for gaming and surfing the net, and the right monitor usually has a movie or something playing on it 24/7. And i literally mean 24/7 i haven't turned off my pc in a few months.

Can anyone help me out, 1gb vs 2gb on the video card, noticible difference or no?

[SneakySnake]

For Crysis I noticed that 896 MB is still a bit short, and I believe it is the same with 1 GB. When you turn around quickly you can see the jungle behind you being loaded quickly. However there not really any point in having the extra gigs if your GPU power can't match it.

I'd say go for the 4870 1 GB cuz its real good bank for your buck, but if you want better gaming your money would be better spent on the 4890 1 GB instead of a 4870 2 GB ( I believe that they're pretty much the same price)

[MrFoxx]

The 4870 1gb = $234
the 4870 2gb = $308

Ive already passed crysis so i will probably never play it again, so with that in mind, the 1gb would still be the better buy?

[cadaveca]

If you play GTA4, 2GB cards FTW. There are a few isntances where 2GB can be used, but man oh man, I'll never understand why people believe that gpu, that does far more processing than a cpu, needs less ram than a cpu. I've been tlaking about shared framebuffers on vga cards, and have been excited by 4870x2 having the sideport for a reason...becuase current cards are really starved in the memory department! It's a natural progression like cpus using NUMA...

All that said though, regardelss of the benifts it can provide in specific situations, when it comes to gaming...developers are going to cater to the lowest-common-denominator...which in most cases is graphics cards with 256MB or even less.

[MrFoxx]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

If you play GTA4, 2GB cards FTW. There are a few isntances where 2GB can be used, but man oh man, I'll never understand why people believe that gpu, that does far more processing than a cpu, needs less ram than a cpu. I've been tlaking about shared framebuffers on vga cards, and have been excited by 4870x2 having the sideport for a reason...becuase current cards are really starved in the memory department! It's a natural progression like cpus using NUMA...

Ok, i understood about the first 2 sentences, then you got all technical and i got confused lol.

But i think imjust going to get the 1gb. I dont really game at high resolutions, ive been hearing 48701gb is overkill enough for 1600x1200, so i might just do that.

I didnt really have trouble playing grand theft auto with the 8800gt oc, but again another game i already beat.

[cadaveca]

yeah, I have 2x 4870 1gb, but am only using one due to motherboard limitations at the moment... it seems more than enough for most titles, and I game @ 2560x1600. There are a few instances where the framerate isn't too decent @ 2650, but @ 1680x1050, usually 60FPS is a minimum.

[MpG]

In most cases, by the time you need more than 1GB of video memory, current cards start to come up a little short on processing horsepower. If I was running two cards, I might consider the 2GB, but otherwise 1GB should be plenty. Unless things have changed recently, I believe the ATI cards have been a little more efficient with their use of video memory too, especially with AA enabled.

[IRQ Conflict]

I game at 1920x1200 on a 24". I used to use two X1950 Pro's in crossfire 256MB frame buffer (memory, aka ram). Worked ok at medium settings. Had to switch to a 1GB frame buffer due to the fact I play HL2 with FakeFactory's Cinematic Mod 9.51 HD and Oblivion with Qarls Texture pack and various other things.

One thing I will say is that going Crosfire will make up for a lack of ram in a lot of situations. So I anticipate having another 1GB 4890 or X2 added to my already fast setup will for the next couple of years be sufficient.

Still, as the saying goes, more is alway's better. ;)

[MrFoxx]

What do you guys think about brands? Sapphire is advertising this vapour x cooling system which really looks interesting, and their prices are cheaper then xfx but im not sure, ive bought sapphiree before, and bfg, havent bought any xfx cards yet, does brand make a difference, any suggustions on that?

[IRQ Conflict]

Well, I've only ever bought Sapphire/ATi cards. Some people say they won't touch a Sapphire yet they manufacture cards for ATi and several others iirc. I haven't had any serious issues with the quality from Sapphire myself. But I have never really had any issues with any of the video cards I've purchased over the years. 3dfx, nvidia, ATi.