I've been reading this forum for months, and I have to say... There's a lot of misinformation going on about how powerful certain video cards are in comparison to others. Granted, there's a lot to be confused about, but I'd like to clear up a few of the more common misconceptions.
To start, I'll just link this chart which groups the vast majority of video cards grouped up by their relative performance compared to each other:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
One thing I want to point out is that graphics tech has slowed quite a bit over the last few years. There just haven't been very many raw increases in performance. The bulk of the improvements have been very focused on lower power draw and heat. The GTX 980 is only barely faster than the GTX 780TI most of the time. In fact it's within 2-5% in most cases. But it draws a lot less power. Even a GTX 770 or an R9-280x aren't "that" far behind a GTX 980 or 970. In fact, if you're playing at 1080p resolutions or lower, you won't even see a difference because NONE of those cards are actually being pushed very hard, and so even that GTX 770 will keep up with a 980 until you start pouring on the supersampling and AA or seriously jack up the game's resolution. Only then does the 980 really pull ahead.
The trick is to just do the homework when you buy the card. A "older" high end card from a previous generation will usually be quite a bit better than a mid or lower ranged cards of the latest generation. I personally don't even bother with "mid ranged" cards because even though it may have the newer tech of the new generation, it often lacks the raw power to actually utilize it.
The same goes for cards with a lot of VRAM. Pretty much anything slower than a GTX 680 or Radeon 7970 lacks the sufficient memory clock and pipeline bandwidth to make use of 4GB of VRAM. They may have 4GB on them, but they kind of end up choking themselves, and so only maybe 2.5GB to 3.5GB of that 4GB is actually being used before the card throttles.
So when you're presented with the situation of choosing between a faster card with 2GB of VRAM, or a slower card with 4GB, don't bother buying a slower mid ranged card. Go with the faster 2GB card. 2GB is more than enough for 1080p and 1440p gaming. Unless you're playing a very heavily modded game like Skyrim, and using 4k texture packs.
The ONLY time you'll use more VRAM right now is at very high resolutions, or the aforementioned modding scene. And if you're buying video cards to be playing games at 4k, then chances are you won't have to be making that compromise anyway.
To start, I'll just link this chart which groups the vast majority of video cards grouped up by their relative performance compared to each other:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107-7.html
One thing I want to point out is that graphics tech has slowed quite a bit over the last few years. There just haven't been very many raw increases in performance. The bulk of the improvements have been very focused on lower power draw and heat. The GTX 980 is only barely faster than the GTX 780TI most of the time. In fact it's within 2-5% in most cases. But it draws a lot less power. Even a GTX 770 or an R9-280x aren't "that" far behind a GTX 980 or 970. In fact, if you're playing at 1080p resolutions or lower, you won't even see a difference because NONE of those cards are actually being pushed very hard, and so even that GTX 770 will keep up with a 980 until you start pouring on the supersampling and AA or seriously jack up the game's resolution. Only then does the 980 really pull ahead.
The trick is to just do the homework when you buy the card. A "older" high end card from a previous generation will usually be quite a bit better than a mid or lower ranged cards of the latest generation. I personally don't even bother with "mid ranged" cards because even though it may have the newer tech of the new generation, it often lacks the raw power to actually utilize it.
The same goes for cards with a lot of VRAM. Pretty much anything slower than a GTX 680 or Radeon 7970 lacks the sufficient memory clock and pipeline bandwidth to make use of 4GB of VRAM. They may have 4GB on them, but they kind of end up choking themselves, and so only maybe 2.5GB to 3.5GB of that 4GB is actually being used before the card throttles.
So when you're presented with the situation of choosing between a faster card with 2GB of VRAM, or a slower card with 4GB, don't bother buying a slower mid ranged card. Go with the faster 2GB card. 2GB is more than enough for 1080p and 1440p gaming. Unless you're playing a very heavily modded game like Skyrim, and using 4k texture packs.
The ONLY time you'll use more VRAM right now is at very high resolutions, or the aforementioned modding scene. And if you're buying video cards to be playing games at 4k, then chances are you won't have to be making that compromise anyway.
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