Kepler Nvidia GeForce GTX 780

[GoldenTiger]

It's hard to say how much the extra VRAM helped in each case, but it's not reserved just for the heck of it.

Yeah, there is a reason (though it's not exactly known on any specific case of course). My guess, as a coder, would be partly caching to transition any load stutters (pre-caching of assets), partly less frequent garbage collection (to limit performance hits during gameplay) if excess VRAM is available past what is needed to run, and partly extra VRAM being put to actual use. However, this is speculation on my part as to why many titles seem to exhibit this behavior currently.

Unfortunately, there really hasn't been a ton of testing done on brand-new cards regarding this... WSGF had a 1gb vs 2gb article for GTX 460, and I've seen some tests of 1.5GB vs 3GB GTX 580 with negligible differences including BF3 at 2560x1600, but the line as to where you need to be is pretty unclear. At this time though, barring surround setups (and even including some without applying tons of AA, or even with in non-bleeding-edge titles), it *appears* (and I emphasize that keyword) to me that 2GB is enough.