1GB HD 7850 or 2GB

[G.Freeman]

Turns out that the HD 7850 is fine on 1GB Vram.

 

"When it comes to gaming performance the XFX Radeon HD 7850 1GB Core Edition did better than expected with a screen resolution of 1920x1080! We were able to easily play all the current game titles at 1080p with the image quality settings cranked up!"  http://www.legitrevi...rticle/2048/13/

 

 

"in Battlefield 3 at 1,920 x 1,080, the MSI HD 7850 1GB was actually able to outperform the 2GB version thanks to its factory overclock, albeit by a single frame per second on the minimum frame rate. This suggests that the 2GB's extra 1GB of GDDR5 is all but useless at this resolution." http://www.bit-tech....0-1gb-review/10

 

"We have to admit this was a bit of a surprise. We wanted to get the 1GB version of the HD 7850 to test it against the HD 7770 more than anything else - assuming this would be the card it'd be going up against. After all, the 2GB frame buffer of the stock HD 7850 must be partly responsible for its impressive showing at hi-res, right? And that's putting post-processing such as anti-aliasing in the mix.

How wrong we were. It seems that the bottleneck to the Pitcairn Pro's performance is not the memory at all - the GPU itself bottlenecks performance well before the memory gets anywhere near making things crawl.

What does that mean though? Well, it means the 1GB version of the HD 7850, especially the slightly overclocked version supplied by MSI, is more than able to keep pace with the stock 2GB version of the Pitcairn Pro card." http://www.techradar...-1129390/review

 

[WoodenMarker]

The 2gb will probably make a bigger difference in the future but for now, it'll be fine.

[PCBudgetSolutions]

Yes, a reference design HD 7850 at stock speeds loses to a custom PCB HD 7850 with insane factory OC of 1000/1300 vs 850/1200, that is a given.  I got my friend a Power Color HD 7850 2GB for 160, and it's been running at 1050/1450 for 4 months now, that XFX version won't touch his card @ 1080p.

 

1980's Ferrari with a 302 V8 that pushes out 220hp will not beat my 04 grand prix GTP that is pushing about 270hp.  Does that mean my grand prix is better than all Ferrari's? Nope...

[G.Freeman]

The 2gb will probably make a bigger difference in the future but for now, it'll be fine.

The GPU core can't get any faster in the future so I don't think so.

[Theo]

The GPU core can't get any faster in the future so I don't think so.

wat?

[G.Freeman]

Yes, a reference design HD 7850 at stock speeds loses to a custom PCB HD 7850 with insane factory OC of 1000/1300 vs 850/1200, that is a given.

Only in this case it's a crumby reference XFX Radeon HD 7850 Core Edition 1GB - 860MHz Core / 1200MHz Memory

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/pc-components/graphics-cards/msi-hd-7850-1gb-1129390/review

[G.Freeman]

wat?

Read that articles.  "It seems that the bottleneck to the Pitcairn Pro's performance is not the memory at all - the GPU itself bottlenecks performance well before the memory gets anywhere near making things crawl." http://www.techradar...-1129390/review

 

I am going out on a limb but I believe that Techradar is more qualified than your opinion.

[Godlygamer23]

That's kind of weird. The 7850 does well with 1GB of VRAM on Battlefield 3, but the 560 Ti 1GB does terrible on Battlefield 3 because of the frame buffer limit. Something seems fishy here because the 560 Ti is weaker than the 7850, yet they're saying that the 7850 would bottleneck 2GB of VRAM. Seriously, something isn't right.

[WoodenMarker]

The GPU core can't get any faster in the future so I don't think so.

I guess only the future can tell.

[911^NEmeSis]

If you had two identical cards apart from the difference in vram then I'm sure the one with more vram will perform better.

[PCBudgetSolutions]

Okay I am done offering free bumps on terribly biased and untrue information.  Enjoy.

[G.Freeman]

I guess only the future can tell.

It's just the way it is the 7850 can only work with the Physical hardware it has got to work with and 1GB Vram is fine for that.

[G.Freeman]

If you had two identical cards apart from the difference in vram then I'm sure the one with more vram will perform better.

If you read the links I posted you would be educated to the fact that what you are saying an untrue misconception.

[Theo]

If you read the links I posted you would be educated to the fact that what you are saying an untrue misconception.

Where does it say that the 1gb performs better than the 2gb card?

[G.Freeman]

That's kind of weird. The 7850 does well with 1GB of VRAM on Battlefield 3, but the 560 Ti 1GB does terrible on Battlefield 3 because of the frame buffer limit. Something seems fishy here because the 560 Ti is weaker than the 7850, yet they're saying that the 7850 would bottleneck 2GB of VRAM. Seriously, something isn't right.

The 7850 has much better DX11 performance than the GTX 560ti.

[G.Freeman]

Where does it say that the 1gb performs better than the 2gb card?

Sigh this is like the 6th time I posted this "It seems that the bottleneck to the Pitcairn Pro's performance is not the memory at all - the GPU itself bottlenecks performance well before the memory gets anywhere near making things crawl." http://www.techradar...-1129390/review

[Theo]

Sigh this is like the 6th time I posted this "It seems that the bottleneck to the Pitcairn Pro's performance is not the memory at all - the GPU itself bottlenecks performance well before the memory gets anywhere near making things crawl." http://www.techradar...-1129390/review

yes the 7850 is not a high end card. Of course itll slow down in high res before the vram is full.

[Godlygamer23]

The 7850 has much better DX11 performance than the GTX 560ti.

And yet...you're telling me the 7850 is going to bottleneck 2GB of VRAM, when the 560 Ti clearly isn't. You're wrong - plain and simple.

[Godlygamer23]

yes the 7850 is not a high end card. Of course itll slow down in high res before the vram is full.

Res doesn't necessarily matter. It's also about textures and other things like PhysX(if you have an NVIDIA card and using PhysX on it)

[G.Freeman]

And yet...you're telling me the 7850 is going to bottleneck 2GB of VRAM, when the 560 Ti clearly isn't. You're wrong - plain and simple.

Yet you still have nothing but opinions to back up your claims. I have solid and quantified professional reviews that back up mine.

[Godlygamer23]

Yet you still have nothing but opinions to back up your claims. I have solid and quantified professional reviews that back up mine.

MSI Afterburner is not an opinion.

[WoodenMarker]

MSI Afterburner is not an opinion.

Not being rhetorical as this is a legitimate question:

 

How is MSI Afterburner related to this?

[PCBudgetSolutions]

Freeman, what the issue is, most DX11 AAA titles use far more than 1GB of Vram, but video cards like the HD 7850 when overclocked have the muscle to keep up even in Crysis 3 on high/very high settings, but Crysis 3 can use almost 2GB of Vram in every scenario, so how is 1GB better???

[Chivpcgamer]

Freeman, what the issue is, most DX11 AAA titles use far more than 1GB of Vram, but video cards like the HD 7850 when overclocked have the muscle to keep up even in Crysis 3 on high/very high settings, but Crysis 3 can use almost 2GB of Vram in every scenario, so how is 1GB better???

yeah the 2gb card would be better with settings that use more than 1 gb, as for whether the core would be too slow anyway......im unsure, it really depends i dont own a 7850.

[xAcid9]

Can someone tell me why my 2 years old 1GB HD6770M which is many times slower than HD7850 can utilize almost 1GB of it memory in BF3@1366x768 and HD7850 cannot?