GTX460: 768 or 1GB?

Looking at the various benchmarks, there doesn't seem to be any significant difference between the two in any games, even at higher resolution. Is there any justification I'm not thinking of for paying the extra £20 or so for the higher bandwidth (256bit vs 192bit) and larger memory?

Also, I've always been an Nvidia gamer so I've only really looked at Nvidia cards, so if there's an ATI card at the same price point, I'd definitely consider getting that instead.

The system I'm coming from is an 8800GT on a Core2Duo @ 3GHz, and I'm only looking for the video upgrade in the nearest future. I'm not a high res gamer at the moment (1440x900), though I might be looking to upgrade monitors some time early next year.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Looking at the various benchmarks, there doesn't seem to be any significant difference between the two in any games, even at higher resolution. Is there any justification I'm not thinking of for paying the extra £20 or so for the higher bandwidth (256bit vs 192bit) and larger memory?

Also, I've always been an Nvidia gamer so I've only really looked at Nvidia cards, so if there's an ATI card at the same price point, I'd definitely consider getting that instead.

The system I'm coming from is an 8800GT on a Core2Duo @ 3GHz, and I'm only looking for the video upgrade in the nearest future. I'm not a high res gamer at the moment (1440x900), though I might be looking to upgrade monitors some time early next year.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

jimmyjammer69

I think once games like RAGE and others using newer graphics engines with higher res/bigger textures are out, you'll be glad you bought the 1GB version. There is a significant memory bandwidth difference (not just framebuffer) between the 768 and 1GB as well, which will become more and more significant with newer games, especially if you go with a higher-res monitor in the future.

[QUOTE="jimmyjammer69"]

Looking at the various benchmarks, there doesn't seem to be any significant difference between the two in any games, even at higher resolution. Is there any justification I'm not thinking of for paying the extra £20 or so for the higher bandwidth (256bit vs 192bit) and larger memory?

Also, I've always been an Nvidia gamer so I've only really looked at Nvidia cards, so if there's an ATI card at the same price point, I'd definitely consider getting that instead.

The system I'm coming from is an 8800GT on a Core2Duo @ 3GHz, and I'm only looking for the video upgrade in the nearest future. I'm not a high res gamer at the moment (1440x900), though I might be looking to upgrade monitors some time early next year.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

sn4k3_64

I think once games like RAGE and others using newer graphics engines with higher res/bigger textures are out, you'll be glad you bought the 1GB version. There is a significant memory bandwidth difference (not just framebuffer) between the 768 and 1GB as well, which will become more and more significant with newer games, especially if you go with a higher-res monitor in the future.

hartsickdiscipl

It would be great if the RAGE engine did garner a big following, but I've seen Carmack pushing tesselation as the next big thing for years now, with no takers.

I have just purchased Gigabytes Super Overclocked GTX460 (1GB) and its fast,VERY FAST to the point where it even beats the GTX465,I am using the GTX460 on max settings on a Samsung 22 inch widescreen without any slowdown!. Gigabytes card is allready factory overclocked and comes complete with thier own uptake of the excellent afterburner software,the card needs 2 6pin PCI express power connectors so if you do decide to buy one then make sure your PSU is compatible. Go for this card,its a serious piece of hardware - the 1GB GTX460 is 256bit memory interface running at GDDR5.markie1973

It's the near silent twin coolers that are the big draw for me. Have you tried OCing it further yet?

If you go to a higher res the extra memory may help but i think it's the higher bit width which willl cause more of an improvement. I'ld say it's worth going for the 1gb if you're only buying one, the 768 makes more sense if you're going SLI as 1.4gb of VRAM is plenty and you've got double the cost difference.markop2003

Go for the 1 GB, not only for the more VRAM, but faster memory bandwidth and more enabled ROPs.

If you go to a higher res the extra memory may help but i think it's the higher bit width which willl cause more of an improvement. I'ld say it's worth going for the 1gb if you're only buying one, the 768 makes more sense if you're going SLI as 1.4gb of VRAM is plenty and you've got double the cost difference.markop2003

It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't. When you run SLI, you only get the effective memory bandwidth and framebuffer of 1 of the GPUs. So you don't actually have 1.4gb of framebuffer with 2 768mb cards in SLI, you still only have 768mb. Each card carries a copy of the same exact data in it's memory at the same time.

[QUOTE="markie1973"]I have just purchased Gigabytes Super Overclocked GTX460 (1GB) and its fast,VERY FAST to the point where it even beats the GTX465,I am using the GTX460 on max settings on a Samsung 22 inch widescreen without any slowdown!. Gigabytes card is allready factory overclocked and comes complete with thier own uptake of the excellent afterburner software,the card needs 2 6pin PCI express power connectors so if you do decide to buy one then make sure your PSU is compatible. Go for this card,its a serious piece of hardware - the 1GB GTX460 is 256bit memory interface running at GDDR5.jimmyjammer69

It's the near silent twin coolers that are the big draw for me. Have you tried OCing it further yet?

I don't know why these aftermarket cooling solutions are necessary for the GTX 460 anyways. They are pretty damn cool-running cards with the reference cooler, even overclocked. I guess if you massively upped the voltage it might be good.

I don't know why these aftermarket cooling solutions are necessary for the GTX 460 anyways. They are pretty damn cool-running cards with the reference cooler, even overclocked. I guess if you massively upped the voltage it might be good.

hartsickdiscipl

It would be nice if it worked that way, but it doesn't. When you run SLI, you only get the effective memory bandwidth and framebuffer of 1 of the GPUs. So you don't actually have 1.4gb of framebuffer with 2 768mb cards in SLI, you still only have 768mb. Each card carries a copy of the same exact data in it's memory at the same time.

hartsickdiscipl

I don't know why these aftermarket cooling solutions are necessary for the GTX 460 anyways. They are pretty damn cool-running cards with the reference cooler, even overclocked. I guess if you massively upped the voltage it might be good.

hartsickdiscipl