2GB Video Ram Worth it in SLI?

I just built a new gaming system w a Palit 8800GT 1GB and I am thinking of adding another one for SLI, is having 2GB video ram overkill for Crysis?

 

You dont double the ram when you have sli it doesnt work like that.You will get a performance gain with sli for sure so its a worthwhile upgrade imo especially if you game at high res and like alot of aa.It would also help if you overclock the cpu to 3 gig or more.

 

Overkill? HA. As of now, there is now computer that can "Overkill" Crysis. Or atleast not at 2560x1600 with 16xAA 16xAF on Very High graphics. Or any extremely high Resolution yet.

The recommended (Which means semi good graphics & acceptable FPS) is "VRAM:512MB of Graphics Memory". Taken straight from http://www.crysis-online.com/Information/System%20Requirements/

It's also only 256bit. Which means it may have 1GB of ram. But another card with 768MB of VRAM(EVGA GeForce 8800GTX 768MB GDDR3) that is 384-bit. Will be much better.

 

How much extra GPU ram would you get?

Btw, the cooling solution on this card is cool!

Does AA make a lot of difference?

 

When you add another card and run sli you will gain no extra video ram.Also add i cant run crysis maxed with my rig.As the other poster said no rig is overkill for crysis.

 

The only thing I can think of, that might be just below "Overkill" would be:

4.8GHz (Overclocked) QX9650 (Intel Core 2 Extreme)
(4) EVGA Superclocked 8800Ultra 768MB 384-Bit GDDR3
Patriot Extreme Performance 4GB (4x1GB)240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 15000)
(4) Seagate Cheetah's 13,500RPM (RAID 0 Array)

 

None

Using SLi, you wouldn't lose much performance using 4xAA or so. In Crysis the performance drops dramatically when AA is applied from what I've heard.

 

OK so if you dont gain any extra ram whats the point of SLI really?

 

You gain more speed.Higher fps and get less of a performance loss when running high resolution.

 

You have two choices.
Either go 8800GT 512MB or 8800GT 1GB.
You can set up SLI with GFXs having different ram size but same GPU.
If you set up SLI with 512MB version not only ur 256Bit bandwidth will double to a whopping 512-Bit but secondly ur 1GB card will be bottlenecked to only 512MB as stated in nvidia SLI FAQ
No problems with 8800GT 1GB though.I suggest u go for this setup if money is not a problem for u.

 

So is it worth another $300?

 

Got it - ordered another 1gb - thanks guys! :infinity:

 

Heres the guru review of a couple 8800 gt in sli to give you some idea http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/468/1

 

You do not gain double the memory for one, and the other thing is sadly the 1gb ram does nothing for you in performance with the 8800. Hardocp and a few other sites have tested this card and there is a zero performance gain because simply the 8800gt's 256 bit bus is the bottleneck. You can however enjoy the addeded performance of 2 cards sli which will run crysis same as the 8800gt 512's. Personally for the money your spending you could of got a 8800 gts which is about 10-15% more powerful and would give you a better crysis experience.

 

i have been reading that a couple months now, and i recently enabled 4xAA and i only lost a few fps maybe because im running SLi? dunno, it does look alot better *with* AA.

 

If you aren't running a 64bit OS, you will have less than 2GB of ram available due to the amount of space the cards ram occupies in the memory map.

This usually only occurs when people are trying to use 4GB with a 32bit OS(4GB + devices = deficit)...but since half of your space will be video ram, that only leaves another 2GB for your actual system ram and other devices, meaning another few hundred will be taken.

A person using two 8800GTX 768MB cards would barely have 2GB available system ram after everything has been allocated in a 32bit OS.

So, 64bit or don't bother as you'll have around 1.75GB system ram afterwards. If I'm wrong, please post back...but everything I know about the 4GB limit says this will happen.

 

you can use rivatuner to check how many phys memory and videomemory is used up during crysis gameplay! would be interesting to see for your single 1gb card and of course for your upcoming sli setup. on my system about 400mb was the max used video mem and about 1.9gb the max used phys mem after about a hour within crysis gpu bm.
does anyone have other figures?

 

Running 64-bit Vista w 4gb RAM now, will get other card next week...

 

That is Just Crazy 2 Gigs of Ram in a video card for a game. Wow. That is as much ram as my PC has. That must be one sweet gaming PC.. But You do have windows Vista. Which can use up 256Megs of ram out of your card. Sound like you PC will generate a lot of heat. Keep it cool and get good High Power Supply! Sound like you will need a good 1000 Watt power or higher to power supply for your system. :banana: But Sound like you have an Great Powerfull Gaming System!

 

Well I been reading on one forum, this guy claims that only @ 1280X1024 resolution he has eatin' about 650MB FRAME BUFFER!!, now thats INSANE. Also with my system resources running in the background in winxp it eats over 1.5gb of physical ram.(system ram) You can also hog up your frame buffer by going into one of your cvar files and crank the hell out of the shadow resolution as this will greatly impact your performance and will increase the sh-t out of your frame buffer. I had oblivion one time eaten over 1gb of texture ram by changing the shadowmapresolution to 4096 but I wouldnt recommend doing that on the 8800cards as the frame buffer is way out if its reach. Remember at insane resolution and tweaked files(cvars,etc) its all gpu bound unless your in an area which involves tons of physics. at 1920X1200 resolution, all high settings,etc dual core takes barely any beating on cpu test mode with that crysis benchmark thingy so quad core is utterly useless with this game unless there is an upcoming patch that it can indeed be used at very high resolution and settings. If your in just one stinkin area just moving around, normal shooting,going in water,etc,etc and your cpu speed at stock vs highly overclocked, your fps will NOT change one bit, rest assured it wont due to insane resolution and settings, UNLESS your in an area which I said before Very heavy physics and or AI is being processed at once. good example what I am talking about is this:


3,000 barrel count:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG5qDeWHNmk

MASS PHYSICS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaHS-y_mapQ&feature=related