| zarx said: No 4Gb GDDR5 chips is dissapointing, I was going to conside getting one (Nvidia's recen driver desaster has kinda put me off them a bit) but without the VRAM boost I will just hold off for Maxwell I guess. Looks to be another respin of GCN on the architecture side as well. |
You won't have 4Gb of memory on a 384 bit bus.
You would have: 1.5Gb, 3Gb, 6Gb, 12gb etc'.
Unless of course it's an nVidia card. - For example nVidia's 192 and 384 bit memory buses can have even amounts of Ram because each 64bit memory controller might have more memory than the next.
For example a 192bit memory controller on an nVidia card would have 3x 64bit memory buses, to achieve 2Gb of memory one 64bit bus would have 1024Mb of memory with another 2x 64bit controllers each with 512Mb of memory so that it has 2Gb.
What that means is you would get optimal performance only with up-to 1.5Gb of memory being used, once you exceed that, performance will drop, not an ideal situation on a high-end GPU. :)
It was more or less a marketing ploy at the time to combat AMD which used to use either a 128bit or 256bit bus and thus consequently always had more video memory.
I'm actually rather dissapointed at the lack of AMD offering a 6Gb+ model right out of the gate, I need more video memory, now and if AMD is unable to provide that, then my only real option is nVidia, Titan is looking like a viable upgrade alternative, or sell my current 7970's and get 6Gb models, but that would mean I've been stuck essentially with the same GPU for 9 cards and 2+ years. :P
--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--
