4870 512Mb VS 4870 1Gb

[ddude27]

Hey guys just wondering is there really a big difference in the performance between these two. I looked at a couple of sites and got mixed results on the performance differ.

 

[Silvgearx]

1gb no doubt, but i notice you also have a 4870 512mb, so stick with that its not worth the upgrade to 1gb

 

[IRQ Conflict]

It depends on what res you like to play at, and/or how big the game textures are. When I bought my first CF setup (X1950 pro's) they were 256MB frame buffer. Good enough for my 17" CRT. But when I upgraded to a 24" Syncmaster (1920x1200) things weren't so rosy anymore, heh.

The HUGE texture packs I like to run on HL2 (Fakefactory), Oblivion (Quarl's) And High Def mods etc brought my lil X1950's to thier knees. I see the game company's moving forward will adopt larger, better textures that will require larger frame buffers in the future.

You won't notice a differance in benchmarks that don't take advantage of the larger frame buffer, but the ones that do show a marked improvment in FPS.

Some games will respond differantly to more GPU frequency while others .Ram It all depends on how the game was written. Look at Carmacks Large textures in ETQW for example. It doesn't requre a lot of ram due to the way it 'streams'.

Games that are source based (HL2, L4D etc) however do benifit from more memory on the GPU. But in the future I think moores law applies to any scenario.

 

[YukonTrooper]

For 1920X1200 and up, definitely go for the 1GB version. 1680X1050 shows some small improvements, but not as dramatic. You already have a GTX 260, though? Either HD4870 wouldn't really be an upgrade.

 

[necrokiller]

For 1920X1200 and up, definitely go for the 1GB version. 1680X1050 shows some small improvements, but not as dramatic. You already have a GTX 260, though? Either HD4870 wouldn't really be an upgrade.

What he said.