Ok. I did a SLI guide and now time to do a vRAM/memory bandwidth guide. A lot of people seem to be confused about vRAM in general. Well, here we go.
Let's clear up some misconceptions about vRAM!
What does vRAM size have to do with gaming?
Bonus: What happens if I don't have enough vRAM that a game asks for for certain settings?
And now resolution, Anti Aliasing and operating systems
And now about multiple monitors
Now, onto memory bandwidth and memory bus and such. You may wanna skip this if you know already and are only here for the vRAM size portion above, but I might as well be thorough if I'm doing this. Spoiler tags save the day!
vRAM types & memory clocks
Next, memory bus and memory bandwidth!
Extra: Memory bus + mismatched memory size section
And the GTX 970 gets its own section! Hooray!
FAQ
Windows 10 and nVidia 353.62
Final tidbits and stuff
I started writing this guy mainly for the top section, to denounce misinformation people seem to have regarding vRAM and its relation to memory bandwidth, but I figured I might as well just go the full mile and explain as best I can about what most people need to know about GPU memory anyway. If I've somehow screwed up somewhere, let me know. I probably have. I'll fix whatever I get wrong. And thank you to everyone who has contributed and corrected things I didn't get right! Unlike my SLI guide, much of the information here was confirmed post-writing.
If you want the SLI information or the mobile i7 CPU information guide, they're in my sig!
Moderator note: If you believe any information found in this guide is incorrect, please message me or D2ultima and we will investigate it, thank you. - Godlygamer23
Cooler performance varies depending on the system. This list ranks coolers using generalized cooling performance from available benchmark results. Quality, aesthetics, acoustics, and ease of installation aren't accounted for.
This is not a list of recommendations.
A low tier cooler isn't necessarily bad nor a high tier cooler necessarily great. Assess what's appropriate depending on your needs.
Coolers in Tier 1 generally perform better than coolers in Tier 2 and so on..
Coolers in the same tier don't necessarily perform the same.
˅ = Downdraft
* = All-in-One Liquid
ˀ = Based on few reviews
500 USD: Poco F2 Pro
Comes with a sd865, has a great build quality, battery lasts more than a day of use, screen is great, cameras are good for the price.
A lot of people have been asking about the difference between specific drives from various manufacturers, so I thought I would create a list of each drive’s use-case scenarios and an overview of their features (sorted by brand):
Information at a Glance
Western Digital
Consumer:
Western Digital Green Series
The WD Green series are high capacity, low cost drives designed for home use. They aren't the fastest, but they are cheap and use low amounts of power. They are generally not recommended for use in a RAID array however, as they lack TLER and have an aggressive spin-down cycle which can result in issues with them being dropped out of an array. More Info
Western Digital Blue Series
The WD Blue series are the "standard" drive in WD’s lineup. They offer a good compromise between price and performance, and are the "normal" drive that you would typically include in an average home computer. More Info
Western Digital Black Series
The WD Black series are high performance consumer drives. They offer high performance, but also come at a higher price than the others. More Info
Western Digital Purple Series
The WD Purple series employ specific features to make them more reliable for 24/7 use in surveillance systems. More Info
Western Digital Red Series
The WD Red series are designed for use in home NAS and servers. They offer a good price to performance ratio, and possess a few features which make them more suitable for RAID arrays such as TLER, higher vibration tolerance (which should result in a longer lifespan), consume less power and are rated for 24/7 use. More Info
Western Digital Red Pro Series
The WD Red Pro series are similar to Western Digital’s Red drives, but are rated for higher workloads and higher performance. WD Red Pros come at a premium price in comparison to WD Red drives. More Info
Western Digital VelociRaptor
The Western Digital VelociRaptor series are designed for use in performance demanding workstations. The drives are designed with a built in heatsink to disperse heat and utilize Preemptive Wear Leveling to increase the speed of read/write operations. More Info
Enterprise:
Western Digital Se Series
The WD Se series are designed for cost effective enterprise server and NAS RAID environments. These drives support a few of the same features as the WD Red Pro series, but are designed for a larger workload in an enterprise environment. WD Se drives also have a higher URE, and should be less prone to bad sectors. More Info
Western Digital Re Series
The WD Re series are designed for enterprise server and NAS RAID environments. These drives are akin to Se but are rated for even higher workloads and have a higher URE. More Info
Western Digital Xe Series
The WD Xe series is WD's top of the line drives for enterprise server and NAS RAID environments which demand the ultimate performance. These drives have the same features as WD Re series, but with the largest workload and have the highest URE of any WD drive. More Info
Western Digital Ae Series
The WD Ae series are designed for enterprise grade cold storage solutions. If you have any data that you will be storing for long periods of time without being accessed, these are the drives for you. More Info
More info: Consumer | Enterprise
Seagate
Consumer:
Desktop (or Barracuda)
The Seagate Barracuda series are Seagate's solution for the desktop environment. They have a low price to performance ratio, and will suit most of your desktop needs. The drives should be able to work in RAID, but are only rated for a maximum of 2 in RAID 1/0, they are also only rated for 8x5 use. More Info
NAS
The Seagate NAS series are designed for use in home NAS and servers. The drives, like Reds, have features that make them favorable for RAID like ERC (Seagate's version of TLER), higher vibration tolerance, consume less power, and are rated for 24/7 use. More Info
Video
The Seagate Video series have specific features enabled to make them more reliable for 24/7 use in surveillance systems. More Info
Enterprise:
Terascale (or Constellation CS)
The Seagate Terascale series are designed for cost effective enterprise server and NAS RAID environments. They have features that make them favorable for use in RAID like ERC, higher vibration tolerance and 24/7 rated use. More Info
Surveillance
The Seagate Surveillance series of drives off the same benefits as the Video series, but are designed for a higher workload in an enterprise environment. More Info
Enterprise Capacity (or Constellation ES)
The Seagate Enterprise Capacity series are designed for use in enterprise server and NAS RAID environments. These drives are akin to Terascale drives, but are rated for higher workloads. More Info
Enterprise Performance
The Seagate Enterprise Performance series are designed for use in a performance demanding, enterprise server and NAS RAID environment. These drives are similar to Enterprise Capacity drives, but are rated for an even higher workload. More Info
As far as the memory speed information goes, I only meant the stock specifications. Information taken from official AMD and Nvidia websites. Again, I agree that wording is sketchy.
1. When I said "the GTX cards in question are more efficient than their Radeon counterparts" I meant only those cards which are taken into consideration here. The wording might have been a bit sketchy. Sorry for that and thanks for pointing it out.
2. Yeah. Your mileage may vary. It basically boils down to the settings and how many pixels the screen is pushing at a given time. That's why I also said that RX 5500 XT is a good option apart from the cards taken into account here.
Depends on what your use case is...if the VRAM is important to you, you can go with the 8GB cards from AMD. The best thing I would suggest is that you should go for GTX 1660Ti/Super rather than the vanilla 1660(if your budget permits that is). If VRAM is not important (like in if you play popular AAA titles or anything but don't use the GPU for heavy workloads), you should go for GTX 1660.
Another point to consider is the efficiency. The GTX cards in question are no doubt more power efficient than their Radeon counterparts here owing to their newer architecture.
Another thing is the memory speed. Both Radeon Rx 580/590 and 1660 are capped at 8Gbps whereas 1650 Super or 1660 Ti have 12 Gbps each(still 1650 Super will have lesser performance than 1660 due to the cores configurations). [all figures are for stock specifications only].
I think it's best to go for a 1660. It strikes a fine balance between performance and efficiency. Another alternative from AMD is the RX 5500 XT. It also offers a similar performance to 1660(but has 8 GB VRAM)
Please check the official AMD and Nvidia sites to see whether there are any software which from either of the two companies that you would like to have on your system(like AMD Free Sync or Nvidia GSync).
Thanks a lot for the suggestions. I am getting RTX 2060 at 26k though at Prime ABGB.
https://www.primeabgb.com/online-price-reviews-india/inno3d-geforce-rtx-2060-twin-x2-6gb-gddr6-gaming-graphics-card-n20602-06d6-1710va15l/