Id love a 290 but its to much ££££ Looks like a 2nd 7870 is the better option for the time being. Then I can save up and maybe get the 290 next summer.
Glad I don't have that problem....lol. I'm perfectly satisfied with what I have. In games where Crossfire scales properly, you should get better performance from (Tahiti LE based) 7870 Crossfire than a single 290
I don't think CF with 2GB vram is a very good idea......or rather - why go CF if you still can't run high res or AA due to lack of vram...? Kinda defeats the purpose of adding an extra GPU imho..
I never use crazy high AA anyway.. and on top of that, even with ghosts and BF4 maxed out, included AA settings my VRAM usages tops out at around 1.3gb so still got plenty of vram to go.
You don't use crazy AA because you don't have the performance to run it. Trust me, once you have performance to spare, you'll be looking to add visuals, including maxing games out and adding AA wherever you can. This is where 2gb could become a limiting factor. I easily use over 2.3gb vram usage in bf4, at 1080p. Maxed out bf4 well use way more than 1.3gb vram btw.
Not according to MSI afterburner. I am maxed out in BF4 and still get 50 to 85 fps. So I do have the performance to run it maxed with the highest AA setting.
It's been proven many times that BF3/4 will use the VRAM available to it. That doesn't mean it isn't smoothly playable with 2GB of RAM. The scenarios where you'll be truly VRAM limited without trying to force absurd super sampling rates are few to non-existent.
The only tests where it's over 2GB are either with high AA levels or 4K resolution. So what's the issue here? I also don't think the OP is playing in 1440P. Also, "proven" is the wrong word, as I'm not going to dig up all the discussion on it for you. But at least for BF3, VRAM usage scaled with available VRAM. I assume BF4 is similar excluding extreme scenarios like the ones in the graph.
Im sorry, are you at my PC watching me play? Have you seen what settings I'm using? No you have not. How am I not close to maxing out the game?? What do you mean? In settings, its all on the highest settings.
The issue is that to say "a game (any game) will use the vram available to it" is absurd. It will use as much as it needs, not what is available....I'm saying this nicely btw. Look honestly I don't care what the OP does but he did ask so I've given my recommendation - take it or leave it...either way makes no difference to me.
The issue comes from what Afterburner/Precision OSD's report as "max memory usage". It doesn't necessarily translate directly like you'd expect in some games, BF3 being one of them. There was a mile long thread on it on EA's forums and OCN. So no, I'm not saying a game won't use what it needs, just that a game doesn't necessarily need X amount of memory just because that's what's being reported. It really doesn't matter though, it's hard to recommend a 2GB card these days. It's just that in this case, the power increase is warranted and it's cheap. Any VRAM limitations won't hurt the overall value IMO.
I know how AB reports AMD vram usage because I've already discussed it with Unwinder. Nvidia cards report vram load using API that only Nvidia devs understand, so anything you hear in that regard is rumour.....even Unwinder doesn't have a clue. Whatever I cba debating it anymore....people can believe what they want.. I'm going out shortly to watch the David Tua vs Alexander Ustinov fight anyway.
I'm not. But you're not maxing out BF4 with your rig and getting those frames. You're lowering at least one very important option.
Would you mind ending this argument and showing us the settings used and the FPS you're getting in different parts of the game? There's no way you're getting 50-80FPS on absolutely maxed out settings in BF4 as even people with more powerful hardware aren't getting anywhere near that.
Try the downsampling setting? You're obviously not getting those framerates with 200% scaling. Not to be rude or anything, as I knew what you meant. But "maxed" is a touchy subject for some.