MEP benefit from more VRam?

cjc75 wrote on 2/12/2014, 5:10 PM

Just curious, does MEP gain any benefit from having more VRAM available?

I am debating on a GPU upgrade, looking at the GTX 770 4GB and the R9 280X 3GB; as both are within my current Budget...

Catch is, the R9 is on sale at my local Microcenter for $200 less then its being sold on Newegg, only they're out of stock.... Or I can pay $100 more for the GTX 770 4GB now from Newegg... or wait to see if Microcenter gets more R9's in stock and hope they still have the sale price...

So my question is; does extra VRAM have any effect on how MEP performs in any way? If it does, then the GTX would be a better decision.

For reference, I have MEP 16+ HD.

Comments

johnebaker wrote on 2/16/2014, 4:06 AM

More physical RAM in the computer is beneficial, however you must be running a 64 bit version of Windows to take advanatage of it - 32 bit Windows can only use ~ 3.2GB max.

In my own experience upgrading to a high spec NVidia card does not offer any speed advantage over a mid range card. The Keplar architecture boards appear be problematical with MEP running CUDA .

If you want more speed then an i5 gen 4 with built in HD graphics, a high performance motherboard, 16 Gb RAM min and 2 or 3 SATA 6 HDD's - one for OS and programs, one for data, and one 2 render to, are the way to go - I have found little advantage in using SSD drives.

In my opnion fast gaming computers are not suitable as they usually have high end graphics cards which as I explained above offer no advantage.

HTH

John

johnebaker wrote on 2/16/2014, 2:34 PM

The simple answer to your question is NO - more VRAM will not help until you have removed all other bottlenecks on your system.

John