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