Do I need 1 or 2 GB of VRAM for ATI Radeon HD 4850/4870?

Hello!

I only play games and use my desktop at 1280x1024 screen resolution on
my 19" LCD monitor (only a couple years old too). I doubt I will ever
upgrade to a bigger monitor due to my limited desk size (esp. the
height). I do crank all graphic details (e.g., FSAA, anistropic to 16X)
to maximum (can't stand lower settings ) and play the newest/newer
games (e.g., Crysis, Far Cry 2). Is it worth getting 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM
for ATI Radeon HD video cards (4850 and 4870)? Or should I just stick
with 512 MB of RAM?

I do have a NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT KO (PCIe; 512 MB of RAM) and it has
problems handling Crysis (13 FPS), World in Conflict (11 FPS) etc. It is
also probably my old Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 939 CPU system, 2 GB of RAM,
etc. I will be replacing them soon too.

Thank you in advance.
--
"What, like I had to live with all those ants? Do you know what I did to
those ants? HoooHooo! No more ants!" --unknown
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

Ant writes:
Hello!

I only play games and use my desktop at 1280x1024 screen resolution on
my 19" LCD monitor (only a couple years old too). I doubt I will ever
upgrade to a bigger monitor due to my limited desk size (esp. the
height). I do crank all graphic details (e.g., FSAA, anistropic to 16X)
to maximum (can't stand lower settings ) and play the newest/newer
games (e.g., Crysis, Far Cry 2). Is it worth getting 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM
for ATI Radeon HD video cards (4850 and 4870)? Or should I just stick
with 512 MB of RAM?

Can't comment on these cards and the games you mention, but I have
twice had the experience that a card with less memory was not
sufficient a few years down the road while a card with otherwise
similar power, but twice as much was ok. And if a card does not have
enough memory for a game, performance really sucks.

Of course, it depends on how long you intend to keep the card. You
may want to upgrade to a future generation of cards anyway by the time
the games need that much memory.

- anton
--
M. Anton Ertl Some things have to be seen to be believed
Most things have to be believed to be seen
http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html

Interesting, a few people say I should get 1 GB of VRAM in
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1335700304 (same question I
posted) because some games use high resolution textures like in Scared
2, Oblivion, Far Cry 2, etc.

What do you guys think? Remember, I do want ALL graphic details to the
max. at 1280x1024 resolution.


On 11/24/2008 2:45 AM PT, Ant typed:

Hello!

I only play games and use my desktop at 1280x1024 screen resolution on
my 19" LCD monitor (only a couple years old too). I doubt I will ever
upgrade to a bigger monitor due to my limited desk size (esp. the
height). I do crank all graphic details (e.g., FSAA, anistropic to 16X)
to maximum (can't stand lower settings ) and play the newest/newer
games (e.g., Crysis, Far Cry 2). Is it worth getting 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM
for ATI Radeon HD video cards (4850 and 4870)? Or should I just stick
with 512 MB of RAM?

I do have a NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT KO (PCIe; 512 MB of RAM) and it has
problems handling Crysis (13 FPS), World in Conflict (11 FPS) etc. It is
also probably my old Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 939 CPU system, 2 GB of RAM,
etc. I will be replacing them soon too.

Thank you in advance.
--
"It's kind of an insane case ... 6,000 ants dressed up as rice and
robbed a Chinese restaurant." --Steven Wright
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

"Ant" wrote in message
...
I only play games and use my desktop at 1280x1024 screen resolution on my
19" LCD monitor (only a couple years old too). I doubt I will ever upgrade
to a bigger monitor due to my limited desk size (esp. the height). I do
crank all graphic details (e.g., FSAA, anistropic to 16X) to maximum
(can't stand lower settings ) and play the newest/newer games (e.g.,
Crysis, Far Cry 2). Is it worth getting 1 GB or 2 GB of RAM for ATI Radeon
HD video cards (4850 and 4870)? Or should I just stick with 512 MB of RAM?

At 1280x1024, 512 MB won't seem like a handicap. At the slightly higher res
of 1680x1050 (common for 22" displays), 1 GB is faster in some games. A good
example for you is Fallout 3, because it uses the Gamebryo-Oblivion engine
(i.e. DX9). Here, the 4870 1GB gets playable framerates with 8x FSAA. The
4870 512MB needs to drop to 4x FSAA to maintain the same framerates:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?...50aHVzaWFzdA==

I do have a NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT KO (PCIe; 512 MB of RAM) and it has
problems handling Crysis (13 FPS), World in Conflict (11 FPS) etc. It is
also probably my old Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 939 CPU system, 2 GB of RAM, etc.
I will be replacing them soon too.

The lackluster performance here is due to the relatively weak shader power
of 78xx/79xx cards, not the amount of video RAM.

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."

Ant wrote:
Interesting, a few people say I should get 1 GB of VRAM in
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1335700304 (same
question I posted) because some games use high resolution textures
like in Scared 2, Oblivion, Far Cry 2, etc.

What do you guys think? Remember, I do want ALL graphic details to
the max. at 1280x1024 resolution.


Where have you seen a 4800 class ATI card with 2GB of RAM? Just curious.
For starters your CPU is going to be a major bottleneck if you move up
to the 4800 cards. You know this already, but I suggest moving to the
Intel Core 2 CPU's for gaming. They are dirt cheap now and give you a
huge bang for your buck. And clock speed is where it's at if you're a
gamer, so try and get the fastest CPU you can afford.
I picked up this 4870 last week: http://tinyurl.com/66b4yh from
newegg.com. It was $10 cheaper last week! Anyway this is a very nice
card. One thing to think about if you decide to go with the 4870 is that
you should have a PS that has two 6 pin PCI-E plugs. And you should have
at lest a good 600+ watts of power. You also need to make sure you have
enough room in your case. It takes up two slots and is a long card. If
you have a full size case you should be OK. I went ahead and upgrade my
PS to this:
http://tinyurl.com/24yt9t
because my old PS was 550watts and only had one 6 pin connector. The
card does come with 6 pin adapters, but I wanted to upgrade my PS anyway
so I went for it. This PS has been rated top of it's class by a number
of tech sites for the last two years. And let me tell you it's one beefy
SOB!
Anyway back to the 4870 I bought, the reason I got this one was it's
fantastic cooler. Heat is a problem with 4800's and this baby is very
quiet, even when it revs up under load. And does a great job of keeping
the temp down. As far as having 1GB of RAM on the card I have a 22" LCD
so I wanted to have the extra RAM as a frame buffer so I can run my
games using 8xAA, 16xAF. If you look around online you'll find reviews
that show you do get a bump in performance with the extra RAM and it's
not that much more for the extra 512MB, so why not. I upgraded from a
8800GT and this card rocks! I discovered that in Farcry 2 there's now a
Ultra High setting for most graphic settings in the game! And I'm also
playing through the Witcher EE edition and the increase performance is
fantastic!
I'm sure that someday soon you'll decide to go LCD. I was a 19" CRT
holdout until just a couple of months ago. But after reading how great
gaming is on a 22"+ WS LCD I gave in and bought a Dell. It's the best
thing I've invested in in a very long time! Not only are the prices
falling through the roof on 22" monitors, but the added desktop room is
so nice, and gaming is just fantastic at 1680x1050. I was worried that
my games wouldn't look as good on a LCD, but I was wrong. It just took a
little time to get the monitor calibrated and now it looks great.
Anyway I hope this helps, JLC

"JLC" wrote in message
...
Ant wrote:
Interesting, a few people say I should get 1 GB of VRAM in
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1335700304 (same
question I posted) because some games use high resolution textures
like in Scared 2, Oblivion, Far Cry 2, etc.

What do you guys think? Remember, I do want ALL graphic details to
the max. at 1280x1024 resolution.


Where have you seen a 4800 class ATI card with 2GB of RAM? Just curious.
For starters your CPU is going to be a major bottleneck if you move up to
the 4800 cards. You know this already, but I suggest moving to the Intel
Core 2 CPU's for gaming. They are dirt cheap now and give you a huge bang
for your buck. And clock speed is where it's at if you're a gamer, so try
and get the fastest CPU you can afford.
I picked up this 4870 last week: http://tinyurl.com/66b4yh from
newegg.com. It was $10 cheaper last week! Anyway this is a very nice card.
One thing to think about if you decide to go with the 4870 is that you
should have a PS that has two 6 pin PCI-E plugs. And you should have at
lest a good 600+ watts of power. You also need to make sure you have
enough room in your case. It takes up two slots and is a long card. If you
have a full size case you should be OK. I went ahead and upgrade my PS to
this:
http://tinyurl.com/24yt9t
because my old PS was 550watts and only had one 6 pin connector. The card
does come with 6 pin adapters, but I wanted to upgrade my PS anyway so I
went for it. This PS has been rated top of it's class by a number of tech
sites for the last two years. And let me tell you it's one beefy SOB!
Anyway back to the 4870 I bought, the reason I got this one was it's
fantastic cooler. Heat is a problem with 4800's and this baby is very
quiet, even when it revs up under load. And does a great job of keeping
the temp down. As far as having 1GB of RAM on the card I have a 22" LCD so
I wanted to have the extra RAM as a frame buffer so I can run my games
using 8xAA, 16xAF. If you look around online you'll find reviews that show
you do get a bump in performance with the extra RAM and it's not that much
more for the extra 512MB, so why not. I upgraded from a 8800GT and this
card rocks! I discovered that in Farcry 2 there's now a Ultra High setting
for most graphic settings in the game! And I'm also playing through the
Witcher EE edition and the increase performance is fantastic!
I'm sure that someday soon you'll decide to go LCD. I was a 19" CRT
holdout until just a couple of months ago. But after reading how great
gaming is on a 22"+ WS LCD I gave in and bought a Dell. It's the best
thing I've invested in in a very long time! Not only are the prices
falling through the roof on 22" monitors, but the added desktop room is so
nice, and gaming is just fantastic at 1680x1050. I was worried that my
games wouldn't look as good on a LCD, but I was wrong. It just took a
little time to get the monitor calibrated and now it looks great.
Anyway I hope this helps, JLC

The ATI HD 4870X2 card has 2GB of GDDR5 RAM on board.

"Legion" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:15:33 -0500, "Ian D"
wrote:


"JLC" wrote in message
...
Ant wrote:
Interesting, a few people say I should get 1 GB of VRAM in
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1335700304 (same
question I posted) because some games use high resolution textures
like in Scared 2, Oblivion, Far Cry 2, etc.

What do you guys think? Remember, I do want ALL graphic details to
the max. at 1280x1024 resolution.


Where have you seen a 4800 class ATI card with 2GB of RAM? Just curious.


The ATI HD 4870X2 card has 2GB of GDDR5 RAM on board.


But each card can only use 1 gig.

Each of the two GPUs uses 1GB, but it's still a single card.

On 11/24/2008 6:18 PM PT, JLC typed:

Ant wrote:
Interesting, a few people say I should get 1 GB of VRAM in
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?p=1335700304 (same
question I posted) because some games use high resolution textures
like in Scared 2, Oblivion, Far Cry 2, etc.

What do you guys think? Remember, I do want ALL graphic details to
the max. at 1280x1024 resolution.


Where have you seen a 4800 class ATI card with 2GB of RAM? Just curious.

Hmm, you're right. There is none. Since 4870 with 1 GB is expensive to
me, so I would get 4850 with 1 GB of RAM.


For starters your CPU is going to be a major bottleneck if you move up
to the 4800 cards. You know this already, but I suggest moving to the
Intel Core 2 CPU's for gaming. They are dirt cheap now and give you a
huge bang for your buck. And clock speed is where it's at if you're a
gamer, so try and get the fastest CPU you can afford.

Here's what I researched:
Intel Core 2 (E=Duo; Q=Quad):
E7300 (2.66 ghz 1066 fsb) = $135
E7400 (2.8 ghz 1066 fsb) = $155
E8200 (2.66 ghz 1333 fsb) = $175
E8400 (3.0ghz 1333 fsb) = $190
E8500 (3.16ghz 1333 fsb) - $205*
Q6600 (2.4 ghz 1066 fsb) = $200
Q8200 (2.33 ghz 1333 fsb) = $210

I think I might get E8500. Do newer games really use quad yet? It seems
dual core is fine? I am only upgrading for games!


I picked up this 4870 last week: http://tinyurl.com/66b4yh from
newegg.com. It was $10 cheaper last week! Anyway this is a very nice
card. One thing to think about if you decide to go with the 4870 is that
you should have a PS that has two 6 pin PCI-E plugs. And you should have
at lest a good 600+ watts of power. You also need to make sure you have
enough room in your case. It takes up two slots and is a long card. If
you have a full size case you should be OK. I went ahead and upgrade my
PS to this:
http://tinyurl.com/24yt9t
because my old PS was 550watts and only had one 6 pin connector. The
card does come with 6 pin adapters, but I wanted to upgrade my PS anyway
so I went for it. This PS has been rated top of it's class by a number
of tech sites for the last two years. And let me tell you it's one beefy
SOB!

My current PSU is a 600 watts SeaSonic S12 PSU. That should be good
enough, right? Full current system configurations (primary computer that
is being upgraded -- most old stuff are going to my secondary box
[Linux/Debian]): http://alpha.zimage.com/~ant/antfarm.../computers.txt


Anyway back to the 4870 I bought, the reason I got this one was it's
fantastic cooler. Heat is a problem with 4800's and this baby is very
quiet, even when it revs up under load. And does a great job of keeping

Good, I don't need a third party cooler. Whew. Just FYI, my room can go
above 85F degrees during heat waves. It gets hot!


the temp down. As far as having 1GB of RAM on the card I have a 22" LCD
so I wanted to have the extra RAM as a frame buffer so I can run my
games using 8xAA, 16xAF. If you look around online you'll find reviews
that show you do get a bump in performance with the extra RAM and it's
not that much more for the extra 512MB, so why not. I upgraded from a
8800GT and this card rocks! I discovered that in Farcry 2 there's now a
Ultra High setting for most graphic settings in the game! And I'm also
playing through the Witcher EE edition and the increase performance is
fantastic!
I'm sure that someday soon you'll decide to go LCD. I was a 19" CRT

I already have a 5:4 19" LCD monitor. I just don't have room to get a
bigger one. So, 1280x1024 19" will stay here for a long time. At least,
I will get keep my FPS high.
--
"As when death smites the swollen brooding thing that inhabits their
crawling hill and holds them all in sway, ants will wander witless and
purposeless and then feebly die, so the creatures of Sauron, orc or
troll or beast spell-enslaved, ran hither and thither mindless; and some
slew themselves, or cast themselves in pits, or fled wailing back to
hide in holes and dark lightless places far from hope." --The Return of
the King (book)
/\___/\
/ /\ /\ \ Phil/Ant @ http://antfarm.ma.cx (Personal Web Site)
| |o o| | Ant's Quality Foraged Links (AQFL): http://aqfl.net
\ _ / Nuke ANT from e-mail address: NT
( ) or
Ant is currently not listening to any songs on his home computer.

* Ian D:
Each of the two GPUs uses 1GB

Right, but because of the two GPUs the memory content is mirrored (both
1GB memory sets contain the same data) which makes your 2GB card in fact
a 1GB card.

Benjamin

PowerColor AX4850 2GB:
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=AA74442

However, it costs the same as the 4870 1GB and performs worse, so there's no
sense in choosing it.
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=AA74520

--
"War is the continuation of politics by other means.
It can therefore be said that politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed."


"JLC" wrote in message
...
Where have you seen a 4800 class ATI card with 2GB of RAM? Just curious.