Do Graphics Cards Need 4 GB of Memory?

Putting more memory on a graphics card is often not a real improvement but a marketing trick targeted at inexperienced users. Most often it is employed with entry-level solutions, such as GeForce GT630, which do not need more than 1 gigabyte of onboard memory for any applications they can cope with. However, this doesn’t prevent their manufacturers from installing additional memory, up to a fantastic 4 gigabytes, to make them look more attractive in the buyer’s eyes.

It’s different with top-end solutions such as Nvidia’s GeForce GTX 680 and 670 and AMD’s Radeon HD 7950 and 7970. The AMD cards have 3 gigabytes of memory by default, which seems to be quite enough, but Nvidia is already criticized for equipping its Kepler-based GeForce series products with only 2 gigabytes of GDDR5 memory. Meanwhile, the GK104 Kepler GPU can actually work with either 2 or 4 GB of memory, according to its specifications, and some manufacturers have used this opportunity. One of them is EVGA whose GeForce GTX 670 4GB Superclocked+ w-Backplate is going to be reviewed in this article.

The EVGA GeForce GTX 670 Superclocked with 4 GB of memory is three times as fast as the regular GeForce GTX 670 and twice as fast as the overclocked GeForce GTX 680. That would be perfect if its frame rate were not as low as 14-15 fps, bottoming out to 5-6 fps. Of course, there’s no talking about smooth gameplay at such a low speed. Still, we can note that the double amount of memory does provide some benefits here.

Conclusion

Increasing the amount of memory on board of GeForce GTX 670 and GTX 680 cards translates to obvious performance benefits only in specific unique cases, such as triple-monitor set-ups with 3240x1920 resolution and enabled antialiasing. Metro 2033: The Last Refuge and Sniper Elite V2 are the only games that need more than the standard 2 GB of graphics memory, but the contemporary High-End graphics cards are anyway too slow in these games even with 4 GB of video memory. In the rest of our games we could hardly see any difference between GeForce GTX 670s with 2 and 4 GB of memory in 3240x1920 and no difference at all in 2560x1440. So, purchasing a 4GB card wouldn't be worth the investment unless you've got a triple-monitor configuration. But if you do have one, 4GB graphics cards really make sense for 2-, 3- and 4-way SLI configurations and playing contemporary games at high resolutions.by sergey lepilov

 

Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 ti Finally Here?

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A Swedish retailer posted a pre-order opportunity of the Asus GeForce GTX 660 Ti DirectCU II graphics card  a price of just under $400 for this card.

Based on Kepler architecture, the 660 Ti will run on 1,344 cores and integrate 2 GB of GDDR5 memory using a 192-bit memory bus (with 144.2 GB/s bandwidth). The card is nearly identical in its specs to the GTX 670 (which has a 256-bit memory interface with 192.2 GB/s bandwidth), which sells in the $400 neighborhood as well, but we expect the new card to use less power and distance itself in price. The price mentioned on the Swedish site may be a pit premature and optimistic. A $350 target for volume cards seems more realistic to us, but we'll find out soon.by wolfgang gruener

Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 SLI Benchmarks

Performance

The two semi-synthetic benchmarks and tech demo ran at their default settings in two graphics quality modes.whereas Unigine Heaven doesn't permit to set a resolution higher than 1920x1080 pixels. Anyway, we can still compare our graphics subsystems in these benchmarks.

3DMark Vantage

3DMark 2011

We’ve got the same picture in the newer version of 3DMark, except that the two GTX 690s in 4-way SLI mode enjoy a larger advantage over the single GTX 690.

Unigine Heaven Demo

Unigine Heaven is only capable of getting the best from our graphics subsystems at the highest settings with 8x antialiasing. The standings are the same as in the two versions of 3DMark, though.
Now let’s see what we have in real games.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat

There’s nothing extraordinary about these results except that the two Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition cards are ahead of the single GTX 690.

Metro 2033: The Last Refuge

Except for the bottom speed, the two GeForce GTX 690s are just splendid here. No other graphics card or multi-GPU subsystem has ever delivered such a high frame rate in Metro 2033: The Last Refuge.

Just Cause 2

The results of this test are more predictable and easier to explain:

We can see that the single-GPU flagship products from AMD and Nvidia cannot make the game playable with comfort at 3240x1920 pixels, although Just Cause 2 was released over 2 years ago. The CrossFireX and SLI configurations are most appropriate here

Aliens vs. Predator (2010)

The overall picture is like in the previous test:

One top-end graphics card wouldn’t be enough if you’ve got as many as three HD monitors. Take note of the high efficiency of the CrossFireX tandem built out of two Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition cards. At the highest settings it is almost as fast as the two GTX 690s.

Lost Planet 2

The overclocked GeForce GTX 680 is ahead of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition at 2560x1440 but the latter overtakes it when we switch to the multi-monitor configuration, even though the Lost Planet 2 engine is optimized for Nvidia's architecture. There's nothing we can add about the SLI and CrossFireX tandems except that the GTX 690s seem to be limited by the platform's performance at 2560x1440 pixels.

Sid Meier’s Civilization V

If you thought Civilization V a light application, you may want to reconsider after seeing the results of the single top-end graphics cards at the resolution of 3240x1920 pixels: 23 fps with the GTX 690 and 38 fps with the HD 7970 GHz Edition. So, that's where the SLI and CrossFireX tandems are going to come in handy. And we should also note that AMD routs its opponent here.

Total War: Shogun 2

The same goes for this test:

Nvidia is more or less competitive at the classic resolution of 2560x1600 pixels, but AMD’s solutions are unrivalled with our multi-monitor configuration at 3240x1920. Total War: Shogun 2 obviously needs more memory than 2 gigabytes installed on board the GTX 680 and 690 (per each GPU). Coupled with the 256-bit bus, the memory bandwidth slows the fast Kepler GPU down. Alas, this is not the only game in this test session where Nvidia's solutions behave like that.

Crysis 2

Like Metro 2033: The Last Refuge, this game may occasionally slow down very much, but the standings are overall the same as in most other tests. You need at least a single GeForce GTX 690 for the triple-monitor configuration or, better yet, two Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition cards which have a much higher bottom frame rate.

Hard Reset Demo

Conclusion

Combined into a 4-way SLI configuration, two Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 cards are indeed overkill for ordinary users who play their games on a single monitor, even a high-resolution one. Well, we couldn't have any doubts about that really. The more surprising outcome of this test session is that such a tandem can indeed be helpful for a triple-monitor setup with a resolution of 3240x1920 pixels because a single GTX 690 wouldn’t cope. Such a high resolution translates into a very high load on the graphics subsystem, especially if you also enable full-screen antialiasing.
But the biggest surprise is that Nvidia isn’t quite ready for that resolution with its Kepler-based graphics cards.by sergey lepilov