A couple questions regarding the 580 and VRAM

[Beet]

Hello all. I recently made a post here questioning whether or not I should go with two 560 Ti cards in SLI or one 580 and the majority of you said to go with the single 580 now and run another in SLI with it at a later date which is what I decided to do. So now my question is, is it worth it for me to spend the extra cash(About $90) for the 580 GPU with 3GB VRAM or just buy the cheaper 580 with 1.5GB VRAM? My monitor is a 27 inch running at 1920x1080 Res. I won't be running 3D or anything crazy like that. I would assume it's better to go with the 3GB 580, but I read somewhere that the extra VRAM will actually HURT me in FPS if I'm only running on 1920x1080 Res. I don't know if that's true or not so that's why I'm here to ask.

And which brand would you guys recommend I get? I've only ever used XFX and Evga. I've had great experience with EVGA so far and pretty crappy experience with XFX. The two 580 3GBVRAM cards I was looking at are these two -

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814130655

Or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127589


Thanks for your help in advance

[ispano]

It won't hurt you, but it's likely not to help either. IF you were running a good 27" @ 2560x1440 then it could make a difference in newer games.

[Simca]

If you were running 3 monitors at high resolutions, it would help. Otherwise, save your money. Some people will suggest it for future proofing, but at the point in the future where you actually NEED 3 GB of VRAM, a GTX580 will be an awful card and you would be upgrading regardless.

And I actually have heard of a SLIGHT performance decrease on higher VRAM cards (I'm talking like ~2 FPS)... I'll see if I can find the article in a bit, I think it was on Tom's Hardware.

It may have just been a specific card, though.

[McFrotton]

If you were running 3 monitors at high resolutions, it would help. Otherwise, save your money. Some people will suggest it for future proofing, but at the point in the future where you actually NEED 3 GB of VRAM, a GTX580 will be an awful card and you would be upgrading regardless.

And I actually have heard of a SLIGHT performance decrease on higher VRAM cards (I'm talking like ~2 FPS)... I'll see if I can find the article in a bit, I think it was on Tom's Hardware.

You see with amd card the 1gb card performance is not better AND it consumes more

[Beet]

Might be worth it for games in 2 years or so, but at present, only Crysis 2 can really used >1.5GB VRAM when everything is enabled. Even though it can use this amount easily, i still don't experience major slowdowns compared to not running HQ textures.

The only upcoming title that i'd consider to maybe use more than 1.5GB VRAM would be Battlefield 3 (and possibly Skyrim). However, with BF games being the way they are, they'll work well with what's available in a system.

Hrm well to be honest, I plan to use this card for a couple of years anyways. As I'll likely be buying a second 580 to run SLI with this one around Christmas so I'd like to be good for at least two years. And I'm building this rig specifically for games like BF3 and Skyrim so maybe it would make sense for me to get the 3GB card?

[Simca]

Might be worth it for games in 2 years or so, but at present, only Crysis 2 can really used >1.5GB VRAM when everything is enabled. Even though it can use this amount easily, i still don't experience major slowdowns compared to not running HQ textures.

The only upcoming title that i'd consider to maybe use more than 1.5GB VRAM would be Battlefield 3 (and possibly Skyrim). However, with BF games being the way they are, they'll work well with what's available in a system.

I really really really doubt either Skyrim or BF3 will go much over 1 GB nevermind anywhere NEAR 3 GB. I'm also not inclined to believe that Crysis 2 even goes near 1.5 GB at 1920x1080 resolutions even at max.

Right now, most people are only recommending 2 GB cards for multiple monitors, crazy high resolutions, or games coming out in the next 2 years (being ran at full max). I can understand that, but 3 GB just seems... pointless.

[Beet]

I have, myself, experienced Crysis 2 utilising 1503MB of VRAM before when everything is maxed out. There are even reports of people with the 3GB cards seeing close to 2GB usage, even at 1080, on the more dedicated forums.

Well then that makes me lean towards the 3GB version then as I will be playing Crysis 2 quite a lot, and as I said BF3 and Skyrim will be two more games I'll be playing for sure. If it were more than $90 I would just pass, but I mean if I'm already dropping $500 on a graphics card it seems like it'd be worth it to get the best one I could get since it's not even $100 more. Especially since I'll be getting another in a couple of months to run SLI with.

What about the two cards I linked though, any preference or are they both going to be the same? As I said earlier I have never bought an MSI product so I don't really know much about them.

[Uggorthaholy]

As i said, even when it's using up almost all of my VRAM, performance was still excellent. It's up to you though. A 580 is a 580, regardless of brand.

a 580 is a most excellent card.
@OP - if you plan on going to dual monitors above 1080p, or even consider it, and play crysis, then I could see you possibly utilizing over 1.5GB VRAM

[Beet]

Alright then! Thank you guys so much. I will go ahead and buy the 3GB 580 just to be safe. I appreciate everyones help, especially you Synthaxx as you made me realize yesterday that it's not worth getting two 560 Ti cards instead of a 580. I appreciate it!