GPU VRAM help

[vigorstick]

I am planning on buying the GTX 970 4GB and was wondering whether or not 4 gigs will be sufficient for heavy modding in games like skyrim and gta 5 in the future. Is this a good buy for heavy modding or would something like the new Sapphire R9 290X 8GB be a better buy when it is available again. 

[XTankSlayerX]

It should be enough even at 4K.

[TheKDub]

At 1080p, 1440p, and maybe 4k it will be just fine.

 

You don't really need 8GB of VRam, unless doing something like triple 4K monitors or like what linus recently did with triple 21:9 1440p monitors.

[Xaring]

umm... what display are you using. If you are gonna go 4k, yes, you may need the 8GB, else, i dont think you will need so much VRAM. The most ram you need right now is to run Shadows of Mordor in ultra-uber high detailed textures, an its at 6. For 1080p, definitely not, for 1440p, maybe. Of course, im talking about best graphics you can get, but normal usage will be fine anycase.

[I/O]

Skyrim with mods will run great on a GTX 970. As for GTA V well we will find out how that game runs when it is available for PC in January. 290x 8GB is in stock on Newegg.

[SkilledRebuilds]

Only Skyrim Modded (or other mod-able games)  to the Max would fill it, the games that 'look like' they fill it, actually don't at times, it's just cached data.

[Guest Philosophy]

anything other than dual 4K you will be fine. 

[soaringchicken]

Thats as much as you can really get right now, and yes

[D2ultima]

*sigh*

 

Resolution has VERY little to do with used vRAM. In about 99% of games out there, if you could run it at 1080p, you could run it at 4k with the same graphical settings and not run out of vRAM on the same card. How much vRAM the game uses as a base is the largest impacting factor, and a lot of games these days are coming with bloated vRAM requirements for no visual benefit, such as Middle Earth: Shadows of Mordor.

 

If you want to know if 4GB is fine for most games, then yes it is. If you could wait for the 8GB 970s and 980s to be released, you might find that it'll help more in FUTURE unoptimized titles. As of right now, only approximately 3 games will actually surpass 4GB in any manner that would benefit having more vRAM, and for two of them you have to run at very high resolutions with high multisample AA settings to get them to use that much vRAM.

 

With all of the above said, what you really need to decide is if you're fine with the possibility that in the future you may be starved for vRAM at 1080p when trying to use ultra texture resolution and sophisticated lighting mechanics etc, because there seems to be no slowdown of games using massive amounts of vRAM these days.