[Review]8800GT, how much memory do you need？

[cookerjc]

Final thought

From the 279 test item data, it is easy to find out 512MB version 8800GT is recommended. It fully unleashed the power of G92. In all these items 512MB version lead 256MB about 76.22%.
Compare 1024MB and 512MB, it is actually no gap between them if we ignore some sick games like PT Boats. You may notice there is average 10.47% boost in our test. But without PT Boat it only lead 5.5%.
So the game engine is the most important thing. It seems nowadays mainstream is 512MB. If you love those sick games you can choose 1024MB version but if you only want to play mainstream game, 512MB version is your best choice.

Some rumors said NVIDIA will optimize the usage of graphic memory in the new ForceWare. When the driver comes out, it may benefit those 256MB 8800GT users. But for now, 512MB 8800GT is the best 8800GT among all these versions.

Original & full post @ Expreview.com

[Lightman]

Great comparison!
Thanks cookerjc

Now I know why PT Boats is slower on ATI 512MB cards, it simply needs more than 512VRAM

[fcry64]

great work!

[Soulburner]

Looking at the games I play, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, and Crysis, I am really glad I got the 512MB card when it was released. 256MB just is not enough at the resolutions I play at.

I play UT3 also but that doesn't seem to have the same video memory requirements.

[saaya]

very interesting! thanks for sharing

[K404]

Thats a really good set of tests cooker- thankyou

[Origin_Unknown]

awesome review! thanks alot

[3NZ0]

256mb gets absolutely hammered!

Very, very interesting results, even 512 vs 1024 results amazed me in a few cases.

Thanks for the heads up.

[OBR]

great comparision

[XS Janus]

Great test very straight to the point!
Thanks for the touble!

Looks like 1024 mb is a scam more or less.
It would seem they have excess of chips and are just bundeling them blindly

[Unbornchild]

As for 512 vs 256, most people with a bit of sense already know this for years. The point here is how ineffective 1024MB vs 512MB VRAM is in current games. Except one that is written with such card in mind, obviously. As soon as more games like that one come out (who knows what 2008 will bring) you're safe with such card (hopefully).

[3NZ0]

As for 512 vs 256, most people with a bit of sense already know this for years.

Most people with a bit of sense?

Um...yeah...

The point here is how ineffective 1024MB vs 512MB VRAM is in current games. Except one that is written with such card in mind, obviously. As soon as more games like that one come out (who knows what 2008 will bring) you're safe with such card (hopefully).

Most people with a bit of sense know that 512mb is limiting gpu performance at around 19x12 and higher in recent advance games, such as crysis.

[ghost101]

Is there a comparison between the 256mb and 512mb hd3850 cards.

If you look at some of the reviews, such as toms hardware, the 256mb 2850 doesnt take as big of a hit like this 8800gt when increasing the resolution.





In oblivion and and UT3 the AA hits shown by tomshardware are massive for the 256nb 8800gt. Probably driver problems though for those 2.

[expreview]

256MB VS 512MB HD3850 Here:



source:Expreview

[ghost101]

Thanks.

Is it just me, or are those hits significantly less. In which case, why does the 8800gt suffer more?

[Kasparz]

nVidia GPU's needs more memory size for rendering same textures.

[brinox]

Thanks.

Is it just me, or are those hits significantly less. In which case, why does the 8800gt suffer more?

This could mean the GPU is a more limiting factor here over the amount of installed VRAM...

[ghost101]

This could mean the GPU is a more limiting factor here over the amount of installed VRAM...

So you're suggesting that if you underclock both iterations of the 8800gt the hits will be less pronouced and similarly if both 3850s were overclocked the hit will be more pronounced.

[aiya_au]

doesn't make sense to me how does 512mb perform better than 1gb? shouldn't 1gb perform the same if not better than 512mb? surely its driver related...

[[XC] hipno650]

good review!!!! this confirms what i know already. 256mb vram is too small!!!! for any card Nvidia or AMD. heck i have had my 512mb 1950 run out of vram in certain games. it seems some of the more intense RTS games like World in conflict and Company of hereos need more vram to be playable.

moral of the story unless you game at 1024x768 256mb is not enough for some games today and the majority of games tomorrow.

[lowfat]

VERY NICE!

The 512mb just creams the 256mb card in high resolutions.

[ghost101]

doesn't make sense to me how does 512mb perform better than 1gb? shouldn't 1gb perform the same if not better than 512mb? surely its driver related...

or latency related

[Jacky]

1024mb outperformed 512mb across the board, when it underperformed it was by 1 or 2% which you won't notice and is almost within the error of margin. At high-res it was much better than 512mb.

[ghost101]

1024mb outperformed 512mb across the board, when it underperformed it was by 1 or 2% which you won't notice and is almost within the error of margin. At high-res it was much better than 512mb.

Well errors can be positive or negative. The expected number of positives should equal negatives and therefore you should have an equal distribution assuming errors are random.

So the probablity of any one result being negative is .5 , if we take all the 3dmark06 results the probability of all of them being negative is 0.5^9 = 0.001953125 . So i would say that the difference being negative is significant. This is just for 3dmark06 though.

NB You'd have to do a proper wilcoxon test to show how certain one can be of a difference.

[Kasparz]

or latency related

This is definitely latency related performance loss.