Higher Cuda Cores vs Higher VRAM

Can someone offer an opinion regarding this?

I'm building an i5 2500K with a Z68 chipset/mobo 16 gb RAM and can't decide between the GTX 560 ti with 1gb & 448 cuda cores or the GTX 560 ti with 2gb and 384 cuda cores. I've seen charts that show the 448 core out performs the 1gb 384 version, but what if you put it against a 2gb 384 cuda core version. What is the choice for the better value? I'm leaning toward the 2gb 384 core version as more VRAM might be better for game performance overall. Any thoughts or opinions? Is the higher cuda core more important than a higher memory? About the same?

2gb 384 core version as more VRAM might be better for game performance overall.

From what I've heard, this is false. GPU > VRAM.

Both, however, should be able to run most anything quite well.

Another quick thing: You could save money by going with 8GB of RAM instead of 16. 8 is a whole lot anyway. It's just a suggestion.

I'd go for VRAM duder, unless you play really small scale games. VRAM is very important and plenty of games will ask for more than a gig to run at high settings, particularly with the view distance up high. I think GTA IV wants 2+GB of VRAM with everything maxed out.

Also, links to the cards on newegg would be useful, because you're not giving clock speeds or anything like that.

If you do a lot of CUDA accelerated stuff outside of games, you might have a toss up though. Considering your amount of ram, you either think you need more tha you really do (especially considering you're going for a pretty low end card, all told), or you do a lot of memory intensive stuff which usually also taxes the CPU. Cuda will enhance that kind of work, but Vram doesn't really matter.

@believer258 said:

2gb 384 core version as more VRAM might be better for game performance overall.

From what I've heard, this is false. GPU > VRAM.

Both, however, should be able to run most anything quite well.

Another quick thing: You could save money by going with 8GB of RAM instead of 16. 8 is a whole lot anyway. It's just a suggestion.

What this guy said.

@MordeaniisChaos: You are using GTA IV as an example?

@MordeaniisChaos: yeah core clock on the 2 gb 384 cuda version is faster at 900 mhz as it comes overclocked already, the core clock on the 448 cuda version was 810. I think your right about the 16 RAM, I probably don't need that much, but it's so cheap. I could probably cut that in half and be fine b/c I'm not doing any video editing stuff, although I like Cakewalk for music recording and thought the extra RAM would help as I ad multiple tracks.

I thought overall the GTX 560 ti was a pretty solid mid-range card not a low tier. The reviews I've read say it can run pretty much everything at medium to high (not ultra) settings with good frame rate, which suits my needs at the moment.

Thanks for the replies guys, appreciated.

What matters is the accessible ram on your video card. Nothing else. Studios are still making games that utilize single thread cores... so fuck procs and mobos..... the future is a fatty SLI.

@Freefall1025: It's a fine card, but it's a generation old and the second lowest card from the primary gaming line. You could potentially get rid of 8 gigs of ram (assuming you are getting proper, good gaming ram) and maybe upgrade to a 570. Or a better overclocked 560ti. Which is a great card (hell I use a 5770, which is a piece of shit especially now that it's at the end of its life) but I'm just saying at this point in time, it is a relatively low end card by comparison to current gen cards and last gen higher end cards.

Get the higher clocked, higher vram card. Cores aren't as important as VRAM/Clock speeds. That's my advice.

@TheHBK: It's the only open world game that I could think of on PC that I know the amount of VRAM it uses. It's a good example of what the higher end reqs for VRAM can be.

Just the same as system ram, having more vram than the game asks for provides zero improvements, while having a better gpu will always provide some level of improvement.

Would you buy an i3 and 16gb of ram and expect it to perform better than an i7 with 4gb of ram? I don't think so.

I'm sure there are a select few games that would take advantage of the increased VRAM (large open world games), but most current generation games are designed to operate on videocards with 1gb of VRAM right now, next gen, who knows, but you'll probably be ready to buy your next videocard by then anyway.

Get the 448 if the prices are the same, not a big deal either way, they are both good cards.

@MordeaniisChaos: I was going with the Corsair Vengeance 1600 DDR3 RAM b/c I read that even if the mobo goes higher (1866 or 2133) it doesn't really matter for gaming. Forgot where I read that. Is that wrong? Figure 8 gb 1600 would get the job done and 16 would be probably too much to matter.

As for the GTX 570 I definitely looked at that one but the clock cores were around mid to high 700 mhz and that got me thinking the overclocked 560 ti 2gb was the better way to go and it was $20-30 cheaper.

@Kidavenger said:

Just the same as system ram, having more vram than the game asks for provides zero improvements, while having a better gpu will always provide some level of improvement.

Would you buy an i3 and 16gb of ram and expect it to perform better than an i7 with 4gb of ram? I don't think so.

I'm sure there are a select few games that would take advantage of the increased VRAM (large open world games), but most current generation games are designed to operate on videocards with 1gb of VRAM right now, next gen, who knows, but you'll probably be ready to buy your next videocard by then anyway.

Get the 448 if the prices are the same, not a big deal either way, they are both good cards.

But cores aren't exactly the most important measurement of performance, that's the issue. Cores are not directly linked to the speed of the card.

And the next generation isn't THAT far away. In my experience, cheaper builds like this aren't made to last a year and then be replaced, so if the computer is around for a couple years (Hell, I've had my piece of junk rig for two years now and it still functions and runs most games at decent settings) it'll start pushing into that "next gen" category. Have you seen Crysis 3? The textures in that are going to eat a lot of VRAM, and it sounds like its going to be a pretty open environment. It'll be interesting to see where that goes, if nothing else.

On top of that, if you get into PC's best feature: modding, particularly texture modding, you can run into a lot of issues with not having enough VRAM. Deck out Skyrim in lots of pretty textures and it's going to be really VRAM intensive (it's already fairly demanding)

You are correct that most games use about a gig of VRAM, but if you want to get into running open world games at high settings, texture packs, etc, extra VRAM will get you a ways, and do a great job of future proofing to a next gen that will be much more friendly to open world, larger scale scenes, and higher resolution assets.

@Freefall1025 said:

@MordeaniisChaos: I was going with the Corsair Vengeance 1600 DDR3 RAM b/c I read that even if the mobo goes higher (1866 or 2133) it doesn't really matter for gaming. Forgot where I read that. Is that wrong? Figure 8 gb 1600 would get the job done and 16 would be probably too much to matter.

As for the GTX 570 I definitely looked at that one but the clock cores were around mid to high 700 mhz and that got me thinking the overclocked 560 ti 2gb was the better way to go and it was $20-30 cheaper.

Yeah, 1600 is fine, it's what I have and it works great. 8 GB of ram would be great for gaming, honestly 4GB is enough but 8GB if you do some audio editing will make that a little smoother which is always appreciated. 16 GB is really only for when you get into heavy production type stuff, even relatively heavy audio editing should be fine on 8GB of RAM, and it's easy to get a dual channel two stick 8GB kit and leave room for adding another (of the exact same kit, mind you) 8GB down the road.

And I figure you'd save AT LEAST $20-$30 on going from 16GB of ram to 8GB, so you could put that towards a 570 and overclock that yourself. That said, the 560ti is certainly the sweetspot for value, I just prefer to be a little over that edge just for future-proofing and all that. Either way you'll be a happy duder. It's been a while since I browsed the 500 series seriously so I'm not super clear on the spec differences between the 560ti and 570 (I've been looking into buying a 680 lately) so I might be remembering the difference a bit more but I seem to recall benchmarks being pretty telling.