GTX 770 4GB vs 2GB Showdown
Performance summary charts & graphs
Here are the summary charts of 30 modern PC games and 4 synthetic benches. The highest settings are generally chosen and it is DX11 when there is a choice; DX10 is picked above DX9, and the settings are generally ultra or maxed unless specified on the chart. Specific settings are listed on the charts. The benches are run at 1920×1080, 2560×1600 and 5760×1080. “Wins” are in Bold. If the scores are identical both results are in bold.
There isn’t a lot of difference between the cards at 1920×1080 or at 2560×1600. We only start to see minimal differences at 5760×1080, and even so, there is rarely a frame or two difference. If we start to add even more AA, in most cases, the frame rates will drop to unplayable on both cards.
Let’s only look at the games where there is more than a single FPS difference between the two GTX 770s.
Metro: 2033 is completely unplayable on either card at our highest resolution, and even GTX 770 4GB SLI wouldn’t be playable either. Sleeping Dogs has a problem actually displaying on the outer LCDs although the performance is cut, so this benchmark has to be discounted. This leaves five games out of 30 where a 4GB GTX 770 gives more than a 1 frame per second difference over the 2GB-equipped GTX 770. And one of them, Metro: Last Light still isn’t even quite a single frame difference.
Of those five games, two of them are unplayable at 5760×1080 although in these cases, 4GB GTX 770 SLI would finally make some sense over 2GB GTX 770 SLI. That only leaves Lost Planet 2 and two racing games that gain some advantage by choosing a single GTX 770 4GB card over the single GTX 770 2GB. And in Lost Planet 2, we were able to add even higher anti-aliasing – from 8xAA to CSAA8XQ and to CSAA32X – but the performance difference was greatest with 8xAA.
There is one last thing to note with Max Payne 3: It would not normally allow one to set 4xAA at 5760×1080 with any 2GB card as it claims to require 2750MB. However, when we replaced the 4GB GTX 770 with the 2GB version, the game allowed the setting. And there were no slowdowns, stuttering, nor any performance differences that we could find between the two GTX 770s.
Let’s head for our conclusion.
I wonder if the 4gb might have a more pronounced advantage when it comes to the Oculus Rift?
Oculus Rift is 1080p (half that resolution per eye) on the current HD version…sooo doubt it? Maybe when they make a higher res version
This was great. Almost time for BF4 and I was wondering if it would be a big difference. Looks like at 1920/2560 these two guys are on par.
I realy hope it’s no deference more than one fps in BF4, because I just buy today new 770 with 2GB video memory. :
So you dont need more than 2 gb… except on those games that having 4 gb’s in sli will make unplayable games, playable…You kinda skim over that pretty quick.
I know that on Crysis 3 I have seen it idle at over 2000 mb’s at 1080p. I doubt Its going to be long before it will go over 2048 mb’s, even at 1080p…
I should say that I have the 4 gb evga ftw 760’s. I went with 4 gb versions because I am going to be picking up a couple more monitors and game at 5760 x 1080 at some point.
1 FPS wouldn’t be noticeable anyway.
Indeed for only one monitor, and btw, most of them are 1920×1080, there’s no need in hell to choose the 4gb version. Unless you’re an enthusiast… but them you’d go for a better vga, like 790 when it comes out.
I don’t think it was at 1080 2 months ago. Just a goal. Pretty sure it was only 480 720
I got the 4gb version only because I was able to get it for $6 more than the 2gb. $6 is worth bragging rights alone.
What about people who mod there games with high res textures and do pass 2gb’s of ram at 1080p? I do and I no longer get the issues it caused since upping my vram, this review doesn’t cover all the bases and for that reason it isn’t a very good review in my opinion. Sorry, I realise it’s a few months old now but i was passing 2gb’s when modded a year ago, And now if Battlefield 4 does in fact hit 2gb’s as claimed (I haven’t tested that myself) then this is already outdated and inaccurate and giving bad advice. I know you say how you don’t take possible future changes into account in the review but it’s not a possible change it’s something that is guaranteed and the industry knows and accepts that, Thumbs down.
it also uses stereoscopic 3D which means it will render the frame twice. i went with 770 4gb and in some games it does go over 2gb and still at a playable frame rate.
Please check GTAIV too. It’s the most memory consumer game that i know.
How are you going to do this comparison without posting minimum frame rates…that is where you will see the difference. Check out anandtech or toms hardware for people that actually know what they are talking about.
You should revisit vram in the future with newer games like watch dogs, bf4, star citizen and maybe gta5, if ever it comes out on the pc. I think it would be also nice to test it with the future direct x 12 once its out.
Thanks for posting this… so sick of people wasting their money on cards that have more VRAM. There’s a reason that GTX 780 Ti only has 3GB and doesn’t even offer 6GB… because the card is designed with the appropriate amount of VRAM for its performance! Why would a GTX 770 use 4GB if a 780 Ti doesn’t cap 3GB?
In any situation that would normally use above 2GB of VRAM, the card will give out due to other issues regardless, so throwing more VRAM won’t make a difference since the memory bandwidth, ROPs etc. are unchanged.
When I initially commented I seem to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now on whenever a comment is added I receive four emails with the exact same comment. Is there a means you can remove me from that service? Thank you.
omg, when i hear “but BF4 fills 2,7 GB on my ram on, that cant be true”…only because it fills the ram it cant get, doesnt mean it cant get along with 2 or even 1,5 gb. I played Mechwarrior online at high settings with 1GB GTX 560ti…when i bought a gtx 680, the game filled 1800Mb with the exact same settings….”it fills” does not mean “it needs”
gtx 680 or 770 2GB SLI makes perfect sense on 1080p so at least you can play most titles at 60fps maxed out or nearly maxd out. Maybe on 1440p the day will come, but on 1080p its gonna be far enough ram for the rest of the cards life.
With recent rumors/leaks mentioning that the GTX960 will only come with 2GB of ram, would it possible to rerun this test with newer games? Erik from June 17th had the same question and I think with even more newer and higher demanding games recently released (SoM, AC Unity, etc.) another check-in on how much 2-4gb of ram matters would be greatly appreciated. FYI, we’re discussing this chart on Anandtech here: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2415529&page=2