Is 4GB VRAM enough for 4K gaming?

[V0LTAGEzZ]

I have two 4GB MSI 770s @ 1.3GHz and 8.5GHz on the memory

 

they absolutely max out BF3 on my triple 1080p setup

 

if i were to get i 4k monitor would it be playable on something like BF4?

[I'm Batman]

not for long... if 1gb is not enough for 1080p than 4gb is not enough for 4k

[Youbetternot]

8gb + I prefer 

[Kirihuna]

You probably won't need a 4K monitor until they come down in price, like around $1,000.

 

By then, you'll have GPUs powerful enough to drive them at 60FPS.

[mooommo]

I have two 4GB MSI 770s @ 1.3GHz and 8.5GHz on the memory

 

they absolutely max out BF3 on my triple 1080p setup

 

if i were to get i 4k monitor would it be playable on something like BF4?

I think titan is the only way to go 4l at this moment.

[WoodenMarker]

At the moment, there's nothing really enough for 4K imo.

[V0LTAGEzZ]

not for long... if 1gb is not enough for 1080p than 4gb is not enough for 4k

good point

[TechSage]

not for long... if 1gb is not enough for 1080p than 4gb is not enough for 4k

Games like crysis 3 use more than 2Gb vram so I agree with you. I think as of right now Titan has the most potential

[lachyman]

4GB would be the absolute minimum, 6+GB is good. So a Titan, 6GB 7970s in XFire will do, or you can wait for the new Titan Ultra which might future 8GB 512bit, paired with 2888 CUDA cores, but that's still a rumor.

[Air tree]

@coaco (not sure if i spelled  it right) he did benchmarks on his 4k monitor on bf3 and he was hitting 4.7gb so i'm sure he was glad he has dual titans.

[R4STABAN]

For a lot of games yes

 

But the GPU hardware isn't powerful enough. If the 4k display is @24"/27" screen size it might free up some resources because you shouldn't need AA.

 

The memory bandwidth on 770's also makes their 4k performance lower than 7950s, for example.

[Mr. Expert]

People don't understand about Vram. Even when the buffer fills up it does not hamper performance.Vram is more of a marketing tool and not something that increases performance. In fact more Vram actually hurts performs in some cases. http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

[OddlyShapedTree]

It will work, but not well and not for long. If you want to do 4k there is no cheapingout. And I assume if you can afford to buy a 4k display you don't mind buying hardware for yout PC to be able to push that far. I would recommend you spend around a grand on two GPUs. But see what other poeple running at 4k are doing, that is your best bet.

[Ramzez]

Even dual Titans is not enough to run games at maximum settings in 4K. If you want to run 4K at playable fps, then I would suggest waiting until the screens get cheaper and the GPU side catches up. Buying graphics card now for 4K gaming is silly since the screens are still ridiculously expensive and by the time the screens drop in price, you are likely to get a lot more powerful GPU than anything available now.

[Mr. Expert]

Even dual Titans is not enough to run games at maximum settings in 4K. If you want to run 4K at playable fps, then I would suggest waiting until the screens get cheaper and the GPU side catches up. Buying graphics card now for 4K gaming is silly since the screens are still ridiculously expensive and by the time the screens drop in price, you are likely to get a lot more powerful GPU than anything available now.

This ^. No point in contemplating about Vram when we can't even buy GPUs with enough graphics core power to run a 4K display properly unless that is you don't mind gaming @ 30fps and spending $5000 just to game at console like framerates.

[bamerx98]

A Titian would have the ram but you would probably need two to get some good frame rates

[R4STABAN]

People don't understand about Vram. Even when the buffer fills up it does not hamper performance.Vram is more of a marketing tool and not something that increases performance. In fact more Vram actually hurts performs in some cases. http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

 

It destroys performance when it runs out.

[Mr. Expert]

It destroys performance when it runs out.

Read the article. There is no difference between the 2GB and 4GB GTX 680 as far as framerates and fluidity goes.

[R4STABAN]

Read the article. There is no difference between the 2GB and 4GB GTX 680 as far as framerates and fluidity goes.

 

I don't need to read the article because I know what I'm talking about.

 

There is no difference for them because they didn't completely saturate their frame buffer.

[Mr. Expert]

I don't need to read the article because I know what I'm talking about.

 

There is no difference for them because they didn't completely saturate their frame buffer.

Obviously they did for example Skyrim with high rez textures @ 5760x1080P the 4gb GTX 680 did 1fps worse on the min framerate.

http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

[FellTheSky]

People don't understand about Vram. Even when the buffer fills up it does not hamper performance.Vram is more of a marketing tool and not something that increases performance. In fact more Vram actually hurts performs in some cases. http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/

im sry but i do not trust this. When benchmarking high resolutions the cpu should be overclocked to prevent any bottlenecks. Also it should be sli benchs since at those resolutions the gpus are lacking horse power to saturate the frame buffer. Im not saying the performance difference is huge, but i would not trust that review

[loglog]

4k is in reference to 4k by 2k resolution which is actually 3840 × 2160 which is about double the pixels as a 2560 x 1600. I would think that a 4gb GTX 770 in SLI could potentially play games, but most definitely not on ultra or high settings to achieve a usable frame rate. You also have to understand the processing limits of the GTX 770 (its not the same chipset as the titan or 780)as well. So while it maybe able to barely do it, it won't be the best experience possible when the monitors are at a reasonable MSRP.

[Mr. Expert]

 

im sry but i do not trust this. When benchmarking high resolutions the cpu should be overclocked to prevent any bottlenecks. Also it should be sli benchs since at those resolutions the gpus are lacking horse power to saturate the frame buffer. Im not saying the performance difference is huge, but i would not trust that review

 

@ 1080P the CPU starts to not matter. @ 1440P and beyond the bottleneck goes even further from the CPU onto the GPU. @ 5760x1080 the CPU near enough no longer matters unless playing online. In the benchmark I linked to it would not matter if more GPU were present it would look the same albeit with higher framerates. I trust legit sources like the one I linked to over peoples opinions.

[Mr. Expert]

 

4k is in reference to 4k by 2k resolution which is actually 3840 × 2160 which is about double the pixels as a 2560 x 1600. I would think that a 4gb GTX 770 in SLI could potentially play games, but most definitely not on ultra or high settings to achieve a usable frame rate. You also have to understand the processing limits of the GTX 770 (its not the same chipset as the titan or 780)as well. So while it maybe able to barely do it, it won't be the best experience possible when the monitors are at a reasonable MSRP.

 

A couple of 2gb GTX 680s can drive most games with decent framerates @ 5760x1080 so a couple 780s could run most games a 4K.

[tS_kStin]

Not only is memory a problem, raw horse power is another problem along with the price of a 4k monitor.